Unable to insert 72 dpi JPG into MSW (XP) doc

[walter4h]

Hello everybody:
I have several images taken with different cameras. Some of them are 300 dpi, the rest are 72 dpi
When I insert a 300 dpi pic into a MS word document, I can see it, but when I try the same for 72 dpi pic, I cannot see anything.
The document field just shows a dashed frame after I go through the command (Insert->Image) and there is nothing there.
I tried to resample the 72 dpi pics to make them 300dpi, it made no difference (the image size exploded, of course)
I tried to resize (without resampling), again I could not see anything in MS Word.
No matter if a page contains 300 dpi images, or I start with 72 dpi, with no 300 dpi on that page, 72 dpi do not show after going through Insert->Image
Images are OK, I can see them in any image editor

Is there smth I can do to those 72 dpi images to make them acceptable to MS Word?
Thx: walter

[Baldrick]

DPI doesn't say anything for images on a computer, read http://www.just-stuart.com/photogs/DPI_Confusion

What are the resolutions on the files? Have you tried to save those as another format like bmp and import in word?

[jagabo]

DPI doesn't say anything for images on a computer

Yes, but when you insert an image Word will automatically size the image based on the DPI setting. Of course, you can overide the size after inserting the image.

[walter4h]

Thanks for the advice.
Actually, I am no longer hard-pressed to do it with Word. I can create an html page, it takes all those images without a problem, I do not even need to watch the dpi
And then I can run html through pdf writer.
But I was curious why would Word reject 72 dpi. As for converting to bitmap, this is too much trouble.
When I view those images in image viewers (Irfan, MS Fax viewer, Easy Thumbs, ArcSoft, there is no difference in size.
When I was working with PhotoShop, it clearly says that you have to watch the dpi, because "denser" images would "explode" when forced into a lower dpi.
Thx again: walter

[jagabo]

I have no problems inserting 72 dpi jpgs into Word. Maybe it's something about the particular files -- there are several variations in the JPG format. If you want to attach one here I'll take a look at it.

[blinky88]

The problem lays with Windows. Bill Gates with all his wisdom wrote Windows at 96DPI, monitors display at 72DPI. Change the resolution of the images to 96 DPI and I think that will solve your problem.

With Window based applications 'what you see on screen' is not what you print, this created alot of problems for me when working in FileMaker Pro.

[blinky88]

The problem lays with Windows. Bill Gates with all his wisdom wrote Windows at 96DPI, monitors display at 72DPI. Change the resolution of the images to 96 DPI and I think that will solve your problem.

With Window based applications 'what you see on screen' is not what you print, this created alot of problems for me when working in FileMaker Pro.

[thecoalman]

Ahhh, the old DPI thread....

First and foremost thing to understand is the DPI of an Image isn't used for much except for scaling it such as when you insert it into word. Other than that it really doesn't do anything. It really comes down to the software. For web based images viewed through browser the DPI is ignored.

This is a 72DPI image:


This is a 600DPI image:


There's absolutely no difference between these two images except the second one is byte or two large.Probably due to different meta data. Where you will see the difference is if you insert them into a program like Word. I believe the previous poster is incorrect, Word will scale the images in inches. e.g. if you had a 300x300 pixel image set at 300dpi it would scale it to 1 inch for printing on paper. Other application will use this too, usually printing and document applications. All DPI really does as previously mentioned is set the scale for printing.

My guess is as was suggested by someone else you're original .jpg @72 dpi were funky and Word wouldn't accept them.

[blinky88]

Hi coalman, Nice of you to point that out, I stand corrected .... however, Windows is written to display at 96DPI and Monitors display at 72DPI. Mac OS is written at 72DPI, so what you see onscreen is what you print whereas Windows is not WYSYG. Whenever I paste an image into any application on my PC I do so at 96DPI.

[walter4h]

Thanks for more info, guys.

