Displaying a Grid on a Photo using Microsoft Word 2007

© 2009 Joe Cartwright

This document assumes you have a good understanding of how to use Microsoft Word 2007 so some of the steps are given without too much detail.

With word create a table with about 16 x 21 cells.

Select “Table Properties” and under the “Table Tab” deselect preferred width if it is selected. Under the “Row Tab” select “Specify Height” and set at 1 cm high and for Column Tab select “preferred width” set at 1cm wide. This will give you a grid pattern of about 1 cm squares. If you decide to use larger cell sizes e.g. 2cm x 2cm then reduce the number of rows and columns in you table accordingly. The table has to fit on one page. Click on “OK” to close the “Table Properties” box and save your new settings.

This will give you a black grid.

If you want to save the table using a white grid, select “Table Properties” again and under the “Table Tab” click on “Borders and Shading”. Then under the “Borders Tab” select “Grid” on the left hand side and set its colour to white. You can also increase the width of the lines on your table from this setting. Save this setting.

Save you document as a template and store it in the templates folder if you are using Vista. To do this select “Save As” under the Office Button (top left hand corner of Word application) or the File Tab is you have an earlier version of Word.  Under Save As select Template as the file type. And select the templates directory to store it under.

I saved two templates; one template using a black grid and other with the white grid.

To use these templates:

Open a New Word document using either the back or white grid template depending on your photo image – a dark image would probably work better with a white grid whereas a light image would work better with a dark grid.

Now copy the image you want to grid and paste it into your new Word document just below the Table, not in the Table.

The image will probably scroll onto a new page. Right click on the image and select “Text Wrapping”, then select ‘Behind Text”. The image will now appear under the Table. You can either print it out or save it as a document for later use.

I hope this is of some help.