You can enhance your documents by using repeating boilerplate graphics, such as logos, icons, dividers, and photos. But inserting the same graphic over and over again is tedious and a waste of time.
Obviously, if a graphic is part of the header or footer, it will repeat on every page. But what if you want a repeating graphic somewhere else on the page?
Creating Repeating Graphics
Here is the too easy part…you create repeating graphics using headers and footers!
Here’s how…
Open a Word 2007 document and do the following:
- On the Insert tab, click Footer. (I use a footer in this tutorial, but you can use either headers or footers.)
- Select Blank for the footer type.
Now for the fun part…!
Inserting Clip Art into the Footer
For this tutorial, let’s use an image from the Clip Art Gallery to create a repeating graphic.
The Fast Way to Insert Clip Art or Photos into Word Documents
To insert an image from the Clip Art Gallery, press Alt, then N, then F, one after another.
To insert a photo, press Alt, then N, then P, one after another.
To open the Clip Art Gallery, do one of the following:
- With the cursor still inside the footer, use the keyboard shortcut to insert clip art (press Alt, then N, then F, one after another).
-OR- - Select the Header & Footer Tools Design tab, and then click Clip Art.
Once you find an image you like, double-click it to insert it into the footer. If needed, resize the image by dragging the editing points.
Now that the image is inserted into the footer, let’s position it somewhere else on the page.
Positioning a Repeating Graphic
Before you can reposition the graphic, you need to change the text wrapping settings by following these steps:
- Right-click the graphic.
- Point to Text Wrapping, then select In Front of Text.
Drag the graphic out of the footer area and place it anywhere on the page. If it won’t move, make sure you changed the Text Wrapping settings.
Because the graphic is a part of the footer, it repeats on every page.
Just a note…once you close the footer to edit your document, the graphic will look grayed out like the rest of the header and footer content. Don’t worry, it will print normally.
Experiment with creating multiple repeating graphics, or using different ones for odd and even pages. Use your imagination!
