How to Place Images, Figures, and Screenshots in Word Manuals Without Breaking the Layout

In the previous article, Word Manual Writing Basics - Bad Examples and How to Fix Them, we covered the Word fundamentals: headings, paragraphs, tables of contents, numbering, and cross-references. Heading styles, numbered lists, automatic tables of contents, section breaks, and the ribbon operations for tracked changes are all collected there as well. Adding images while the body text is still breaking doubles the work, so read the fundamentals article first if you have not already. As a follow-up, this time we look at the handling of images, figures, and screenshots, a factor that strongly affects manual quality, by laying out anti-patterns alongside best practices.

Images communicate more intuitively than text, but in a Word document they are also a common starting point for things going wrong. Paste one in, drag it around, and it looks fine in the moment. Then:

• One extra paragraph in the body text shifts the figure’s position
• Figure numbers end up being fixed by hand, raising revision costs
• The area you thought you cropped out is actually still inside the file
• The figure and its explanation split across pages and become hard to read
• Alt text and reading order break when the file is distributed as PDF

These are the problems that follow.

Our assumption is an operation centered on the Word desktop edition with .docx as the primary format. The web edition can handle basic editing, but text wrapping and fixed positioning of images are easier to manage in the desktop edition.¹²

Table of Contents

1. The Conclusion First
2. Why Word Documents Break More Easily Once Images and Figures Come In
3. Anti-Patterns and Best Practices at a Glance
4. How to Think About Image and Figure Placement
5. Concrete Procedures in Word
6. Rules to Pin Down in a Template
7. Pre-Distribution Checklist
8. Summary
9. References

In the diagram a solid line marks a relation that always holds and a dashed line marks a conditional one (the conditions are given per relation on the detail page). The full list of relations (21 in total, with evidence and certainty) and the definitions of the main concepts are collected on the knowledge map detail page (in Japanese). Data: JSON-LD / Turtle

1. The Conclusion First

Starting with the conclusions alone, the following six points matter most in manuals that use images and figures.

1. Make [In Line with Text] the default For image placement in Word, make In Line with Text the rule. The image can be handled as a paragraph, which makes the document robust against revisions.

2. Place each image immediately after its first mention Do not put a figure far from the body text that discusses it. Readers should not have to move their eyes back and forth.

3. Show only the necessary area in screenshots Instead of pasting the entire screen every time, crop to just the part you want to show. “One image, one message” is the baseline.

4. Automate figure numbers and references Use the caption feature for figure numbers and cross-references for in-text references. Stop typing figure above, figure below, and Image 1 by hand.

5. Treat text wrapping as the exception [Square] and [Fix position on page] are convenient, but they break easily if used without understanding anchors. Use them only when the layout purpose is clear.

6. Check file size and accessibility before distribution Finish the job by covering deletion of cropped areas, picture compression, alt text, and the Accessibility Checker.

2. Why Word Documents Break More Easily Once Images and Figures Come In

Word is very strong at document editing centered on paragraphs, but it can quickly become unstable once floating objects multiply.

A document made of body text alone rarely breaks badly, as long as headings, paragraphs, bullet lists, and page breaks are set up properly. The moment you insert an image, however, the following factors come into play.

• The position of the image itself
• Its distance from the body text
• The type of text wrapping
• The position of the anchor
• Its relationship to the caption
• What happens when it straddles a page boundary
• Data management after compression and cropping
• Reading order and tags after conversion to PDF

In other words, images are not just a matter of “appearance”. They are also a matter of structure, references, and distribution quality.

So when handling images and figures, you need to satisfy not just “does it look nice” but all three of the following at once.

• Hard to break
• Easy to revise
• Clear to the reader

The shortest route to satisfying all three is the approach of making in-line placement the default and using floating placement only as a deliberate exception.¹²³

3. Anti-Patterns and Best Practices at a Glance

4. How to Think About Image and Figure Placement

4.1 Treat images as part of the body text, not as decoration

Figures and screenshots in a manual are less mood-setting decoration than information that reinforces the explanation in the body text.

That is exactly why the text around each image needs the following relationship.

• The body text says first what the reader should look at
• The image lets the reader confirm it
• If needed, a supplementary note follows immediately after the image

Conversely, if you just paste an image and leave it at “see the figure below”, the reader has no idea what to focus on.

In practice, things go well if you keep these in mind.

• One image, one message
• Do not try to show too much in a single section
• Do not include a figure that the body text does not explain

The more screenshots a document has, the more readable it becomes when you lower the information density with these principles.

