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Department of Engineering |
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Importing Graphics into Microsoft Word
[File Formats]
[Postscript files and previews]
[Teaching System Programs]
[Printing]
Importing Graphics into Microsoft Word
You may sometimes need to import into Word some graphics files created on a
unix machine (the Teaching System machines, for example). This shouldn't
usually be a problem, but a little knowledge about file formats help.
Graphics files come in many formats. Some of these formats are very specialised (for use with one particular
program, for instance) but a few formats are widely used on many types of
machines.
- Postscript
was invented a long time ago. It's suited to line drawings rather than photos.
A slight variant of it called Encapsulated PostScript is used for files that are
going to be embedded in another document.
- JPEG
(short for the 'Joint Photographic Experts Group') files are designed for
efficient storage of photos.
- GIF files are good for cartoon-style images and are common on the WWW.
They're gradually being replaced by PNG files.
- PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
files was designed to replace the older and simpler GIF format and, to some extent, the much more complex TIFF format.
Though you can store any image in these formats, choosing an inappropriate
format might result in a bigger than necessary file.
Word understands some formats directly and can understand others as long as
an appropriate graphics filter is installed. Which graphics filters are available on your machine depends on how new your Word is and
whether a full installation was done.
- With "MS Office 98", no filter is
needed for JPEG and PNG files, and a full install provides EPS and GIF filters.
To see which filters you have installed, click on the "Insert" menu, and
choose the "Picture" item, pick the "From File" dialog box then look at
the "File of type" list. Use Word's friendly "help" facility for details.
- With "MS Word2000" the following actions were necessary to use an eps
file
- Open the eps file using Photoshop 6 and save as jpg.
- Open the Photoshop jpg file using IrfanView (on the operators' machine Operpc2) and again save as jpg.
- Insert the resulting IrfanView jpg file into Word doc
EPS files are rather hard to understand. Word processors like
Word can't usually show you the exact image in the file,
but EPS files can contain a simplified preview image that word processors
can display. If there's no preview image all you'll see is a blank rectangle
or a filename.
Preview images can be in many formats too - TIFF and WMF (Windows Metaformat)
being common.
If you have a printer that understands postscript (the Teaching System ones do)
the full eps image will be printed out, otherwise the preview image (if any)
will be used.
Because postscript is such an established format, it's a common choice
when moving images from the Teaching System to Mac/Windows machines.
However, some programs provide better support than others.
- Matlab's print option can produce various types of output file. Type "help print"
inside matlab for details. Examples include
- "print -depsc -tiff" - colour postscript with a TIFF preview
- "print -djpeg" - JPEG (note that you can control the amount of
compression and loss of quality of this image)
- "print -dpng" - Portable Network Graphic 24-bit truecolor image
- import - for screendumps. Type "man import" for details. gimp also has a screendump option
- Pro/Engineer?
Some programs will only produce Postscript (rather than Encapsulated Postscript).
The program ps2epsi on the Teaching System tries to convert PS files into EPS with a preview image. Type "man ps2epsi" for details.
To print out files with embedded EPS files you'll need a Postscript Printer
(or something that simulates one). The Advanced Printing page describes how to use
the Teaching System printers to print out Word files.
