Word 2007: Resizing a graphic makes it go really small

Since using Word 2007, I’ve noticed that some graphics go really small when you try to resize them by percentage. Until now, I hadn’t figured out why or how to overcome the problem. But I think I’ve stumbled on the reason and a solution.

I *think* the problem lies with where the graphics come from originally (e.g. Visio) and/or the file format they are saved to (e.g. gif, png, jpg, etc.). But it may be Word.

I had a Visio diagram that I saved to PNG. I inserted it into Word 2007 and it went in fine. But when I looked at its native size (right-click on the image, select Size), it was listed as 10% of the actual size even though it filled the page. I didn’t want it to fill the page, so needed to make it smaller. Instead of resizing the image outside Word (the file size was only about 300 KB), I decided to use the Size function to reduce it to 5% of the actual size thus halving the size of the displayed image on the page.

I entered 5% as the new value and clicked Close. The image shrunk down to less than the size of a postage stamp! It should’ve taken up about half the page. I went back to check what I’d typed, and saw that it was set to 1%. So I typed 50% this time — and double-checked it before clicking Close. It still showed as a postage stamp size and was listed as 1%. What was going on?

Back into the Size dialog box… where I noticed the tooltip below as I hovered over the Height and Width boxes: Enter a value from 1% to 0%. What?

Nothing I did with the values in that Scale area would allow me to set a value that Word would hold — it kept resetting to 1%.

Back to the drawing board — or, in this case, back to Visio. I saved the drawing as GIF and inserted it into the document in place of the PNG. When I checked the Size window for it, it showed as 100%, AND the tooltip said Enter a value from 1% to 200%. That was better.

So I solved the immediate problem by saving the image in a different file format and inserting it.

I’d have to do a bit more experimenting to see whether the problem is at the Word end, the Visio end, or if it’s the file format, or something else. I can’t recall ever seeing this issue in Word 2003, but then, I didn’t do a lot with Visio diagrams either. That said, something in the back of my memory is niggling at me now — I vaguely recall an issue where the Word output from Author-it would resize some graphics down to a really small size. I think those graphics may have been PNGs too… It didn’t happen often to me, but I do recall seeing it and I recall some people on the Author-it discussion group getting it more often than others. I was definitely using Word 2003 then. Hmmm. I’ll have to do some more investigating when I have time.

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