HelpDocs: Scanning / Images / Graphics

Common Issues

• Copying and pasting images directly into your document can make it very big and too large to send as an attachment. 
• Not resizing images before inserting into your document can make it very big and too large to send as an attachment.
• Inserting an image from PDF directly into your document and using Word's image cropping tool degrades the quality of the image.
• Using section breaks for landscaped pages can create havoc with your Word document.
   

Best Practices for Images

1. Arial is the best font for representing data in tables and figures, molecules, and in equations.
2. Scan at a minimum resolution of 600dpi and save as an original from which to work (.TIF is best). 
3. Open in an image editing program (e.g., Photoshop) and, with the selection tool, select very close around the text/image, and Crop. 
4. If a landscaped image, rotate 90-degrees counter-clockwise, so the top of image is on the left 
5. Resize the image so the width that is necessary for your document--the max would be 6", which is the margin of the document--and change the resolution to 300dpi as well.  If you have a ton of figures, you can go as low as 250 or 200--this will work for some but not others. 
6. Save as a high-quality .JPG 
7. In Word, choose File, Insert, Picture/Image from File, navigate to the file, and press Insert

See Workshop Handout for more detailed instructions on how to do this.