Word Picture Editor (2002)

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Hi All.
First a big thanks on being such a fabulous source of information. I learn something new every time I look. Including that others find Word as perplexing as I…
Now onto my current bugbear.
I produce training documentation with a large number of screen shots. I paste the graphics into Paint (sounds very basic but has advantages) and then copy and paste into Word as a picture. In previous versions of Word I used the Word Picture Editor to add labels, etc.
Word 2002 seems to have “hidden” the editor. I have changed the default picture editor so it definately, positively, without doubt Word Picture Editor.
I’m still pasting the graphics in via Paint and as pictures. Of course if I double-click a graphic I get the Format Picture dialog box. So, as I learnt in Word 2000, I try the Edit menu…Edit Picture is unavailable. Right-click? Edit Picture is unavailable.
I found a toolbar button, Word Picture, which seems to do some sort of conversion, so that the graphic can be edited using Word Picture editor.
The drawing canvas is a little limiting for us so I’ve avoided it thus far.
What am I missing re the Editor? Where has it gone? Can I get it back? Or am I forever stuck with the Word Picture button?
Any advice would be great.
Thanks
Megg.

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Maybe…right-click the object, point at Picture, the flyout menu will open, choose Open Picture, the Picture toolbar shows up — voila, Edit Picture.

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Hi Van,
Unfortunately I don’t have Picture as an option on the flyout menu. I have Format Picture, which just opens the Format Picture dialog box.
Opening the Picture toolbar does not made Edit Picture available either. And the Picture toolbar that I have does not have an option for Edit Picture…
Any other ideas?
Thanks
Megan

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OK. I’ll look at my XP machine during office hours and get back to you — in Word 2000 if you double-click the picture and get the Format Picture dialog, then you are already in Edit Picture mode.

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Thanks Van. Any ideas you come up with would be enormously appreciated.
Megan

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I haven’t fully explored Word 2002 as yet but when I read your post I did some experimenting with pictures. As Van mentioned, as in Word 2000 or (’97) if you click into the picture the picture toolbar appears and you can format from there. Or a right click on a pic gives you the option to format the picture, choose size, alignments, etc. One of things I really like in XP is the feature to compress pictures! I don’t think that option was there in ’97 – we routinely used MS Photoeditor to downsize our images.

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Thanks Patricia for having a fiddle, much appreciated. The options available in the either the Picture toolbar or the Format Picture dialog box are good, but they don’t open the Word Picture Editor, which is what I need. I use the editor to add labels to screen shots. For various layout reasons I can’t add the labels while in the main document and then group the labels and the graphic. For compatability and future editing reasons, I can’t add the labels using another application. The Drawing Canvas in Word 2002 is also too restrictive.
So I use the Word Picture Editor, which is basically another Word document. The only problem is, I haven’t found a particularly elegant way of opening the Editor.
Perhaps there just isn’t a way anymore…
I’m pretty sure the compress pictures wasn’t available in 97, but am the first to admit my memory could be a little flakey on this!
Again thanks
Megan

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Megan,
Twice you have mentioned not using Word 2002’s Drawing Canvas, saying it’s “too restrictive.” Could you explain what you find restrictive about it? My first impression (and using it a bit) was that it gave me a lot more control, and more easily, than the Picture Editor ever did. I typically have a screen shot with lots of callouts (labels), which is what you say you have, so I’m wondering what we’re doing (or wanting to do) that’s different.

Regards, Jean
Jean Hollis Weber
jean@jeanweber.com
The Technical Editors’ Eyrie http://www.jeanweber.com/
—————–
NEW – Taming Microsoft Word 2002, 120 pages of tips and tricks for business and technical documents. For a contents list, downloading and payment information, go to: http://www.jeanweber.com/books/tameword.htm

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Hi Jean,
The problem is basically my tech writers – they have excellent knowledge and are very good at writing, but they tend to lack advanced Word skills. In the past some have used other apps such as PaintShop Pro to add labels to graphics. Nice at the time but it means if a label ever needs to be changed I can’t do it easily. If labels aren’t required some have simply pasted the image from the clipboard, which is of course a bitmap – file sizes have increased and we’ve had problems with some graphics on other PCs. My solution has been to write a macro so that to insert a screen shot, all they need to do is get it on the clipboard and click a button. The macro automatically pastes it in as a picture, breaks the link with Paint and readies the screen shot for labels, if required, using Word.
The drawing canvas is restrictive because of this macro. The problems are to do with automatically resizing and resizing. While I find it OK, some of my less graphicy writers will not find it so easy. An obvious solution is to train them up to be more graphical and understand how the drawing canvas works. For various reasons that’s not a particularly viable option at the moment. Hence the crusade to refind the Word Picture Editor. And Al has done it (see below)!
Many thanks for taking the time to reply. Good luck with the writing!
Megan

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Hi,

When right clicking on the picture, there should be an option in the menu titled Caption. Use this to apply a label to your picture – the advantages is that it’s easy, you have the label Figure or create one of your own, choose to have the label above or below the picture and also cross reference to the figure in your doco quite easily. I also create training doco and use this feature regularly.