4.2 The default is [In Line with Text]. Start by treating the image as a paragraph

In Word, a newly inserted or pasted image is treated as In Line with Text by default. An In Line with Text image is bound to its insertion point and handled like a text character. An image using wrapping such as Square, on the other hand, becomes a floating object with an anchor associated with a paragraph.¹²³

What an anchor is

The anchor that shows up here is the most easily misunderstood concept in this article, so let us define it up front.

An anchor is the binding that says which paragraph a floating object belongs to. On screen it appears as an anchor icon to the left of that paragraph.

Three things matter.

• An anchor points at a paragraph, not at a page. Even when the image appears in the upper right of the page, internally it hangs off one specific paragraph.
• When that paragraph moves, the image moves with it. Add one line on an earlier page so that the paragraph is pushed to the next page, and the image follows. “I did not touch anything and only the figure jumped to the next page” is almost always this.
• Delete the paragraph the anchor is attached to and the image goes with it. This is where the figure disappears even though you never selected the image.

An In Line with Text image, by contrast, has no anchor. The image itself is the content of the paragraph, treated like one large character. Drawn as a diagram, the difference looks like this.

flowchart TB
    subgraph INLINE["In line placement - the image is content inside the paragraph"]
      direction TB
      A1["Body paragraph"] --> A2["Image<br/>treated like one large character"] --> A3["Next paragraph"]
    end
    subgraph FLOAT["Wrapped placement - the image sits on a separate layer"]
      direction TB
      B1["Body paragraph<br/>the anchor icon appears on this line"] --> B3["Next paragraph"]
      B1 -.->|"bound by the anchor"| B2["Image<br/>position is set by coordinates on the page"]
    end

Figure: With In Line with Text the image becomes part of the paragraph, while wrapping leaves the image floating on a separate layer, connected to the paragraph only by its anchor

Anchors are not shown by default. How to make them visible is described in step 5 of 5.2. If you are going to use floating placement, start by turning the anchors on. Groping around to fix a binding you cannot see is the single biggest time sink in this area.

The reason In Line with Text should be the default in manuals is simple: it is robust against revisions.

• When the body text grows or shrinks, the image moves with its paragraph
• The image can be centered at the paragraph level
• The effect of page flow is easy to follow
• Anchor and z-order problems are far less likely

Unless there is a special layout reason, the pattern of [In Line with Text] + centered + caption is all you need to start with.

4.3 Place images “immediately after the first mention”

The simplest way to make images readable is to keep them close to the body text.

A bad example looks like this.

• The explanation is two pages earlier
• The image has been pushed to the bottom of the page
• Only the figure number appears in the body text
• The reader keeps flipping back and forth between pages

The best practice is to place the image immediately after the paragraph that first mentions it.

For example, if you write:

Open [Notification Settings] and select [Delivery Conditions] in the upper right. The setting in question is the red-framed area in Figure 3-2.

then ideally Figure 3-2 sits right below that text.

The “collect all the figures at the back” style may work for reference compilations, but it is not well suited to operation manuals.

4.4 With screenshots, the crop decides readability

A common pattern in practice is pasting an entire Full HD or 4K screen as is. With this approach, the button or input field you want to show becomes tiny, and the result is actually harder to understand.

What matters in a screenshot is which part you choose to show.

Concretely, thinking in this order keeps you from second-guessing.

1. Which operation is this figure meant to convey
2. Which areas are unnecessary for that operation
3. If the same screen appears in the next figure, can this one show the minimum area
4. For comparison figures, should the cropped area and the zoom level be aligned

Especially important: cropping alone does not delete anything. In Word and Office, the cropped area remains inside the file by default, so you need to run the deletion step when appropriate.⁴⁵

4.5 Converge comparison and annotated figures into “one finished image”

A strong recommendation for this advanced installment: do not let comparison or annotated figures live as a pile of separate objects in Word.

A common state looks like this.

• 1 source image
• 3 callouts
• 5 arrows
• 4 text boxes
• Plus a separate caption

In this state, nudging any single piece can easily wreck the positioning of the whole.

There are two best practices.

1. If possible, insert the annotated, finished figure as a single image
2. Even when building it inside Word, group it in the end and treat it as one unit

For before / after comparisons in particular, rather than placing two images side by side with two captions, a single comparison image containing A: Before and B: After, treated as Figure 4-1, is much easier to reference from the body text.

5. Concrete Procedures in Word

This chapter has 8 sections, and each one reads as a self-contained procedure. You do not have to read them in order. Look up whatever is giving you trouble right now.

