What is wrap text in word

From corporate logos in press releases to scientific diagrams in research papers, there are many reasons to include images in a Microsoft Word document. But how images fit with surrounding text is important when formatting a document, so you need to understand text wrapping.

What Is Text Wrapping in Microsoft Word?

Text wrapping refers to how images are positioned in relation to text in a document, allowing you to control how pictures and charts are presented. Your options for this in Microsoft Word are:

In Line with Text

This option places an image on the same line as surrounding text. The image will thus move as text is added or removed, whereas the other options here mean the image stays in one position while text shifts and ‘wraps’ around it.

Square

This wraps text around an image on all sides at right angles, as if it had a rectangular box around it. This is the most common form of text wrapping.

Top and Bottom

Text wraps above and below the image so it is on its own line. This is most useful for larger images that occupy most of the width of a page.

Tight

This is similar to Square but without the rectangular box, so text wraps around the edges of the image itself. Useful for irregularly shaped images.

Through

Similar to Tight, but text will also fill any white gaps within the image.

Behind

Places an image behind the text, allowing you to add a watermark or background image on a page (although MS Word has a separate watermark option, too, which is easier to use in many cases).

In Front of Text

Places the picture in front of the text. This can be used to place a circle around some text or to add an arrow to highlight part of a passage.

The best choice will depend on your needs, but Square and Tight work in most cases. As such, these should be your default options.

How to Control Text Wrapping

After adding an image to a document, you can adjust the text wrapping to make sure it fits with the surrounding text. To do this:

• Click the image you want to format
• Click Layout Options or go to Format > Arrange on the ribbon
• Open the Wrap Text menu and select the setting required

If you want to use the Tight or Through options effectively, you may also need to adjust the wrapping points for the image. To do this:

• Select the image you want to adjust
• Go to Format > Arrange
• Open the Wrap Text menu and click Edit Wrap Points
• Drag the red lines to adjust the wrap points as required

The instructions above are for Microsoft Word on Windows computers, but the process is similar in Word for Mac.

What Is Text Wrapping in Microsoft Word? Text wrapping refers to how images are positioned in relation to text in a document, allowing you to control how pictures and charts are presented.

Square
Image in line with text. Square – Allows text to wrap around the images on all sides at right angles, as if it has a rectangular box around it. This is the most common form of text wrapping.

How do I do text wrapping in word?

Wrap text around a picture or drawing object

1. Select the picture or object.
2. Select Format and then under Arrange, select Wrap Text.
3. Choose the wrapping option that you want to apply.

What are the text wrapping options?

What are the Text Wrapping Options?

• Square, Tight, and Through: These three options are all variations on the same thing.
• Top and Bottom: This option keeps the text above and below the object, but not to its sides.
• Behind Text and In Front Of Text: These two options don’t affect the text at all.

What is text wrapping and anchoring?

Text wrapping is a feature that enables you to surround a picture or diagram with a text. 2. Anchoring is the use of irrelevant information, such as the purchase price of a security, as a reference for evaluating an unknown value of a financial instrument.

What is the default text wrapping in word?

By default, Word sets text wrapping to In line with text when you insert or paste a new picture into a document. In line with text may not be what you prefer, so here’s how to change the default.

How do I get rid of text wrapping in word?

Enable or disable text wrapping for a text box, rich text box, or expression box

1. Right-click the control for which you want to enable or disable text wrapping, and then click Control Properties on the shortcut menu.
2. Click the Display tab.
3. Select or clear the Wrap text check box.

What is in line with text wrapping?

In Line with Text
This option places an image on the same line as surrounding text. The image will thus move as text is added or removed, whereas the other options here mean the image stays in one position while text shifts and ‘wraps’ around it.

What is Tight text wrapping?

Tight/Through—Text wraps around image, regardless of what shape the image is. This text wrap works best with images that have no background. Top and Bottom—Text stops when it hits the top of the image and continues at the bottom of the image; no text is to the left or right of the image.

What is text wrapping in HTML?

The wrap attribute specifies how the text in a text area is to be wrapped when submitted in a form.

How do I change text wrapping?

To change the word wrapping of a specific image, right-click on it, click or hover your mouse over “Wrap Text” in the drop-down menu, then select your preferred word wrapping option for that image. Tip: You see how the text will wrap around the image by just hovering your mouse over each of the options.

