Opportunities to Use Graphics Effectively

Every year, your documents must compete for attention in an increasingly sophisticated visual environment. Using Times New Roman and Arial fonts isn't enough anymore; today's best documents are visually rich, incorporating high-quality graphics and various other visual techniques. This chapter focuses on Word's powerful capabilities and resources for importing and using graphics?along with some "dos and don'ts" for using graphics effectively.

Word permits you to add virtually any image to a document:

• Images you capture with a digital camera or scanner

• Images provided by your organization, such as company logos

• Bitmapped images you create or edit using software such as Adobe Photoshop or JASC Paint Shop Pro, or that you adjust and import from Microsoft Office Picture Manager, a new application included with Microsoft Office 2003

• Vector images you create or edit using software such as Adobe Illustrator

• Vector images you import from Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office's built-in Clip Art library, or clip art Microsoft provides on its Web site

Before going further, you may find it valuable to perform a brief inventory of your graphics resources and the opportunities you may have to improve your documents through the use of graphics:

• Can you more effectively promote your corporate identity by adding your corporate logo or signature to more of your forms and documents?

• Do you create documents that would benefit from directly relevant photographs? For example, if you appraise real estate, would it improve your reports to include scanned photos, or photos taken on a digital camera of homes and properties?

• Would it save you time to send documents by fax directly from your computer, rather than printing them on stationery? If so, consider creating stationery templates that incorporate your logo and scanned digital signatures that can easily be imported into your documents.

• Are your newsletters and other customer communications too "gray"?all text and headlines, with no visuals to keep your reader's attention? Consider using a mix of original photography and digital clip art resources available through Microsoft Office Online, other Web sites, and low-cost CD-ROMs.

All these scenarios and options are covered in this chapter.