Pictures, shapes and arranging

Pictures

• Insert a picture: Home > Pictures or Insert > Pictures, then pick the file. You can also drag a picture file from File Explorer onto the page. JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, EMF, WMF, SVG, WebP and older types such as EPS and PICT all work.
• Web Pictures searches free-to-use pictures on the internet.
• Picture Placeholder (Insert tab) holds a space for a picture you'll add later. Double-click it to choose the picture.
• Change Picture, on the Picture Format tab or the right-click menu, swaps in another picture and keeps the size and place.

Double-click a picture to open the Picture Format tab:

• Corrections changes brightness and contrast. Recolor tints the picture or makes it grey.
• See-Through Color: click a colour in the picture, such as a white background, to make it see-through.
• Picture Styles, Picture Border and Picture Effects add frames, shadows, glows and soft edges. Picture Shape puts the picture in a circle, star or other shape.
• Caption adds a caption below, above or over the picture.
• Compress makes the publication smaller by lowering the resolution of large pictures. Reset Picture undoes your picture changes.
• Swap trades the places of two selected pictures.

Cropping

Choose Crop, then drag the crop handles to cut away the edges. Drag the picture itself to move it inside the crop. Press Esc or click away when you're done. Fit shows the whole picture in its frame, Fill fills the frame and crops what's left over, and Clear Crop brings back the whole picture.

Shapes and lines

Home > Shapes has lines, arrows, rectangles, stars, banners, callouts and more. Choose one, then drag on the page. Hold Shift while you drag for a perfect square or circle, or a line at 45° steps. The freeform tool adds a point at each click; press Enter or double-click to finish.

The Shape Format tab appears when a shape is selected:

• Shape Fill: a colour, gradient, pattern, texture or picture, and how see-through it is.
• Shape Outline: colour, weight, dashes and arrowheads.
• Shape Effects: shadow, glow, soft edges, reflection, bevel and 3-D rotation.
• Change Shape turns it into another shape and keeps its look and text.

Double-click a shape to type in it. Double-click a line to set its colour, weight and arrows.

Files inside the publication

Insert > Embed a File keeps a file of any kind, such as a spreadsheet, inside the publication, shown as a picture of it. Double-click it to open it in its own program, or right-click > Save Embedded File As to get a copy out.

Selecting

• Click an object to select it.
• Ctrl+click or Shift+click more objects to add them to the selection. Do it again on a selected object to take it out.
• Drag on an empty part of the page to select everything inside the box you draw.
• Ctrl+A selects everything on the page. Tab and Shift+Tab step through the objects one at a time.
• Object List (Home > Select, or View > Show) lists every object on the page, so you can pick one that's hidden behind another.

Moving, copying and sizing

• Drag to move. Hold Shift to move straight across or straight down, and Ctrl to drag a copy.
• Arrow keys nudge the selection. Hold Shift to go 5 times as far, or Alt for a tiny step. File > Options sets how far a nudge goes.
• Drag a handle to resize. Shift keeps the proportions, and Ctrl resizes from the centre. Pictures keep their proportions unless you hold Shift.
• Exact sizes go in the Size boxes on the object's tab. The status bar shows the position and size as you drag.
• Copy and paste: Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X and Ctrl+V, or Ctrl+D to duplicate. A copy pasted on the same page lands a little down and to the right, so you can see it. Pasted on another page, it lands in the same place it was.

Grouping and ungrouping

A group moves, resizes and copies as one object.

1. Select the objects: hold Ctrl and click each one, or drag a box around them, or press Ctrl+A for everything on the page.
2. Group them: Home > Arrange > Group, or right-click > Group, or Ctrl+Shift+G.
3. To ungroup, select the group and choose Ungroup in the same places, or press Ctrl+Shift+G again.

You can still type in a text box inside a group: double-click its text.

Moving everything on a page to another page

1. Select everything with Ctrl+A. Grouping it is optional.
2. Cut with Ctrl+X.
3. Go to the other page in the Pages pane and paste with Ctrl+V. Everything lands exactly where it was on the old page.

To move a whole page, with its background and master page, right-click it in the Pages pane and choose Move. See Adding and moving pages.

Lining up, layers and rotating

These are in the Arrange group on the Home tab, and on the object's own tab.

• Align lines up the selected objects by their left, centre or right edges, or their top, middle or bottom. Distribute spaces them out evenly. Choose Relative to Page to align one object with the page itself.
• Bring Forward and Send Backward (Ctrl+] and Ctrl+[) move an object one layer up or down. Bring to Front and Send to Back (add Shift) go all the way.
• Rotate turns 90° at a time or flips the object. You can also drag the rotate handle; hold Shift for 15° steps. More Rotation Options sets an exact angle.

Text wrap

Wrap Text sets how text in other boxes flows around an object: Square, Tight (following the object's outline), Top and Bottom, Through, or None. Reshape Text Wrap shows the outline that the text follows. Drag its points to change it, or Ctrl+click a point to remove it.

Snapping, guides and rulers

• Snapping pulls objects into line with the margins, guides and other objects as you drag. Switch it on or off under Snapping on the View or Design tab. Hold Alt while you drag to skip it once.
• Ruler guides are lines that help you line things up and don't print. Add them from Design > Guides, or right-click the page > Ruler Guides.
• Grid and Baseline Guides, in the same menu, set column and row guides and the lines that text sits on.
• View > Show turns object boundaries, guides, rulers, baselines and special characters on or off.