Default Picture Settings

Many people paste pictures in their documents. Some people paste many, many pictures. It would be very beneficial for those people if the settings used by Word to paste a picture were persistent--in other words, Word remembered the size used to paste a picture or the position, and then used it for subsequent pictures.

Word does not have such a capability however. When you paste a picture, size is not persistent because the ratio between picture height and width can vary wildly from one picture to another. Positioning is not persistent because many page layouts call for pictures to be in different positions on the page. The only thing that is persistent is the setting of the "Float Over" check box on the Insert Picture dialog box. (This persistent state was added with the release of Word 97, SR1.)

If you have a need to format quite a few pictures using the same settings, the easiest approach is to create a quick-and-dirty macro to apply the formatting settings you want. You could then paste the picture, select it, and then run the macro. You can create such a macro by following these general steps:

1. Paste the picture in your document.
2. Select the picture you just pasted.
3. Start the macro recorder.
4. Make the size and position changes to the picture, as desired.
5. Stop the macro recorder.

Your macro is now ready to use. Whenever a new picture is pasted in your document, select it and run the macro to apply the "default" settings.