I have been spending a lot of time at my computer working on writing patterns recently, and I wanted to share a quick tip that has been helpful in my pattern writing with you today. Note that this tip is specific for Microsoft Word.
Image Layout Options
First, I want to touch on Image Layout Options. When you insert an image into a Word document, you can choose many different layout options for formatting. To get to the Layout Options for an image, you can simply select an image and the icon that appears to the right of the selected image is the Layout Options menu. Another way to get to the Layout Options menu is to right click on an image and select Wrap Text from the drop down menu that appears.
Image Layout Options
Within the Layout Options menu, you can choose to have an image in line with the text or there are several text wrapping options. If the image is alone on a line, I leave the In Line with Text option selected. If I am going to embed the image beside descriptive text, I usually select Tight Text Wrapping.
Drag to Position
Once Tight Text Wrapping is selected, the image can be left click selected and drug around the file. When an image is aligned with key elements of a file like the right margin or top of lines, green snap lines appear. As you can see in the image above, I have a grouping of images that are all snapped to the edge of the right margin.
Size and Position
Another menu that I use a lot when I am working with images is the Size and Position menu. To access the menu, right click on the image and select Size and Position in the drop down menu. (Note the Wrap Text menu is the option just above Size and Position).
Size and Position
When I have a series of images in a row, I like for them all to be the same size. In this case, the images are different widths, so in this case I wanted to set all the image Height values to be the same. Once I get the first image about the size I want, I go to the Size and Position menu and write down the Height. Then I go to each image and set the Height in the Size and Position menu to be the same (0.48″ in this case).
Size and Position
Once this group of images are the same height, it became obvious that the widths of the images were different with the alignment against the right margin. To keep align the images so that the graphic is the same size and doesn’t jump around the screen, I selected one of the widest images and went to the Position tab within the Size and Position menu. Under the Horizontal portion of the menu, I wrote down the Absolute position information (6.66″ to the right of Column) and then applied that to the first of the smaller images.
Size and Position
To quickly apply the position to the 3 remaining images, I simply selected the next image and used the quick key F4.
Size and Position (F4 quick key)
I hope this quick series of tips works well for you. Do you have any particular formatting tricks that you use frequently or do you have questions on how to do something within Word that you have not figured out yet?
Linking up with Tips and Tutorials Tuesday.
Am too stupid for this, hahahahaha!
Thanks so much for sharing that info Yvonne! I have so much to learn!!
THANK YOU!! I struggled with both of these problems on the first pattern I have on Craftsy! Once I drag myself away from my machine and tackle writing the next pattern (I’d so rather be sewing, ha) if I have any other issues, I will definitely ask you. Heading to bloglovin’ to save this post.
Hi Yvonne, thanks very much for sharing this great tip, I don’t know if I have the same version of Word as you, or maybe it’s a PC/Mac thing, but these boxes are new to me.. I will go and investigate… I do hate it when graphics jump all over the place!
Yvonne, excellent information! Thank you for sharing this!
Haven’t used the quick key before – very handy.
I use F4 all. the. time. I love that quick key. A word of caution, though, there are times when it does not do what you want. If you have 2 images that are different aspect ratios, using it to set width and height won’t work (for instance) as the second image will then be forced into the aspect ratio of the first. You’ll probably notice that, but just a heads up. 🙂
Great tips! I haven’t used Microsoft Word, I usually use Pages, but there are a lot of similar steps. Thanks Yvonne!
Good Morning Yvonne! Wow Oh Wow! This is really amazing stuff! I am not quite sure my brain is quite understanding it all, but with the help of my hubby I am sure it will all make sense. Thank you so much for sharing this; I have a great feeling I am going to be playing quite a bit with this! You have a spectacular creative day!
Great write up Yvonne. Thank you for taking the time!
Awesome! Thanks, Yvonne. I struggle with these layout type issues because I really don’t know enough about what Word can actually do for me. I so appreciate you taking the time to share these tips!
Well that is one very helpful post Yvonne! I had no idea that any of that was possible. I’ve been doing it manually with the space bar and by eye and that definitely does not always work. Thanks for the great tips!
I use Word all of the time and will totally admit to not knowing this, thanks for sharing!!
Brilliantly helpful post Yvonne!
Well I just learned a few new things. Thanks!
My Word tip is to use styles. By this, I mean setting up styles for each part of a document – body text, headings, captions, etc. – and using them. A single click then changes the paragraph to look exactly as you want it. I am horified when I see Word documents where each heading is formatted individually.
Great info to share Yvonne. I don’t use Word but if I did I’d be bugging you for more tips.
And posts like this really highlight just how much there is to pattern writing, and how much time it must take, definitely a need to appreciate pattern makers out there!