Microsoft Professional Plus 2021

I am having a vexing problem with Word. It seems to be a frequent issue with many users. The dreaded Grey Box is appearing behind some of my jpgs. Sometimes they disappear if I minimize the screen and bring it back. But more often, the grey box just stays there. I can move the image away from the gray box, but the box has no way to move or delete. Sometimes all is going well and all I do is to click on an image and several images get the Gray Box.

I am sending an image of the page of my latest. The huge Gray Box is from an image that was oversize. When I tried to drag to resize, the Box appeared. Minimized the page, and it was ok. Inserting the next image, made it come back. And more images turned gray from the Box.

Is there a way to stop this from happening? Thanks for any help. Kim

Hi, Kim. I have never actually seen that before.

I’ll open up my Office 2021 today and see if I can replicate it to find a solution.

Hi again, Kim.

I can see it if I try to adjust the image wrapping.

When I insert an image, I right click on an image and select "Wrap Text" The boxes show for me. But only briefly.
I then select "Behind text" which gives me free reign to move the image precisely to any part of the page I like.
Alignment lines should show to assist you in aligning images.
This is a habit I have always had with inserting images into a Word document.

You can make this a permanent action by doing the following

Go to:

File>Options>Advanced
Scroll down to the "Cut, Copy and Paste" section
In the drop down box next to "Insert/Paste Pictures As"
Select "Behind Text"

Of course this can be changed for an individual image at any time by again right clicking on an image and changing the wrap property for any individual images.

I believe the grey boxes might be related to field codes used for formatting or displaying dynamic content, like tables of contents. I am not 100% certain what they are. The reason may be different for different actions taken in Word.


I am not sure if this will help you. But I am fairly certain that these boxes wont show in the resulting saved document.

antspants said:

Hi again, Kim.

I can see it if I try to adjust the image wrapping.

When I insert an image, I right click on an image and select "Wrap Text"
I then select "Behind text" which gives me free reign to move the image precisely to any part of the page I like.
Alignment lines should show to assist you in aligning images.
This is a habit I have always had with inserting images into a Word document.

On my way. Right now, the default seems to be "inline". Which is a pain as the image can't be moved to center. I have been using "square" so behind text seems interesting. Anxious to try it.

Click to expand...

Thanks
Kim

Kim Parker said:

Thanks
Kim

Click to expand...

See how you go, Kim. Let us know.

antspants said:

See how you go, Kim. Let us know.

Click to expand...

I tried a couple images in that same Word file, using behind text. So far, no problems. I had an usual experience even before I sent my sample image in. It had the gray boxes, and I was trying everything. I clicked on one of the images with a gray box and then clicked on the top menu Picture Format. When I hovered over (but not clicked) the "simple frame, white" all the gray boxes disappeared. Even after I moved the mouse away from the cloud icon, the gray boxes were still disappeared. But after awhile that didn't work anymore. They still went away when I hovered over the cloud icon but started coming back after I moused out. Strangest thing I ever saw.
Thank you for the tip on behind text. And I appreciate the tip on making behind text the default. At least I can start working in Word, again.
Kim

Yes it’s certainly weird, if not an annoying behaviour

Was that a new document?
How did you insert the image? Did you use the Insert menu?

Also. You might be better off putting the images in a table, then using "In Line with Text" text wrapping.