Positioning a picture in Word

Once you have inserted an image into a Word document, there are several ways you can position it and control how any text in your document should be arranged to accommodate the image.

By default Word inserts pictures in line with text which means the image is fixed to the line of text it was inserted into and will move up and down the page as more text is added or removed above it. The text doesn’t nicely wrap around the image in this case either which is often what we want when creating documents in Word.




First set the Wrap settings for the image you have inserted. Select the image and go to the Format tab which appears in the Picture Tools tab. This tab only appears when an image is selected. Click the dropdown list for “Wrap Text” which is in the Arrange group and hover over the “Square” option.





This should make any text on your document fit snugly all the way around your image. If this is the effect you are looking for just click that option. You can hover over the other options and see how text is arranged – for example there is an option to place the image behind the text which is an effect you may want to use.





Once you have set up the wrapping option, unless you have selected the “In line with text” option you should now be able to click on the image and drag it around your document into any position you wish. If you wish to keep an image in a specific position on the page, remove the tick from the “Move with text” option.





There is also a “Position” dropdown list which allows you to quickly position your image in pre-set positions on your page, such as in the top left hand corner or in the centre of your page. These options are really shortcuts to automatically position your image and also set the text wrapping with one click.