What is a text wrapping break?

A text-wrapping break breaks a line of text and moves the text to the next line. This type of break is intended for use with text that wraps around graphics.

How do I stop words splitting in a text box?

Manual fix. To fix this problem manually, turn off hyphenation and delete the hyphens. Click the Text Box Tools Format tab, and then click Hyphenation. In the Hyphenation dialog box, clear the Automatically hyphenate this story check box.

How do I stop words being split in word?

To stop words from splitting across lines in a paragraph or paragraphs by turning off automatic hyphenation:

1. Select the paragraph or paragraphs.
2. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
3. Click the dialog box launcher on the bottom right corner of the Paragraph group.
4. Click Line and Page Breaks.
5. Select or check Don’t Hyphenate.

What is the difference between text effect and text wrapping?

Text wrap is also called text flow. Word Wrap – In word processing, a feature that causes the word processor to force all text to fit within the defined margins.Word wrap also occurs if you change the margins. In this case, the word processor readjusts all the text so that it fits within the new margins.

What is word-wrap CSS?

The word-wrap property in CSS is used to break long word and wrap into the next line. It defines whether to break words when the content exceeds the boundaries of its container.

What is the difference between word-wrap and word-break?

The two properties ( word-break and word-wrap ) differ rules and overflow of words: as mentioned earlier, word-wrap is used to break words that overflow their container, while the word-break property breaks all words at the end of a line, even those that would normally wrap onto another line and wouldn’t overflow their

How do you stop word-wrap in CSS?

If you want to prevent the text from wrapping, you can apply white-space: nowrap; Notice in HTML code example at the top of this article, there are actually two line breaks, one before the line of text and one after, which allow the text to be on its own line (in the code).

Home > Microsoft Word > How to Wrap Text in Word? 6 Wrap Text Options Explained

(Note: This guide on how to wrap text in Word is suitable for all MS Word versions including Office 365)

When working on documents in Word, the usage of pictures in between texts helps in a better portrayal of the context and better understanding. Images can be used for a wide variety of documents ranging from how-to guides, tutorials, explanations, and documentation. Images have become an indispensable part of making documents that are easy to understand.

When you add an image in Word, it appears at the center of the screen. Though it serves the purpose sometimes, it doesn’t provide an aesthetic look in terms of text alignment. 

In this article, I will show you how to wrap a text in Word so that it improves the overall texture and readability of the document.

You’ll Learn:

• What Is Wrapping a Text and Where Do We Use Them?
• How to Insert an Image in Word?
• How to Wrap a Text in Word?
  • Move the Image Around the Text
• Other Options to Wrap a Text in Word
  • Inline with Text
  • Square
    • Add Image to the Center of the Page
  • Tight
    • Adjust the Flow of Text Around the Image
  • Through
  • Up and Down
  • Behind Text and Infront of Text
• More Layout Options

Watch this video to learn more on How to Wrap Text in Word

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What Is Wrapping a Text and Where Do We Use Them?

Before we learn how to wrap a text in Word, let us see what wrapping is and where we use them.

You might have seen newspapers and articles having images in different orientations on them. Some images might be on the left with the text on the right or vice versa. Others might have text over the image and some pages might have the image in the center and text all around them.

Wrapping text in Word improves the overall look of the document and helps in a better flow of content around the image.

How to Insert an Image in Word?

Before we learn how to wrap text in Word, let us learn how to add an image to the Word document. To insert an image, place the cursor where you want to insert the image. Navigate to Insert, and click on the dropdown from Pictures. You can either select This Device, download the images from stock images, or import them online. In this case, we’ll use the images from the local drive.

This opens up a dialog box. Navigate to the folder and select the image you want to add. Click Open.

This adds the image to the place where you have placed the cursor. The image automatically populates the page based on the resolution and dimensions of the image.

You will then need to change the alignment and wrap the text to suit the document overall.

How to Wrap a Text in Word?

Move the Image Around the Text

We know that by clicking and dragging we cannot move the image freely as we do in PowerPoint. To move an image and wrap the text along with it, click on the image and navigate to Picture Format and click on the dropdown from Position. Click on the place where you want to add the image. In this case, let us choose to add the image to the top center of the page. This moves the image to the top center and wraps the text around it.

