How to get images to display in draft layout?

I do not work for nor speak for Microsoft. Their programming decisions are their own and the new means of displaying graphics does not allow them to be displayed in draft mode. It was their design choice.

Why not work in Print Layout mode? That will show graphics. Frankly there is little justification for working in draft mode with modern PC hardware.

Really? If there is little justification for working in draft layout, then why is it provided?

I work in draft layout because it is more compact. It has nothing whatsoever to do with hardware.

Like you, I deplore the reduction in utility of Draft view in Word 2007 and above compared to Normal view in Word 2003 and earlier. One of my earliest unpleasant surprises was to find that Draft view doesn't reflect the application of character spacing (Condensed) to text. It just isn't as WYSIWYG as Normal view.

That said, you can get a lot of the advantages of Draft/Normal view by using Print Layout view with white space hidden. This gives you the same continuous text stream (without interruption by headers, footers, and page breaks) that you get in Draft view, but you retain the WYSIWYGness of Print Layout view. Since, even in earlier versions, you can't actually place wrapped graphics accurately in Normal view, using Print Layout is ultimately more efficient, anyway.

Like you, I deplore the reduction in utility of Draft view in Word 2007 and above compared to Normal view in Word 2003 and earlier. One of my earliest unpleasant surprises was to find that Draft view doesn't reflect the application of character spacing (Condensed) to text. It just isn't as WYSIWYG as Normal view.

 

That said, you can get a lot of the advantages of Draft/Normal view by using Print Layout view with white space hidden. This gives you the same continuous text stream (without interruption by headers, footers, and page breaks) that you get in Draft view, but you retain the WYSIWYGness of Print Layout view. Since, even in earlier versions, you can't actually place wrapped graphics accurately in Normal view, using Print Layout is ultimately more efficient, anyway.

OK, I'll give it a try. And I still have my little trick of pasting images from Visio. Although, now that I've brought it to their attention, they'll probably plug that hole.

When you say "white space hidden", do you mean something more than just double-clicking in the page gap to hide the headers & footers?

There used to be a "mode" in page view that would suppress the left and right margins, too. They seem to have taken that away as well.

Clearly we aren't going to change Microsoft. It took IBM 40-50 years to become fully ossified. Microsoft has done it in less than half that time. So I guess it is still good at something. ;-) We may be saved by pressure from OpenOffice.

Why don't you use OpenOffice?

PS: I just did a little test to see how much more screen real estate page view uses as compared with draft view. On my laptop screen, a document in draft view at 100% zoom is 202 mm wide. That same document in page view at 100% zoom, is 233 mm wide. That's 15% more space.

There are other advantages to draft view, or what is called galley mode in the printing industry. For one thing, it's easier to see the order of lists and tables in multi-column pages.

I don't know if M$FT is trying to kill draft view or just doesn't give a damn (or both).