Link pictures in word

How to insert images in a Microsoft Word document such that any changes made to the original image are auto-updated in the document(s) where these pictures are embedded.

This is a common issue in organizations where documents often contain common graphic elements — examples could include a company’s logo or an organization chart. For instance, if there’s a reshuffle in the company, updating every single Word document that contains the older version of the org chart may take lot of effort.

Luckily, there’s a simple workaround. In the Insert Picture dialog box, click the down arrow next to the Insert button, and then click either “Link to File” or “Insert and Link”.

Here’s what the different options mean:

Option #1 — Link to File: When you link a picture file from a Word document, Microsoft Word creates a virtual connection with that picture without actually embedding it in the document.

This is very similar to embedding images in an HTML web page. So if you edit the linked picture, the change is reflected immediately in all the Word document(s) that use that picture.

Option #2 — Insert and Link: The drawback with the “Link to File” approach is that if you upload the document onto the web or share it via email, the recipient won’t see any of the pictures as the links have broken.

That’s where this “Insert and Link” command comes in handy. It’s like saying — link to the selected picture in the Word document but, to be on the safer side, also embed a copy of image so that if the original source file cannot be located, the recipients can still see the picture in the document.

Convert Linked Images to Embedded Images

If you are sharing documents externally, the “Insert and Link” approach should be preferred over “Link to File”.

However, if there’s a Word document that contains only linked images and you want to upload it to Google Docs, the first thing you need to do is convert these “linked” pictures into embedded graphic. To do so, click the Office button and select Prepare -> Edit Links to Files. Now you can easily save linked pictures in the document itself.

Bonus Tip: If you like to save all these embedded images out of the documents, just save your Word document as an HTML web page — this is similar to extracting pictures from PowerPoint slideshows.

You already know that when you insert a picture into your document, you can either place it inline (in the text) or in a text box or frame. You can also control how Word manages that graphic. You can either have the graphic file added to your document, as an integral part of it, or you can have it simply linked to your document.

The next time you insert a graphic, take a look at the Insert Picture dialog box. Notice that beside the Insert button there is a drop-down arrow. If you click this arrow you’re presented with a number of options for inserting the picture. The first option, Link to File, causes Word to create an active link between the graphic in your document and the original graphic file. This allows you to automatically or manually update the graphic in your document by having Word recopy it into your document.

Note that the drop-down option also includes one named Insert and Link. This results in not only a link being established with the graphic file, but also a copy of the file being saved in the Word document. Choosing to insert the graphic in this manner can result in significantly increased document sizes.

If you are using Word 97, there is no drop-down arrow next to the Insert Picture dialog box. Instead, the dialog box includes a couple of check boxes that control graphic linking. One check box is entitled Link to File; it functions the same as the Link to File option already discussed. If you click the checkbox, then Word 97 creates an active link for the picture.

If you choose the Link to File checkbox, Word 97 then allows you to choose the Save Picture in Document check box. If this option is selected, a copy of the picture is saved as a part of your document, instead of a simple link to the picture. Choosing both check boxes is the same as choosing Insert and Link in later versions of Word.

Author Bio

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen…

Is this article up to date?

Hi,

I’m trying to figure out how does Word 2007 handles image links as opposed to previous versions.

Any help in answering the following questions, or at least in pointing me to an article or thread in the Web, will be highly appreciated.

1) What is the concept behind «linked» pictures in Word 2007? If I convert document.dotx to document.zip and look inside the corresponding folder, the pictures there are thumbnails or what?

2) Is there a way to link pictures with
relative (not absolute) paths in Word 2007?

3) Is there a way to force Word 2007 to respect the names of the linked images? If I convert document.dotx to document.zip and look inside the corresponding folder, all the linked pictures are named image1, image2, image3, etc. That does not help in comparing
the actual linked external images and the thumbnails or whatever I can see in the document’s internal folder. Also, I need to import the Word 2007 files into MadCap Flare and I don’t want to lose the original names of the image files (I don’t want them replaced
with some default names).

4) Is there a macro to extract (copy) all linked images to a specific folder? If so… Is it possible to make changes to the extracted pictures in this folder and then place them back in the Word 2007 file?

Thanks a lot!