Word 2011 Image Alignment Question

Wow this is a MAJOR bug

This is not a bad design this is a Major bug!!!

I have been having this problem for 2 years now and I thought I was doing something wrong. But this is obviously a major bug and I cannot believe Microsoft has not corrected this problem in more than 2 years now!

The full screen mode is a workaround, thanks for the type.

RandomFellow said:

I'm hoping someone may be able to give me an answer to this question, I'm finding it frustrating that I can't work it out for myself!

I've inserted into Word 2011 (Insert>Photo). The image has been inserted and is left aligned as I would expect. On the Windows version of Word I would just click the image and click the Center button on the Home ribbon to move the image to the middle of the page. However on Word 2011 that option becomes greyed out and I cannot for the life of me work out how to do this very simple operation in Word 2011.

Any help would be greatly appreciated and apologies for the stupid question!

Click to expand...

You need to be sure to select "in fron of text" from the Wrap Text button on the ribbon bar. Word inserts photos as in line with text which greys out the alignment choices. Not a bug but just the way it works. You don't need to be in full screen mode either, Wordnautomaitcally goes to print view which allows you to manipulate the image.

No, it IS a bug.

This is a defect. So what if the picture is inline with text? The horizontal alignment options should still not be greyed out. Why would they be?

I've been using Word for over 20 years, and until now you've been able to align images horizontally by simply pressing the "center" alignment button. it's dumbfounding that Microsoft manages to screw up this simple operation now.

Even worse that it's still broken in 2014.

UPDATE - More proof that it's a bug: If you go into the View / Toolbar options and show the Formatting toolbar, it puts duplicate alignment controls up (duplicate because these controls are already in the ribbon). If you select the image, the alignment controls in the ribbon are greyed out, but the ones in the regular toolbar above aren't. And those let you center the image, even though it's inline with text. That is the real workaround.

RandomFellow said:

Okay sorted. If you go into Full Screen mode Word doesn't disable the centre text command, thus allowing you to centre the image.

Very bad design Microsoft!

Click to expand...

AWESOME!! This worked great. SO grateful; I never would have thought to try this.

For those who are interested (and have updated Word 2011 to a version which fixes the bug where going fullscreen allows to center the image), you cannot modify the alignment of an image. Because it doesn't make sense in the first place to talk about alignment of elements that are in-line with the text (like a word). Alignment applies to a paragraph (or line). Because of that, selecting the image grays out alignment controls.

In order to center an image alone on a line, select the whole line (by clicking from the left margin) and then click on Alignment -> Center.