5 Add Simple

Graphic Elements
In this chapter, you will learn how to

✔ Insert and modify pictures.

✔ Change a document’s background.

✔ Insert building blocks.

✔ Add WordArt text.

Some documents that you create in Microsoft Word 2010 are straightforward
and require nothing more than words. Others might benefit from the addition
of graphic elements to reinforce their concepts, to grab the reader’s attention,
or to make them more visually appealing. These graphic elements can include
a wide variety of objects and effects, including:

● Pictures These objects are created outside of Word—photographs from

digital cameras, clip art images, or files created on a computer with a graphics
program. No matter what the origin of the picture, you can change its size and
its position in relation to other content after you insert it in the Word
document. For some types of pictures, you can make additional changes from
within Word, such as cropping the picture or embellishing it by applying artistic
effects.

● Drawing objects These objects are created within Word—text boxes,

WordArt text, diagrams, charts, shapes, and other such objects. As with
pictures, you can size, move, and format drawing objects from within Word.

● Building blocks You can draw attention to specific information and add
graphic appeal by incorporating ready-made graphic building blocks (also
called Quick Parts) into a document. These building blocks are combinations of
drawing objects (and sometimes pictures) in a variety of formatting styles that
you can select to insert elements such as cover pages, quotations pulled from
the text (called pull quotes), and sidebars. You can also create your own
building blocks, which then become available in the Quick Parts gallery.

● Backgrounds You can apply a variety of backgrounds to the pages of your

document, including plain colors, gradients, textures, patterns, and pictures.

Inserting and Modifying Pictures

You can insert digital photographs or pictures created in almost any program
into a Word document. You specify the source of the picture you want to insert
by clicking one of these two buttons, which are located in the Illustrations
group on the Insert tab:

● Picture Click this button to insert a picture that is saved as a file

on your computer, or on a device (such as an external hard drive or a digital
camera) that is connected to your computer.

● Clip Art Click this button to insert one of hundreds of clip art
images, such as photos and drawings of people, places, and things.

After you insert a picture in a document, you can modify the image by using
commands on the Format contextual tab, which is displayed only when a
picture or drawing object is selected. For example, you can click buttons in the
Adjust group to change the picture’s brightness and contrast, recolor it, apply
artistic effects to it, and compress it to reduce the size of the document
containing it. The Picture Styles group offers a wide range of picture styles that
you can apply to a picture to change its shape and orientation, as well as add
borders and picture effects. And finally, you can use the commands in the Size
group for cropping and resizing pictures.
About Clip Art

To find and insert a clip art image:

1. Position the cursor where you want the image to appear. Then on the
Insert tab, in the Illustrations group, click the Clip Art button.

2. In the Clip Art task pane, select the current entry in the Search For box (or
click in the box if there is no entry), and enter a keyword for the type of clip art
you are looking for, such as cats. Then select the Include Offce.com Content
check box, and click Go.
Changing a Document’s Background
Whether you’re creating a document that will be printed, viewed on a
computer, or published on the Internet and viewed in a Web browser, you can
make your document stand out by adding a background color, texture, or
picture to every page in a document. You can also add borders to every page.

On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Background group, the

Page Color button

In the Page Background group, the Page Color button, and then Fill Effects.

The Fill Effects dialog box opens

In the Page Background group, the Page Borders button.

The Borders And Shading dialog box opens with the Page Border page active.

Inserting Building Blocks

To simplify the creation of professional-looking text elements, Word 2010
comes with ready-made visual representations of text, known as building
blocks, which are available from various groups on the Insert tab. You can
insert the following types of building blocks:

● Cover page You can quickly add a formatted cover page to a longer
document such as a report by selecting a style from the Cover Page gallery. The
cover page includes text placeholders for elements such as a title so that you
can customize the page to reflect the content of the document.

Tip You can also insert a blank page anywhere in a document—even in the
middle of a paragraph—by positioning the cursor and then clicking the Blank
Page button in the Pages group on the Insert tab.

● Header and footer You can display information on every page of a

document in regions at the top and bottom of a page by selecting a style from
the Header or Footer gallery. Word indicates the header and footer areas by
displaying dotted borders and displays a Design contextual tab on the ribbon.
You can enter information in the header and footer areas the same way you
enter ordinary text. You can have a different header and footer on the first
page of a document and different headers and footers on odd and even pages.

● Page number You can quickly add headers and footers that include only
page numbers and require no customization by selecting the style you want
from one of the Page Number galleries.

