Montage (XP 2002 SP2)

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Hans, can you please give me the step by step actions for making a montage using only XP Home Edition 2002 SP2. I made one in a fashion but the cursor would only change to a four pointed arrow on the very first photo I pasted, not on any of the others. I did have Adobe Photshop 7 but because a lounger suggested it is really for professionals and is too complex for the average (slow to learn) oldie like me, I un-installed it. I’m hoping to get Paint Shop Pro & Serif, what do you think of these programs? Thanks Dave.

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Dave, please direct your questions to Loungers in general, not to a specific one such as I.

I don’t have any high-end graphics programs such as PhotoShop or PaintShop, so I cannot help you with that.

What do you want to accomplish – do you want to create a ‘montage’ that you can view on your PC screen, or do you want to print it?

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Hi David

This could turn into quite a large tutorial but the basis of what you want can easily be done using the Picture Toolbar

Here is a link to a Word Toolbar Tutorial It looks pretty good, I suggest you copy the PDF file to your own PC to refer to.

Later if you get the hang of this we can talk about rotation ut this should keep you busy for a while

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This doesn’t seem much like a Microsoft Word question — Jezza’s reply notwithstanding — so I’m moving this thread to the “Graphic Applications” board.

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While you are right that this is probably not a Word question, positioning a collection of photos on a Word page, resizing them and placing them is arbitrary positions on that page (including overlapping) is an easy operation in Word. So if Silver Fox wants to know how to do that, we can certainly help him with that. I guess a better description of his definition of montage is needed to decide if what can be done in Word is what he wants.

Paul

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Responding to all posts in one go, thanks for the directions and comments. Montage, or whatever title one chooses to designate, all I wanted to do was position and overlap a variety of recently taken photos of our first grandchild at different angles on a page and send it as an attachment to family Down under. I downloaded the tutorial as suggested by Jezza and soon got the hang of it BUT both the blank Word document I keep on the desktop into which I copied a photo & made various saves as I went along and the final file I saved; became un-editable, their names could not be changed and I could not move them to a spare folder I created on the desktop to sort of quarantine them. As the attachment shows I am being told they are being used by another program or person which is illogical as I am the only user & am not a little peeved off that such a basic session seems to require that I follow the instructions [also shown on the attachment & which O downloaded earlier from the lounge for just such an occasion as this] to rid the computer of these two files. What turns files into Read Only without them being specifically assigned as such & is there an easy way to delete the darn things? Regarding the moving of my post to another section that’s ok by me but surely as I’m working purely in WORD this was the right place to post it!!!! Regards Dave.

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Perhaps the document was still open in Word, or else Word hadn’t been closed properly.
The problem would probably have disappeared if you had rebooted your PC.

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Your desired end result can be achieved in Word. I just looked over the tutorial that Jessa provided as a link and it is fine for your needs so you can move forward with confidence that with some additional effort you will get what you want. The key element in what you want to do is to have your images floating or mobile so pay attention to that aspect of the tutorial. One suggestion is to keep things simple. I am not sure what your spare folder strategy is, but having ONLY Word opened while you are doing this is a good idea.

While Photoshop is a complex program to use to its full capabilities, learning to do its basic operations is no different than in Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop Elements. Since you already have Photoshop you might just try it out.

Paul

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Hello again friends, I copied the tutorial Jezza recommended and found it easy to follow realising the key is the mobility of photos / images. The mention of creating a spare folder on the desktop Paul was simply an attempt to create somewhere into which the un-deletable files could be dragged rather for them to clutter the desktop but as I said they refused to be dragged there, deleted or have their names changed. As Hans mentioned, for some strange reason after closing down for lunch then rebooting, the previously un-deletable files deleted without trouble BUT exactly as before, when I tried to follow the tutorial, the blank Word document I copied the image into instantly followed the previous pattern showing the same caution messages which I attached for reference. Incidentally, the file I was working on was the only one showing on the taskbar [Open] and the Task manager showed nothing running so how they could be said to be being used by another person etc is beyond me !!!!! Thanks again Dave.

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I am not sure I understand why you keep a ‘blank document’ on your desktop – this sounds like it may be the cause of your problems.

Is it not simpler to open Word and either use the blank document it offers you, or use File > New… > Blank Document for a fresh, blank document?

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Your difficulties seems not to be with Word and this particular exercise, but with general operating principles of Windows.
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the blank Word document I copied the image into

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If you are using some blank document other than the one you get when you open Word, you do not need it and you do not want it. There is no copying involved in creating your montage. You do Insert , picture , from file and double click on the desired image file and never have to open up the photo and subsequently copy it.
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an attempt to create somewhere into which the un-deletable files could be dragged

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I do not know what this means, but no other files need to be opened.

Not being there to see what you are doing it is difficult to diagnose the problem, but the best advice I can give is to avoid those issues and open up ONLY Word and follow the tutorial (perhaps from having previously printed it out).

Paul

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