It might be stating the obvious when I say that the capabilities of Microsoft Word stretch way beyond the processing of words. There are all kinds of effects and graphics that can turn ordinary text into something special.

As with many applications, however, the processes involved in transforming text or adding graphics to Word documents are sometimes not those that appear the most obvious, and the way that appears logical is not the correct way.

For example, if you want to insert a photo into your Word document, the obvious procedure would be to copy the image and then paste, having moved the insertion point to the required position. You can try this by placing your cursor in the middle of a paragraph and then pasting a photo. The image will appear, but Word will treat it simply as an object on that line of text and everything above it will be moved up to accommodate the image.

To get an idea of how Word processes an image pasted in this way, select a single letter from a paragraph typed in regular sized text, 10-12 point (choose a letter that does not go below the line). Change the font size of your selection to something much larger, and notice how Word moves the text above up to accommodate the newly sized letter. This is exactly how your text will behave when an image is simply pasted into the middle of a document.

Say you were writing a short biography of yourself and you wanted to insert a photo of your face right at the top left of the page, to cut into the first lines of text. A pasted image would simply sit on the line of text as demonstrated above; to place an image exactly where you want it requires a different approach, the first stage of which is to pull out a text box and drag it into position, laying it on top of the text you want to make way.

At this point it is worth mentioning the different way a text box reacts when clicked. If you click on the frame of a text box, the border is made up of fine dots, whereas if you click inside the text box, the border becomes a series of diagonal lines. If you right click on each of these borders, you will see a different menu appear; one to format the text box itself, and one to format the actual content.

To insert a graphic into your document, you need to have the text box frame highlighted, i.e., the one with the dotted border. Right click on this and select Format Text Box. In the dialog box that appears, select the Colours and Lines tab and in the Line section, click on the arrow of the Colour box and select No Line from the menu.

Now select the Layout tab and click on the Square icon. Click OK and return to your document. You will see that the text box is no longer lying on top of the text, but it has moved it along and is sitting neatly at the edge of the text. By selecting No Line, you have also made the text box invisible. Copy the photo you want to insert and select the text box and paste. Your photo will now appear inside the text box. You can now move your photo about the page like a standard text box.

This process is less straightforward than a simple copy and paste, but the end product is more flexible. You can move the image about like it was a standard text box, and it will move text aside wherever on the page you drop it, so you can easily experiment until you find the best position.

Word is an extremely versatile application that allows the user to apply many effects to documents, enhancing its more general role as a word processor. It is such a widely-used application that learning some of its finer points would be a worthwhile endeavour.