Here is the image info as displayed by IrfanView on two images from coalman:
For the 72dpi image :
Resolution: 72 x 72 DPI
Original size: 249 x 276 Pixels
Current size: 249 x 276 Pixels
Print size (from DPI) 8.8 x 9.7 cm; 3.5 x 3.8 inches

For the 600 dpi image
Resolution: 600 x 600 DPI
Original size: 249 x 276 Pixels
Current size: 249 x 276 Pixels
Print size (from DPI) 1.1 x 1.2 cm; 0.4 x 0.5 inches

Nothing new here. I have a book "Photoshop for Windows and MacIntosh" by Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas, and their description about pixels (Chapter 4, Pixel Basics) is exactly as coalman (or just-stuart) laid it out.
But still, my MSWord somehow does not accept 72 dpi.
I did change the monitor settings from 800x600 up to 1280 wide and it does not make any difference.
(thanks for the suggestion to email the image, but since I no longer care about incorporating images into Word, this issue with Word is no longer relevant to me)
Thx: walter

[blinky88]

Hi coalman, I just tried to paste a 6" x 4" colour Jpg image from Photoshop into Word & Excel at various resolutions and found I was not able to paste at resolutions in access of 150 DPI, I could at 72 to 150DPI but not at 200 ???

[Midzuki]

General advice: forget Winword.
Create decently-coded .HTMLs and save as .PDFs level 1.3 8)

[jagabo]

I hate PDF.

[Midzuki]

PDFs are not that bad, as long as they've been decently-authored,
and as long as one does not use the overbloated Adobe Reader.
.MHTs could be a valid option, but AFAIK only Windows Explorer has
native support for them; .HTML files with base64~embedded images
are very interesting too, however Internet Exploder does not know
how to interpret them.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Hi coalman, Nice of you to point that out, I stand corrected .... however, Windows is written to display at 96DPI and Monitors display at 72DPI. Mac OS is written at 72DPI, so what you see onscreen is what you print whereas Windows is not WYSYG. Whenever I paste an image into any application on my PC I do so at 96DPI.

Sorry, but that sounds like gibberish. Firstly, what a monitor displays in terms of pixels per unit length depends upon the size of the monitor.

Word is WYSIWYG - I've never had a problem with images in Word not printing like they should. And that's every version of Word from 2.0 to 2003. How many "dpi" are used to display the document on screen depends on the magnification level.

To prove the point, I created a 1" x 1" x 72dpi red square in Paint Shop Pro and saved it as a JPEG file (72 x 72 pixels, obviously). I imported it into Word. As you can see from this image, it is correctly sized (the rulers show it) and it is being displayed at 500% zoom.

[thecoalman]

The thing to understand about Johhny's example is Word is scaling the image to the paper size according to the DPI, monitor size and and the pixel size of the image are irrelevant. If you did this with the images I posted The first one would be approximately 3 inches wide, the second would be about 1/2 inch wide.

I'm not all that familair with word but another thought has occured to me, is their a setting in word to adjust how the DPI of an image is handled?

however, Windows is written to display at 96DPI and Monitors display at 72DPI. Mac OS is written at 72DPI,

I've seen this setting in my my monitors display setting and frankly I don't see how it correlates to monitor settings. If your monitor is 1600x1200 and you are using a display of 1600x1200 and the physical size is 8 inches across you'd have 200DPI . If the monitor was 16 inches wide it would be 100DPI ... if you changed the resolution..... see where I'm going.

However...If you right click on your desktop then select properties>settings>advanced>general you'll find a setting for the DPI, according to the little snippet of text you can adjust the "DPI" if you are using a larger monitor resolution to increase the font size. What baffles me first is DPI is relationship to inches so for this setting to be effective it would have to calculate both the the physical width of your display and the resolution you are using. I can only assume that it also does this in relationship to the font size you have selected... There's often a lot of confusion to DPI and all the different ways its applied through various companies doesn't help.

Hi coalman, I just tried to paste a 6" x 4" colour Jpg image from Photoshop into Word & Excel at various resolutions and found I was not able to paste at resolutions in access of 150 DPI, I could at 72 to 150DPI but not at 200

I've had no trouble in the past pasting different size resolutions in Word.

If you really want to avoid confusion simply work with pixel sizes in the digital realm, if and when you need to scale an image for printing resample your images in inches and set the DPI.