How to Paste Non-Floating Pictures with a Macro

Subscriber Jos Wessels wrote about a problem he was having with pasting pictures into a Word document. Since he pastes a lot of them, particularly into tables, he is interested in having them pasted inline instead of as floating pictures.

The behavior being described indicates that Word 97 is being used. By default, Word 97 would paste pictures as "float over" rather than "inline." Microsoft has since changed this behavior, as Word 2000 and Word 2002 both paste pictures inline by default. Microsoft even provided a Knowledge Base article that covers this very topic:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q163808

The article includes a macro-based workaround. There is a simpler solution, however, that may work for most people's needs. You can record your own macro to do your placements. If you do so, however, you will need to do just a bit of editing. When you paste pictures Word does not allow you to go back and modify the graphic, within the macro recorder, to change whether the graphic is inline or floating. This behavior exists in not only Word 97, but also later versions of Word. Who knows why; the reasoning is not apparent since you can modify graphic attributes within VBA, just not in the macro recorder itself.

To create your own quick-and-dirty macro, follow these general steps:

1. Copy a graphic to the clipboard.
2. Turn on the macro recorder.
3. Paste the graphic.
4. Turn off the macro recorder.
5. Use the VBA Editor to display the macro you just recorded. It should appear similar to the following:

     Sub PasteGraphic()
     '
     ' PasteGraphic Macro
     ' Macro recorded 2/8/2002 by Allen L. Wyatt
     '
         Selection.Paste
     End Sub

     Sub PasteGraphic()
     '
     ' PasteGraphic Macro
     ' Macro recorded 2/8/2002 by Allen L. Wyatt
     '
         Selection.PasteSpecial Placement:=wdInLine
     End Sub

That's it. You now have a macro that will paste your graphic as inline.

For related information, see the following topics and articles in WordTips Online Answers:

Creating Macros: http://wtonline.vitalnews.com/wto213.html