Handy Tips for Re-Sizing Photos in MSWord and Powerpoint

These days, Digital Cameras make photo sharing so easy for you and your family.  But all too often you find out that your camera has captured huge sized photos.  Large photos (anything over 500kb), need to be resized for auction listings, emails, posting in blogs or on the web. Do you find your Photo Editing Software too complicated to use? Listed below are some handy strategies for resizing photos utilizing Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and some notes about resizing photos in your photo editing software.  If you know where your photos are located in your computer, re-sizing them is a breeze!

Re-Sizing Photos in Microsoft Word:

Locate which file your photos are in inside your computer. Open Microsoft word, choose "insert picture from file".  Choose the file location for your photos, left click on the photo name,  then click the Insert Button.  This will paste your photo into an empty document. 

Now with your mouse, LEFT click on the inside of  your photo anywhere.  You'll see "grabbers" on the corner of the picture appear, they look like little squares. {If your inserted photo is so large that you don't see the whole photo to even grab a corner, change your View Menu to 10 or 25%.}  Now, use your left mouse button to grab the  Top Corner (grabbing the corner will maintain a constant scale), as you do this, your cursor will change to a two-sided arrow.  Keep holding your left mouse button down the whole time, push the corner grabber down diagonally toward the center of your photo to resize your picture.

If you return your document view to 100%, you'll see exactly the same size photo in your auction listing or blog post. Now, right mouse click inside the photo and 'cut'. This will make your picture disappear from the MSWord Document, but have no fear, it's hidden on your 'clipboard' - I just pretend it's hiding right there inside my mouse.  Now you're able to paste your re-sized photo onto your desktop. (Use the minimize button on the very top right corner of your MSWord to get to your desktop.  The minimize button is the little flat line icon.)

Now, on your desktop screen, right click your mouse in any blank space you see, and choose 'Paste' from the menu.  Once you click Paste, your computer will generate a popup box telling you that you have to save the picture. 

Say Yes Here. When I click Yes in this box, I always change the file name so I don't over-write my original picture.  Once your photo is resized and saved to your desktop, it is easy to move it to your personal photo files or post to your auction listing, or your photo sharing website for your blog.

Re-sizing Photos in PowerPoint:

Open Microsoft PowerPoint and follow the same procedure as in MS Word to insert a photo "from file" into a blank PowerPoint Document.  Again, if the photo is so large that you don't see any corners, reset your Powerpoint page-view size to 10 or 25%.  In Powerpoint, you'll see round circles for the grabbers, instead of little solid squares.  Here again, you grab the corner of the picture and re-size it with your left mouse button held down until it is a reasonable size.  Then remember to reset your document view to 100% to see the actual size of the picture that you're working with.

Powerpoint has an additional resizing feature.  Instead of manually resizing the picture by grabbing the corners, Powerpoint allows you to resize the photo by ratio.  To do this, Right Click inside the photo and choose 'Format Picture', from here, choose the 'size' tab. When in this Format Picture Box, under Scale make certain "lock aspect ratio" is clicked on, then choose a percent change for your photo's height and width under this same Scale category.

 Powerpoint allows you to then right mouse click on the picture again & choose "save as", skipping the cut & paste step from the MSWord option above.

Photo Editing Programs

Many picture editing programs have an Image Size option as one of the tools. Make sure that you have "lock aspect ratio" clicked if you see a box that allows you simply to change the pixel sizes for width and height.  This ensure that your photo doesn't become skewed either horizontally or vertically.

If you don't see a box in your Image Size Option to lock the aspect ratio, you'll need to get out your calculator and do some math to maintain the ratio between height and width.

Current Photo Editing Auctions on Ebay

Additional Informaton on posting photos:

Add Photos to your Ebay Blog - by shipscript

Design Basics - Using Photos - by shipscript

Blogging Basics Guide

Now you're ready to post any picture you've taken to an auction listing, a photo sharing website, your blog or emails to your friends & family!