4. Cropping a Graphic
If a picture or clip isn’t composed exactly the way you’d like, you can crop
(trim off) parts of it. Cropping lets you remove unwanted parts of a
graphic and place the focus on a specific area of it. You can even crop
a graphic to a different geometric shape, such as a triangle or a
circle.
Trimming a Graphic’s Edges
Here’s how to crop a graphic by cutting away one or more of its edges:
1. | Select the graphic so that the Format tab becomes active.
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2. | In the Size group, click Crop. A drop-down menu opens.
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3. | Click Crop. Word places black cropping handles around the graphic, as shown in Figure 8.
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4. | To
trim the graphic from the top, the bottom, or a side, click a handle on
any of the four edges and drag toward the center of the image. When
enough has been trimmed, release the mouse button.
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5. | Repeat step 4 for any other edge you want to trim.
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6. | To
trim away two edges at once, click one of the corner handles and drag
it toward the center of the graphic. For example, to trim the top and
right edges at the same time, drag the handle in the image’s
upper-right corner, as shown in Figure 9.
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7. | Click anywhere outside the graphic to deselect it and turn off the cropping tools.
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Changing a Graphic’s Shape by Cropping
You can give a graphic a completely different shape by cropping. You pick the shape, and Word does the rest. Here’s how:
1. | Select the graphic so that the Format tab becomes active.
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2. | In the Size group, click Crop. A drop-down menu opens.
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3. | Click Crop to Shape. A submenu of shapes appears, as shown in Figure 10.
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4. | Click the desired shape, and Word crops the image to match that shape. Figure 11 shows a picture cropped to the shape of a teardrop.
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5. | Click anywhere outside the graphic to deselect it and turn off the cropping tools.
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In Figure 11,
notice that although the picture’s shape has changed, its surrounding
frame has not. Word prefers to keep picture frames as squares or
rectangles.
