In Microsoft Word, how to you get rid of the extra white space around a picture?

It is in the format menu for pictures, and there are several choices (behind, in front, tight, wide, etc.)

Right click on the picture, then choose “Format.” Choose “Layout’ and then “wrapping style” will give you the options @dpworkin suggests, including one that wraps the text right up to the edges of the graphic.

@janbb and @dpworkin not exactly what I’m looking for but thanks…

Are you looking for it in Word 2007? WAsn’t clear from the question.

If it saves as *.docx and it’s a Mac, I think that means Office 2008.

Control-click or ctrl-click is the Mac equivalent of right-click.

@janbb 2008

@jaytkay yeah i know (thanks) and yes you’re right about it being 2008…

@everyone i should’ve elaborated more on my problem (sorry) when you copy and paste a picture (ex- clipart) into word, there’s sometimes white space in it actually that’s part of the picture. I want to get rid of it so there’s no white space around it… does that help at all any more?

I still believe that wrapping the text around the image is what you want to accomplish and what you have to do is look for the layout instruction to do that.

Ahhh.

Open the graphic in something like Photoshop, look for transparency or transparent background settings. Save the file as a GIF or PNG. JPG does not support transparent backgrounds.

This may be possible from within Word, but I don’t have a Mac to test that.

I think if the white space is part of the picture, you’ll have to crop the picture in a cropping program, there are many very good ones, and some are free. Try IfanView, it’s a pretty popular free picture program that has some pretty powerful picture editing tools.

@jaytkay yeah i tried photoshop but I couldn’t figure it out (not very computer savvy)

What you’re looking for is Crop. In Windows it is on the “Format” part of the ribbon when a picture is selected.

I think this link might help you on a Mac…

@se_ven yes that does help somewhat, it just makes it extremely difficult because some of the pictures have very irregular shapes and curves…
thank you!

@Qwertymuffin411 Hmm… If that’s the case then you might want to try Photoshop, but I think regardless of how you crop the picture the frame will be rectangular when pasting it into word so I don’t know if that affects what you’re trying to do or not.

If you don’t think you can get the crop working right in Photoshop, you could try painting the parts you don’t want white (in photoshop or something easier). Then when you paste it into word it will appear to be just the part of the image you want.

Or if you do get the crop working the way you want in photoshop, and you want something to show up behind the cropped portions, make sure you save it as .png or some other format that allows ‘see through’ (jpg doesn’t).

Here are some links that might get your started if you want to go the photoshop route:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/l/blrbps_4abfly.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch#playnext=1&playnext_from=TL&videos=H0ftWP1q3Mc&v=Y3c60HbF6O8

@se_ven thanks

In Photoshop
1) Select the Magic Wand tool
2) Click on the solid color background
3) Delete
4) Save as GIF or PNG with transparent background