Ways to Annotate a Complex Picture in Microsoft Word

Combining text and images may make for a very informative Microsoft Word document, but ensuring your readers understand what they're looking at and how everything goes together is the most important. When you insert pictures into Microsoft Word, take the extra step to annotate them -- breaking down information about those images instead of letting readers attempt to guess how they fit in. Word may not be a graphic design or publication layout program, but it offers a variety of ways to add that necessary description to an image.

Arrows

With a combination of a few of Word's drawing tools, a complex picture becomes a hunt-and-find detailed piece of information. Annotating with Word's drawing tools works well when you are annotating, for example, an image of a map. These tools are located under the Insert menu. Select the "Shapes" button. Draw arrows pointing to sections of the picture, branching out into the white space of the Word document. Then, add text boxes -- also under the Insert menu-- to the ends of the arrows on the Word page. Inside each text box, type the annotated information describing what each arrow is pointing to.

Legend

Creating a legend for a complex picture in Word first involves determining what parts of the picture to annotate. Once you have decided that, choose appropriate shapes such as dots or stars by selecting the "Shapes" button under the Insert menu. Draw a small shape next to each section of the picture, using a different shape or a different color of the same shape for each part. Next to or below the picture, create the legend, which has a replica of each shape and next to it, what it represents on the picture. For example, using colored dots to annotate a group photo, replicate each colored dot next to the name of each person in the picture.

Watermark

You can use a watermark to stake a claim on a complex picture or to get a specific message across by splashing information on the actual image. While the actual Word watermarking effect on the Page Layout tab adds the watermark to the page background, not the picture, you can create your own watermark with a text box. After adding the text box to the page, type into it the annotation information, such as "Photographed on June 30 in Santa Rosa, California, with a Nikon." Alter the text's formatting by changing the font, size and color, then alter the text box with the Text Box Tools tab. Position the text box directly across or at an angle on top of the picture.

Caption

One of the quickest and most common ways to annotate a picture in Microsoft Word is through a caption. Create captions in Word using the "Insert Caption" button located under the "References" tab. Click the button on the ribbon to open the "Caption" box. Add the caption in the "Caption" text box and include any of the window's options such as an automatic "Figure" label or numbering. For a very complex picture, this type of annotation may be less enticing, since the caption could get very lengthy. Traditionally, captions are in a smaller font than the rest of the document's text, so that could make the text hard to read.

Resources

• Microsoft Office: Getting Started with Word 2010