iWork Image Handling (for lack of a better title)

[saberahul]

I have iWork apps (all of them) on my iPad and now I have them on my iPhone and iPod touch as well. For meetings and other professional work, I find these apps to be quite useful and there is nothing more boring than just plain text. That being said, I usually always incorporate images into my documents but noticed that image movement and manipulation around the document is far easier in iWork than in MSFT products.

My question is this: so far all my images are generally in a 'square' format. I can get an image off the internet (say a fish) but it has a square white background so whenever I place the image in the document, the document text doesn't actually flow along the shape of the fish but flows around the square white background of the image. What I want to do is shown here (check the first image where the text is around the fish).

How would I go about getting an image where there is no white background in the shape of a square or if there is, how would I wrap the text around the 'fish' rather than the square background? On the iPad version of the "Getting Started" document, Apple has done the same with a Giraffe - that too, does not have the square background. Any help would be highly appreciated.

P.S. If you're going to suggest to just use the Lasso tool in PS express (if it even has one), could you possible suggest a much quicker way to do so?

 

[Reach9]

Hey there,

what you're looking for is a pic with a .png file extension. These don't have backgrounds and are best suitable for viewing on a screen. For example, dock icons on a Mac are in .png format or .icn (similar) and so you don't see the white background. Their backgrounds are instead transparent.

Quick way of removing the white background is by using the Magic Wand tool in Photoshop.

Just select the tool > click on a white part, it will then select all the white region > Press delete > Right click on selection and click on 'Deselect'. And save the pic as a .png file.

Once you're in iWork select the image and open up Inspector. Go to Wrap Inspector > select Floating > select Object causes wrap, and pick the 2nd option out of 5.

Here is a pic:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/29/screenshot20110531at111.png

Play around with the "Extra space" option in the Inspector to get the text closer to the picture. As you can see above, mine is at 12pt, but i can reduce it and it'll be nearly touching the pic.

-edit-
Just read that you're doing this on the iPad. Not sure exactly what the iWork procedures are there, but i hope you get an idea of what to do.

 

[saberahul]

Hey there,

what you're looking for is a pic with a .png file extension. These don't have backgrounds and are best suitable for viewing on a screen. For example, dock icons on a Mac are in .png format or .icn (similar) and so you don't see the white background. Their backgrounds are instead transparent.

Quick way of removing the white background is by using the Magic Wand tool in Photoshop.

Just select the tool > click on a white part, it will then select all the white region > Press delete > Right click on selection and click on 'Deselect'. And save the pic as a .png file.

Once you're in iWork select the image and open up Inspector. Go to Wrap Inspector > select Floating > select Object causes wrap, and pick the 2nd option out of 5.

Here is a pic:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/29/screenshot20110531at111.png

Play around with the "Extra space" option in the Inspector to get the text closer to the picture. As you can see above, mine is at 12pt, but i can reduce it and it'll be nearly touching the pic.

-edit-
Just read that you're doing this on the iPad. Not sure exactly what the iWork procedures are there, but i hope you get an idea of what to do.

Exactly the response I was looking for. Thank you so much! PNG worked like wonders on the iPad - I had no idea PNG's did not have the white square background

 

[Reach9]

Exactly the response I was looking for. Thank you so much! PNG worked like wonders on the iPad - I had no idea PNG's did not have the white square background

You're welcome! Glad I could help.
Yeah PNG is pretty cool. I do freelance graphic designing on the side, so i've dealt with this issue from a lot of my clients.