How to protect the quality of your images in Microsoft Word


Before anything else, you need to make sure Word won’t damage the quality of your graphics, especially if you are going to print your document.

Open Word’s Options > Advanced, go to the Image Size and Quality section at the right, and select any resolution equal or greater than 300 ppi. You can disable compression, but even if you won’t, Word will always respect the target resolution (ppi).

You have to draw, shoot or find high resolution images. Word —or any program—cannot ‘upgrade’ a low quality source, and while on screen your image may appear more than acceptable, don’t be surprised if you find distortions in print.

How do you know the resolution of your images?

If you are on Windows Explorer right click on an image to open its Properties tab. Then go to Details and see the resolution. You can also find this information in most commercial or free image editors.