Label Planet
Adding images to Word templates causes problems for a lot of customers - here are our top tips.
Watch a video: this advice is also available in video format.
View our step by step How To video to learn how to add and edit text and images in Word label templates.
Word is a “Word Processor” and as such is designed specifically for composing, editing, formatting, and printing written material – in other words, it’s designed for handling TEXT.
While Word does offer tools for adding and editing images, they are quite limited, which means that if you do add images to your Word template, they can cause a few problems.
Over the years we’ve spent quite a lot of time working with Word templates and we’ve got TWO TOP TIPS for any customers who want to include images in their templates:
1: USE THE RIGHT SIZE FOR YOUR IMAGE
When using a label template, you already know the dimensions you need to keep to. We advise that you ensure your image is the correct size BEFORE you paste it into your Word document. Word will often try to be helpful and rearrange your document to fit any oversized content that you add – which will obviously ruin your chances of getting the perfect alignment. Ensuring that your image is the right size (or at least an approximation of the right size) before you add it to your template can reduce problems with the document automatically adjusting itself.
2: USE THE BEST LAYOUT SETTINGS
The most common reason why images cause so much trouble in Word templates is the default layout settings. As Word is a word processor, it prioritises TEXT over everything else; when you paste an image it uses a default layout setting called “In Line With Text” – in other words the positioning of your image is defined by and limited to the font size and layout settings used by your text. In fact, even if you haven’t got ANY text in your template, the font that happens to be selected will still be used to determine the positioning of your images – just in case you should go ahead and include text.
We advise changing this default setting; we find that “Tight” gives you the most freedom over where you can position your images. If you are adding both text and images, you may want to use the “Behind Text” or “In Front Of Text” settings to get the correct balance, or use one of the other settings to ensure that your text and images will sit in a specific position relative to one another. If you find that your image sits half in front of and half behind your template, you should test the different Text Wrapping options to see if this removes the issue; alternatively, you may want to try using the “Arrange” options (“Bring to Front”, “Send to Back”, etc) to ensure that your template grid is set to the very “Back” of your layout, while your image is set to sit at the very “Front”.
You can find these layout settings in the following ways:
- Left Click on the image, then click on the Pink “Format” tab at the top of the page beneath “Picture Tools”. You can then use the tools in the “Arrange” section of the ribbon to improve the positioning of your image, with the options discussed above being listed under the “Wrap Text” button.
- Right Click on the image, then use the “Arrange” and “Text Wrapping” tools to change the layout settings. Alternatively, you can select “Size and Position” to view all of the layout and positioning settings applied to your image and make any necessary adjustments.
To find all of our templates (including both Word & PDF files), please visit our Label Templates section.