Now, you can click on the image and use the anchor points to resize the image and even rotate the image. You can freely move the image using the border lines. When you move the image, the text automatically wraps around it. 

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Other Options to Wrap a Text in Word

There are a few options you can use to move the image and wrap text around it.

To wrap a text, click on the image. You can click on the Layout Options shortcut button.

Or, you can navigate to Picture Format and click on the dropdown from Wrap Text for more choices to wrap the text.

You can see a variety of ways to align the image and wrap the text around it. Let us see different ways you can wrap text in Word in detail.

Inline with Text

When the image is wrapped around the text with this option, Word treats the image as a text. All other options to customize and edit them will be disabled. However, you can move, resize, and rotate them and they will align themselves next to the text.

In this option, you cannot move the image freely and the text won’t wrap around the image. Instead, the text occupies the space before and after the image, making it look odd.

Square

In this option, the space around the image takes the shape of a square and the text wraps around the image. This case is mostly used when you have to place the image in the center of the page. 

Select the wrap option by navigating to Picture Format. From the Wrap Text dropdown, select Square.

Though selecting this option might not immediately move the image to the center, it gives you the flexibility to change the alignment and move the image as the text wraps around it.

Add Image to the Center of the Page

To place the image in the center of the page, navigate to Picture Format. Under Position, click on More Layout Options.

In the Layout dialog box, under Position, click on the Alignment option and select Centered in both horizontal and vertical headers.

This aligns the image to the center of the page and wraps the text around it.

You can also click on the image and drag it till you reach the center of the page. There is a crosshair line that serves as your guide to the middle of the page.

Tight

Wrapping text in Word using the Tight option is also similar to the Square option. While using the Tight option, the image becomes a square and the text is wrapped evenly around it. If you use the Tight option, the text around the image is tightly packed and unevenly wrapped around the image.

Adjust the Flow of Text Around the Image

This wrap text option is more suitable when you want to adjust the flow of text around the image. First, move the image where you want. Let us move the image to the center so that the text will flow around it evenly.  

Now, select the wrap text option Tight from the Wrap Text dropdown. However, you can see the text unevenly wrapped around the image.

If you want, you can even remove the background of any image to adjust the flow of text perfectly around it. Use the Background Remover option under Picture Format to help you remove any background both automatically and manually. 

Now, you can fine-tune the wrapped text around the image if you feel like there is any extra spacing around the image. To fine-tune the text around the image, you can use the Edit Wrap Points under the Wrap Text dropdown to help you alter the wrapping of the text.

Note: Use the wrap points to adjust the wrapping of the text. Double-click on the line to add extra wrap points.

Through

This option allows the text to appear as if it passes around, but the text does not literally pass through the image. Using this option, you can easily move, resize, and rotate the text freely. 

Up and Down

This method of wrapping text in Word has the text up and down the image, leaving the sides empty. The image populates in the middle of the page, and the text to the left and right of the image moves to the top and bottom.

Behind Text and Infront of Text

This is also a common way of wrapping the text. After deciding the position where you want to move the text to, you can either move the image to the background where the text overlaps the image, or you can move the image to the foreground where the image overlaps the text.

Navigate to Picture Format. Under the dropdown from Wrap Text, click on the Behind Text option to add an image behind the text. If you want it in front of the text, click on the In Front of Text option to add an image before the text.

These options are mostly used when adding a vector or background or watermark to the document.

More Layout Options

If you are still not happy with the way the images and the text look even after placing the image in position, you can always use the More Layout Options to customize the existing layouts. 

Navigate to Picture Format. Click on the dropdown from Wrap Text or Position and select More Layout Options. This opens up a Layout dialog box.

This layout offers in-depth customization to the existing layouts. You can change the alignment and positions of the image either horizontally, vertically, or both using the Positions tab. 

From the Text Wrapping tab, you can change the layout, wrap the texts, and alter the distance of the image from the text. From the Size tab, you can change the size of the image to specific dimensions and change the aspect ratio of the image.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Closing Thoughts

Microsoft Word offers a variety of options and customizations to wrap a text. This helps in making your document aesthetically pleasing and helps portray the importance of both the image and the text. 

In this article, we saw how to wrap text in Word using different wrapping options. Choose the option that portrays your thoughts and suits your purpose best.

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