● Text box To reinforce key concepts and also alleviate the monotony of page
after page of plain text, you can insert text boxes such as sidebars and quote
boxes by selecting a style from the Text Box gallery. The formatted text box
includes place holder text that you replace with your own.

If you frequently use a specific element in your documents, such as a

formatted title-subtitle-author arrangement at the beginning of reports, you
can define it as a custom building block. It is then available from the Quick
Parts gallery.

You can see a list of all the available building blocks by clicking the Quick Parts
button in the Text group on the Insert tab and then clicking Building Blocks
Organizer.
At the bottom of the Building Blocks Organizer dialog box, you can click Edit
Properties to display a dialog box where you can see the information about a
selected building block in a more readable format. If you are viewing the
properties associated with a custom building block, you can change them in
this dialog box, but we don’t recommend changing the properties assigned to a
building block that came with Word.
You can delete a selected custom building block from the list by clicking Delete
at the bottom of the Building Blocks Organizer dialog box, and you can insert a
selected building block into the document by clicking Insert.

On the Insert tab, the Header & Footer group, the Header
button.

Word displays the Design contextual tab, dims the text of the document, and
indicates the header and footer areas with dotted lines.
 on the Insert tab, Text group, Quick Parts button, and Building
Blocks Organizer.

On the Insert tab, in the Text group, the Text Box button
 Keyboard Shortcut Press Ctrl+X to cut the selected content to the
Clipboard.

Drawing Text Boxes

If none of the predefined text-box building blocks meets your needs, you can
draw your own text box. At the bottom of the Text Box gallery, click Draw Text
Box, and then drag a box the size you want anywhere on the page. You can
immediately start typing at the blinking cursor, and you can format the text the
way you would any other text.

When a text box is surrounded by a dashed border, it’s selected for text
editing. To manipulate the text box itself, you need to click its frame.

When a text box has a solid border, you can reposition it by dragging it to
another location, and you can change its size by dragging the size handles
around its frame.

You can change the outline and fill colors by using the commands in the Shape
Styles group on the Format contextual tab.

You can link text boxes so that text flows from one to the next. To do so:

1. Click the first text box.

2. In the Text group on the Format contextual tab, click Create Link. The
mouse pointer changes to a small pitcher.
 3. Point to the second text box, and then when the mouse pointer changes to
a pouring pitcher, click once.

Note that the second text box must be empty.

Adding WordArt Text

To insert a WordArt object, you click the WordArt button in the Text group on
the Insert tab, and click a text style in the WordArt gallery. (The WordArt styles
are the same as the text effects available in the Text Effects gallery in the Font
group of the Home tab.) Then you enter your text in the text box that appears.
You can edit the text, adjust the character formatting in the usual ways, and
change the text style at any time.

When a WordArt object is selected, the Format contextual tab appears on the
ribbon. You can use the commands on this tab to format the WordArt object to
meet your needs For example, from the Format tab, you can add effects such
as shadows and 3-D effects, change the fill and outline colors, and change the
text direction and alignment. You can also position the WordArt object in any
of several predefined locations on the page, as well as specify how the text
should wrap around the object.

On the Insert tab, in the Text group, the WordArt button.

On the Format contextual tab, in the Arrange group, the Position

button.
The Position gallery appears.

In the Arrange group, the Wrap Text button.

The Wrap Text gallery appears.

Formatting the First Letter of a Paragraph

Many books, magazines, and reports begin the first paragraph of a section or
chapter by using an enlarged, decorative capital letter. Called a dropped
capital, or simply a drop cap, this effect can be an easy way to give a document
a finished, professional look.

The Drop Cap gallery provides two basic drop-cap styles:

● Dropped Sits in the text column and displaces paragraph text

● In margin Hangs in the margin adjacent to the paragraph text

In either case, the drop cap is as tall as three lines of text and uses the same
font as the rest of the paragraph.

To insert a drop cap:

1. Click anywhere in a paragraph of text, and then on the Insert tab, in the
Text group, click the Drop Cap button.

2. Point to each thumbnail to display its live preview, and then click the one
you want.

Word inserts the first letter of the paragraph in a box. If you selected Dropped,
Word rewraps the text to the right of the graphic.

For more options, click Drop Cap Options at the bottom of the Drop Cap gallery
to open the Drop Cap dialog box. You can choose a font that is different from
the paragraph and adjust the drop cap’s height and distance from the text.

If you want to make the first word of the paragraph stand out, you can click to
the right of the drop cap and type the rest of the word. If you do this, don’t
forget to delete the word from the beginning of the paragraph!