Each section is complete on its own if you start reading at its “Steps” heading. Step numbers restart at 1 in every section, so they are not a continuation of the previous section.

5.1 The most break-resistant pattern: “one screenshot”

Let us start with the basic shape that goes wrong the least. Roughly 80 percent of an operation manual can be covered by this pattern alone.

Steps (paste one image with in-line placement)

1. Insert the image, or paste the screenshot
2. Select the image and choose [In Line with Text] from [Layout Options]
3. Center the paragraph containing the image
4. Use [Crop] under [Picture Format] to narrow down to the necessary area
5. Insert a caption directly below the image
6. Create spacing with paragraph spacing before and after, not with empty lines
7. In the body text, insert the figure number with a cross-reference
8. Keep the image paragraph and the caption paragraph on the same page

Why this pattern is strong

• The image is bound to a paragraph
• Centering is stable
• Figure numbers are managed automatically
• References rarely drift
• It survives a change of editors

It looks like slightly more work than “paste it and drag it”, but the difference shows clearly at revision time.

5.2 When using wrapped placement, operate on the assumption of anchors

Using [Square], [Top and Bottom], or [Fix position on page], you can place a figure beside the body text or at a specific position. However, this turns the image into a floating object bound to a paragraph, so it requires more care than In Line with Text.¹²

Cases where wrapping is appropriate

• Decorative figures on a title page
• Small figures and icons pushed into the margin
• Layouts that show a figure and body text side by side
• Temporarily assembling an annotated figure inside Word

Steps (switch to wrapping and make the anchor visible)

1. Select the image
2. Choose the wrapping type in [Layout Options] Examples: [Square], [Top and Bottom]
3. To pin it to a fixed position on the page, use [Fix position on page]
4. To have it move as the body text grows and shrinks, choose placement that follows the text instead of fixing it to the page
5. Show formatting marks via [Home] > [Show/Hide ¶], or turn on [File] > [Options] > [Display] > [Object anchors], so that the anchor is visible
6. To hold the positional relationship in place, use [Layout Options] > [See more] > [Lock anchor]²

Caveats

• With wrapping, the figure is usually bound to “this paragraph”, not “this page”
• When the body text grows or shrinks, the apparent positioning can change
• In image-heavy procedure documents, overusing it makes maintenance difficult

So it is safer to treat wrapping as the exception.

5.3 Limit screenshots to the area you want to show

The quality of a screenshot is determined less by the image itself than by how it is cropped.

Anti-patterns

• The whole screen is pasted and the button you want to show is tiny
• A comparison figure where left and right use different zoom levels
• Personal names or email addresses are visible in the shot
• The image was cropped but the original data was never deleted

Best practices

• Narrow each figure to one message
• Crop to just the area you want to show
• Align the cropped area and the zoom level across comparison figures
• Do not merely hide confidential information; delete it when appropriate

Steps (crop to just the area you want to show)

1. Select the image
2. Choose [Picture Format] > [Crop]
3. Trim the unnecessary parts and narrow down to a size where the target controls are clearly legible
4. For comparison figures, use [Crop] > [Aspect Ratio] as needed to align proportions
5. Before distribution, open [Picture Format] > [Compress Pictures]
6. Turn on [Delete cropped areas of pictures]⁴⁵

Practical tips

• If you only need to show a button or an input field, the whole screen is unnecessary
• Crop first, rather than shrinking the figure
• If shrinking would make it illegible, moving it to the next page is the better trade

5.4 There are two ways to build an annotated figure

Annotated figures are easy to understand, but they are also fragile territory in Word, so the trick is to decide your approach up front.

Method A: Insert the annotated, finished figure as a single image

This is the first recommendation.

Suitable cases

• There are many callouts and arrows
• You want to show before / after in one image
• You prioritize robustness all the way through PDF distribution

Advantages

• Only one object inside Word
• One figure number to manage
• Easy to cross-reference
• Hard for other editors to break

Method B: Build it inside Word by combining shapes and images

Adding annotations inside Word is certainly possible. The iron rule, though, is not to leave it as a pile of separate objects.