Cheers

Beck

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Hi Beck,
Thanks, yes I also use the caption feature as well.
Have concluded I’m not explaining using words very well, so I’ve attached a Word document with an example of a picture and the types of labels we add. In Word 97 I could double-click the screen shot to get the Word Picture Editor. In Word 2000, it was right-click or the Edit menu. In Word 2002 it’s…?
Thanks
Megan
BTW I do like your sign off saying!

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Megg,

I just glanced through this thread and opened you DOC example. On my XP (SP-1) system, when I double-click on the picture, Word’s picture editor opens. I can move the elements of your graphic around, add objects, etc. Am I missing something? Or am I interpreting your dilemma incorrectly?

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Megan,

Double-clicking on your picture opened up the Photo Editor for me, too. I use Office XP Professional, but I’m unaware if the Photo Editor is included in all the other versions. Are you sure that Picture Editor was installed with your version of Office XP?

You can check it out by going to the Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, and then choose Microsoft Office XP, click on “Change” and then scroll down & expand the Office Tools selection. You should find the Photo Editor in the list. If it’s greyed out, click on the down arrow and choose “run from my computer” then “Update” to finish the installation & follow the prompts from there.

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Al and Samantha,
oops. I didn’t complete the file before posting…
If you’ve time could you have a look at this one.
Many thanks to everyone for ideas and suggestions to date!
Megan

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Well, I’ve spent some more time on it too, and I can’t get to Edit Picture unless I paste the screen capture into a mail message, Right-click, Properties, convert to a Paintbrush image, then copy and Paste Special into Word as Bitmap Image Object, then Right Click and Edit Bitmap Image Object. I can then edit using the Word Picture Editor — there must be an easier way, but I don’t see it and haven’t used XP more than a week, so am not totally familiar with all the new bells and whistles.

Good luck.

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Megan,

I have no explanation for why the “Edit Picture” selection is grayed out. Strange, actually. From the investigations I’ve done, it seems like a “bug.” I have a hard time characterizing this as a “feature.”

Results from using Word 2000 on your attached document:

• Double-clicking on the image in the left column – brings up the Format Picture dialog box, just as in Word 2002.
• Right-clicking on the same image, brings up a context menu but the “Edit Picture” selection is available and does start the Word Picture Editor.
  [/list]Here the way I was able to import your image into a Word Picture Editor session:
  1. Open the document into which you want to insert the resulting picture. Copy the image you want to insert graphics around.
  2. Insert > Object > Microsoft Word Picture. This opens the picture editor with an active text insertion area.
  3. Paste the image – nothing special, just Ctrl-V.
  4. Very important step(s) (you may already know all this) – With the image selected, in the little “Edit Picture” toolbar, click on “Reset Picture.” This will reset the boundaries of the picture tightly around the image you just pasted in. As you add graphical elements, continue to reset to make sure that the picture you are creating is pasted into to your main document in full.

  Hope this is helpful.

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Al – you are in a word BRILLIANT!
The solution works fantastically! It solves the problems I”m having and actually solves another that I haven’t mentioned in this post.
Many, many thanks for this. My tech writers will now be able to click a button and hey-presto the screen shot will be pasted in using the correct format each and every time!! And for a control freak like me… that’s important.
Agree it’s very odd that Edit Picture doesn’t come up as an option. But I didn’t even think of the Insert Object option.
Again many thanks to you and all those who’ve fiddled, asked questions and replied. Your help is enormously appreciated.
Megan

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Megan,

You’re most welcome and I’m pleased it solved your problem. As I was walking around after I penned that post to you, I began thinking a little more about the reasoning MS might have had for dimming the Edit Picture selection in the context menu. My guess is that it should never have been there in the first place. For a design point-of-view, you cannot actually, technically, “edit” an image. You can only add drawing layers to it. Hence, you must first create an environment (session) in which you can add the drawing objects you want. So, the context-menu selection, “Edit Picture,” was a shortcut, if you will, not to edit an image but to create a drawing session and insert the image for you. Enough rational thinking…

It seems to me that changing “Edit Picture” to “Open Picture Editor” would have kept the technical design in tact and retained the shortcut for all of us.

Good Word’ing

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