Pictures not showing in Word 2013, no problem with same file in word 2010

Anonymous
2014-12-19T21:17:04+00:00

I have a large word file with numerous pictures inserted as TIFF files. In Word 2010, the pictures are all visible on screen and when I print them. However, when opening the same file (saved as docx or doc - I've tried both) in Word 2013 not all pictures are visible and they don't convert to pdf or print out either. It varies between which ones are and which aren't so I don't think its a problem with the pictures themselves. The pictures come up as either blank white boxes or with a little red cross and the statement 'error picture cannot be displayed'.

All files are less than half a page and therefore shouldn't be affected by the error involving multipage TIFF files that I've seen mentioned.

I've formatted them as 'tight', however I've tried the other options and this doesn't appear to change anything. 

I've also been through the advanced settings options and deselected 'show pictures as placeholders'.

I'm not sure what else to do - I've tried playing around with all sorts including changing privacy options within the trust center. Any advice would be very much appreciated - I wish I'd just stuck with Word 2010!

Many thanks

Hannah

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-08-01T14:54:29+00:00

    Thank you to Timothy Parker, Joshua Rinas and Gary Balance, all of whom have described the problem I am also encountering.

    Over the past 20+ years I have put together some 70 chapters of family history, illustrated with scans of census records, portraits, etc. Some files are a few KB in size and some are as big as 5MB, some written first on Word in Works then upgraded to successive versions of MS Word. This represents thousands of hours of research on the internet, in libraries and from oral sources. I will be furious and gutted if major parts of this are lost.

    Timothy Parker has switched to InDesign, and Stefan Blom advocates Word for Mac  2016. These may be work-rounds, but expensive ones. Nor are they solutions to what is clearly a defect in MS Word 2013 and apparently replicated in the 2016 version. Microsoft charge heavily for their Office products and packages and recurrently claim to 'improve' them. All we ask is that a picture inserted into a MS Word file is reliably saved there and can reliably be recovered, displayed and printed.

    How do we get MS to fix Office 2013 and subsequent versions to ensure they actually work as well as earlier versions used to?

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-02T11:09:07+00:00

    This thread has gone quiet, but it seems that is because attention was diverted to Word for Mac, and not because anyone fixed the problem.

    A further thought: is this a problem with the dreaded Windows 10, rather than with Word? Has anyone evidence to check on this? I use Widows 10 plus Word on my PC and have the problem. On my laptop I have the earlier Windows and not problem with the same files.

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  3. Stefan Blom 353.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2016-08-02T12:20:34+00:00

    Timothy Parker has switched to InDesign, and Stefan Blom advocates Word for Mac  2016.

    Your conclusion is incorrect. I have never "advocated" MacWord as a solution to problems you may experience in WinWord.

    I did suggest that anyone who has questions on MacWord should ask that question in the MacWord forum.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-02T13:31:24+00:00

    Stefan: Apologies for the incorrect conclusion. But I'm still stuck for a solution to the problem - do you have one please?

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  5. Stefan Blom 353.5K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2016-08-02T17:53:55+00:00

    Personally, I haven't encountered any picture display/printout issue in Word that cannot be corrected using either http://wordfaqs.mvps.org/InvisibleGraphics.htm or http://wordfaqs.mvps.org/RedX.htm. Of course, the fact that it works for me doesn't prove anything; there may be a bug that I haven't noticed (because of specific combinations of hardware, software and operating system).

    You could try disabling hardware acceleration in Word but you should also post a description of the problem in the Uservoice forum at http://word.uservoice.com. Be sure to include the specifics (operating system, release number for Office etc.).

    In the meantime, I'll ask the Office team, via MVP channels, and see what (if anything) I can find out.

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