Steps (assemble an annotated figure inside Word and group it)

1. Insert the source image
2. Because the annotations have to overlap it, change the image’s wrapping to something other than In Line with Text
3. Add arrows, callouts, and text boxes
4. Select each object while holding Ctrl
5. Use [Picture Format] or [Shape Format] > [Group] > [Group]⁶⁷
6. To align the positions of multiple objects, use [Align]⁶

Even more important notes

• To group objects, each object must be set to something other than In Line with Text⁷
• If you want to caption a floating object and have the caption travel with it, finalize the layout first and then insert the caption⁸

In other words, when building an annotated figure inside Word, fewer things go wrong if you proceed in this order:

1. Set the image to floating placement
2. Add the annotations
3. Add a caption if needed
4. Group everything

5.5 Link figure numbers, chapter numbers, and cross-references

Where manual work tends to linger in image handling is figure numbers and references from the body text. Automating this pays off with every revision.

How to insert figure numbers

1. Select the image
2. From [References], choose [Insert Caption]
3. Set the label to Figure
4. Add a description if needed Example: Notification settings in the admin console
5. If the document uses chapter numbers throughout, set Include chapter number under Numbering⁸⁹¹⁰

How to insert references from the body text

1. Write the referencing sentence in the body text Example: For details, see Figure
2. Open [Insert] > [Cross-reference]
3. Choose Figure as the reference type
4. Select the target figure
5. Turn on [Insert as hyperlink] if needed¹¹

What this practice avoids

• Broken figure above and figure below wording
• Manual fixes when a figure is added
• Reference drift after pages move
• Broken links after conversion to PDF

Cross-references are inserted as fields, so they need updating before distribution. For the whole document, press Ctrl + A and then F9 to update them all at once.¹¹¹²

5.6 Keep the figure, its caption, and the explanation on the same page

A common pattern in hard-to-read documents is this kind of fragmentation:

• Only the figure sits at the bottom of a page
• The caption sits at the top of the next page
• The explanation that follows the caption is somewhere else again

The basic way to prevent this is to hold the page-break settings on the paragraph side.

Recommended grouping

• Image paragraph
• Caption paragraph
• A one-sentence supplementary note
• The body text continues

Steps (keep the figure and its caption on the same page)

1. Select the paragraph that contains the image
2. Right-click and open [Paragraph]
3. Open [Line and Page Breaks] or the equivalent tab
4. Set Keep with next on the image paragraph
5. Set Keep with next on the caption paragraph as well, if needed
6. If the caption spans multiple lines, also use Keep lines together as needed¹³

Things not to do

• Adjust the position by inserting several empty lines
• Shrink the image drastically just because it does not fit
• Push the figure to the next page while leaving only the caption behind

If a figure is too large to fit, it is more readable to send the entire figure block to the next page.

5.7 Manage file size and confidential information

This part cannot be skipped in an advanced installment. Even with beautiful figure placement, a file that is too heavy, or that retains information that was supposed to be invisible, causes real trouble in practice.

File-size basics

• Do not paste images that are larger than necessary as is
• Decide whether compression applies to the selected image only or to the whole document
• Avoid compression that makes UI text unreadable

Steps in Word

1. Select the image
2. Open [Picture Format] > [Compress Pictures]
3. Choose Apply only to this picture or the whole document
4. Turn on Delete cropped areas of pictures
5. Adjust the output resolution to suit the purpose⁴⁵

Operational caveats

• Cropping alone can leave the original area inside the file
• Check that no personal names, email addresses, internal URLs, customer information, or test data are visible
• When in doubt, archive the original image separately and ship the distribution file with the data already deleted

For screenshot-heavy manuals in particular, it is safer to treat preventing confidential information from appearing in shots and managing file size as a single package.

5.8 Do not let accessibility slip

The more images and figures a document has, the more the accessibility gap shows. The minimum you want here is alt text and the Accessibility Checker.

Alt text basics

• Give informative figures alt text
• Mark purely decorative figures as decorative
• Do not stop at vague descriptions like image or screenshot
• Convey briefly not just the content but the purpose
• Keep it to roughly one or two sentences¹⁴¹⁵

Examples

• Bad: Image of the settings screen
• Good: Notification settings screen. Toggle email notifications on or off from [Delivery Conditions] in the upper right.

For flowcharts and complex figures, going as far as stating what the figure concludes communicates better.¹⁵

How to set it

1. Right-click the image and open [View Alt Text]
2. For an informative figure, enter a description
3. If it is purely decorative, use [Mark as decorative]¹⁴¹⁵

The final check

1. Open [Review] > [Check Accessibility]
2. Review the errors, warnings, and tips
3. Fix the image-related issues
4. Check once more before converting to PDF¹⁶¹⁷

A document that merely looks tidy but has poor accessibility falls short as distribution quality. Manuals are long-lived documents, so building this into the workflow from the start makes life easier later.

