How Do I Include Pictures When I Share My Word Document Electronically?

There are two methods we recommend for distributing electronic copies of your Word document:

PDF format. After you have published your Word document, use a PDF writer like Adobe Acrobat to create a PDF file. We recommend this approach because it preserves the appearance of your document, regardless of which fonts, etc, the person viewing it has available. All graphics are automatically included.

Convert linked graphics to embedded ones before distributing the Word file. Author-it produces Word documents with linked graphics, as is standard for long documents. However, to avoid having to ship all the graphics from the Publishing folder along with the document, you can convert all linked graphics to embedded graphics:

1. Open your published Word document.
2. From the main Word menu, choose Edit > Links. The Links window appears.
3. Select all the graphics in the list on the left (click on the first one, then scroll down to the end of the list, and hold down the SHIFT key while you click on the last one).
4. Make sure the "Save Picture in Document" checkbox is turned ON.
5. Click the Update Now button.
6. Select all the graphics in the list again.
7. Click the Break Link button.
8. Answer "Yes" to the prompt that appears.
9. Save your document.

Now you can send just the Word file and the graphics will be included. For documents that are large or have many graphics, you may still have to send the graphics separately, to keep the document's file size manageable. As long as the graphics are kept in the same folder as the document, they should appear just fine for the person viewing them.