6. Rules to Pin Down in a Template

The quality of images and figures is stabilized by pinned-down rules more than by individual taste. As a template or a team standard, deciding at least the following makes operations smoother.

6.1 Image insertion rules

• The default insertion mode is [In Line with Text]
• Figure paragraphs are centered
• Spacing comes from paragraph spacing, not from empty lines

6.2 Size rules

• Full-width figures: whole screens and large flows
• Medium figures: dialogs and settings windows
• Small figures: icons and parts of the UI

Even just deciding these three patterns gives the whole document a consistent look.

6.3 Figure-number rules

• All numbering goes through the caption feature
• If the document uses chapter numbers, include them in figure numbers too
• Pin down position rules such as captions below figures and above tables Note: whichever you choose, what matters is consistency across the whole document

6.4 Body-reference rules

• Do not use figure above or figure below
• Reference by figure number, as in Figure 2-3
• Insert references with cross-references

6.5 Annotated-figure rules

• For heavily annotated figures, prefer producing one finished image before inserting it
• When building inside Word, go all the way to grouping
• For before / after, prefer one comparison image over managing two separate ones

6.6 Distribution-quality rules

• Update fields before distribution
• Confirm picture compression and deletion of cropped areas
• Set either alt text or the decorative mark
• Pass the Accessibility Checker

7. Pre-Distribution Checklist

Finally, a checklist focused solely on images and figures.

• Is each image placed immediately after its first mention?
• Are you avoiding pasting whole screens unnecessarily?
• Are images free of vertical or horizontal stretching?
• Are figure numbers auto-generated rather than typed by hand?
• Are body-text references inserted as cross-references?
• Are there no remaining figure above or figure below phrases?
• Are figures and captions kept off separate pages?
• Did you check the anchor positions of floating images?
• Did you go beyond merely cropping?
• Is there no personal or confidential information visible?
• Is the image file size not excessive?
• Did you set alt text or the decorative mark?
• Did you run the Accessibility Checker?
• Did you finish updating fields with Ctrl + A and then F9?

8. Summary

When handling images and figures in Word, what matters is not building an elaborate layout but reaching a state that is hard to break, easy to revise, and leaves the reader with no doubts. In that sense, the policy that works well for manuals is: default to In Line with Text, place images immediately after their first mention, crop screenshots to keep them focused, automate figure numbers and references, treat wrapping as the exception, and check file size and accessibility before distribution.

Images exist to improve clarity, but handle them sloppily and they drag down the quality of the whole document instead. Once you can codify these points into rules, stable manual operations are achievable even in Word, and combined with the heading, numbering, cross-reference, and page break rules from the previous fundamentals installment, you move beyond “a document to read” toward a manual you can maintain.

9. References

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Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about the topic of this article.

How do I keep images from shifting in Word?

As a rule, set image placement to In Line with Text so that the image is handled as a paragraph. That is the arrangement least likely to break. An in-line image is bound to its insertion point and treated like a text character, so when the body text grows or shrinks the image moves along with its paragraph. You can center it at the paragraph level, and anchor and z-order problems become far less likely. Unless there is a special layout reason, the pattern of In Line with Text plus centering plus a caption is all you need.

Where should images go in a Word manual?

Ideally immediately after the paragraph that first mentions the figure. If the explanation sits two pages earlier and the image has been pushed to the bottom of a page, readers end up flipping back and forth between pages again and again. Collecting figures together at the back may suit a reference compilation, but it does not suit an operation manual. Along with that, use Keep with next in the paragraph settings so that a figure and its caption do not end up on separate pages.

Any tips for making screenshots easier to read?

Crop to just the area you want to show instead of pasting the entire screen every time. One image, one message is the baseline. Paste a whole Full HD or 4K screen and the button or input field you meant to highlight becomes tiny, which makes the figure harder to understand rather than easier. In comparison figures, keep the cropped area and the zoom level consistent. Also, cropping alone leaves the original area inside the file, so before distribution you need to open Compress Pictures and turn on Delete cropped areas of pictures.

How should figure numbers and references such as the figure above or the figure below be managed?

Auto-number figures with the caption feature and insert in-text references with cross-references. Typing the figure above, the figure below, or Image 1 by hand should stop, because it breaks every time a figure is added or a page moves. If the document uses chapter numbers throughout, you can configure figure numbers to include the chapter number as well. Cross-references are inserted as fields, so before distribution select the whole document with Ctrl + A and press F9 to update them in one pass.

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Go Komura

Representative of KomuraSoft LLC

Focused on Windows software development, technical consulting, and investigations into failures that are difficult to reproduce.