How to fix images not displaying in Microsoft Word 2007
Recently I’ve been hit by a bug (or what I thought was a bug) in Microsoft Word 2007: images embedded in the document did not display in any mode other than “Full Screen Reading”. And since the editing ribbons are not available in that mode, it’s hard to get work done. This all started when Word crashed on me one time; ever since then, images simply haven’t been displaying correctly. I get a border where the image should be and white space inside. But when I send the file to other people and they open it, they can view the images just fine. I can even add images to documents; I just can’t see them.
So I performed a Google search on this issue, but the only relevant “solution” was behind a paywall over at ExpertSexchange. After a few minutes of trying to figure it out on my own, I stumbled upon the solution, and to save everyone from the hell that is ExpertSexchange, here it is:
Click the Office Button (it’s in the upper left corner of Word), select “Word Options”, select “Advanced” in the left pane, scroll down to the “Show document content” subsection, and uncheck the “Show picture placeholders” option. Yes, it’s that simple. Somehow, when Word crashes, this option can get turned on all by itself. It’s really annoying because there’s no clue that Word is intentionally hiding images from you; it just feels like a bug. And the reason for this insane option?
That’s right, it’s for performance. And it improves performance only at the expense of severely crippling usability. You’d think this option should never be able to get turned on accidentally, yet there it is. At least you know the solution now.
June 26th, 2008 at 20:23
“Improve scrolling performance?”
What year is it, again?
June 26th, 2008 at 21:56
It makes me wonder what the minimum specs Office 2007 supports are. I’m guessing they’re low low low. You would have to think that a better solution would be to hide the images only when they’re scrolling? Then, if the user has scrolled to a new page that has images on it, have a timeout of a second or so before the images are rendered for display.
I’m guessing this would solve the problem a lot more nicely.
June 26th, 2008 at 23:54
I’ve used Word ‘07 on some computers that were pretty much unusable if you were working on a document with pictures. I’m glad it’s there, though I didn’t know it was, I’ll definitely use it in the future.
June 27th, 2008 at 01:30
Is it just me or is there GIGANTIC whitespace desert in this post?
June 27th, 2008 at 01:40
T2A`: Alas, that’s an interaction between the floating sidebar and the wide image. If you increase your browser window’s width so that the image can fit alongside the sidebar, the “desert” will disappear. It’s a problem with this WordPress theme I’m using. I just have to be careful of not using images that are too wide to fit in typical resolutions readers will encounter.
June 27th, 2008 at 13:41
Hmm. I run Firefox in a window that’s about 1024×768 + 50px in each direction and it still doesn’t fit. I checked in Firebug and apparently the margin on the sidebar just barely overlaps with the image. D:
At some point I realized I didn’t enjoy browsing at 1680×1050 so I don’t do it anymore. Too much eye movement required, tbh.
June 28th, 2008 at 00:59
I hear what you’re saying about the horizontal eye movement. That bugs me too. Reading in narrower lines allows for faster reading, which is why newspapers are the way they are. I’m just not willing to go for such a radical departure from web convention, and I find that having a wider browser window is ultimately a bigger pro than wide text is a con.
June 28th, 2008 at 03:29
It’s not just the size, but on sites like this there’s just sooo much white that my brains start hurting. It all adds to the eye strain, and I’ve found a smaller browser window works wonders for it.
I guess my point is you should use thumbnail’d images so you don’t alienate the 1024×768 crowd. :P
August 5th, 2008 at 09:18
I had been experiencing severe problems working on Word 97-2003 files sent to me because embedded picures would not display in my Word 2007. Your straightfoward explanation of the fix, by simply unchecking the ’show picture placeholders’ box, has really saved the day for me. Brilliant and thanks.
August 6th, 2008 at 05:22
Ha! I’d actually been wondering if anybody else didn’t like really wide lines, either. Good to know there are others. I keep my blog at about 750 pixels wide, with an extra 200 pixels of sidebar.
August 6th, 2008 at 21:35
Thank you for your solution. You’re saving my life. :)
August 15th, 2008 at 03:13
Many thanks. Needed to finish a document rapidly and then this insane function kicks in. I knew it would be a simple fix, but I find the new Word ribbons deeply un-intuitive and why the ‘Word Options’ hidden in such an obscure location. It’s like bloody Cluedo.
September 13th, 2008 at 17:32
I would sure like to know exactly what enabled this option. It wasn’t like this until recently. Thanks for the tip, I was beginning to get annoyed…
October 4th, 2008 at 03:56
Really usefull tip for just a simple fix which was difficult for me to find a few hours now.. thank you very muuuuuuch :) :) :)
October 6th, 2008 at 15:10
Oh for goodness sake. Thank you so much! It was driving me crazy trying to fix it for my boss.
November 24th, 2008 at 08:28
I’ve just had a strange problem where not just images but all elements are appearing as code, i.e. table of contents are replace by { TOC … } , hyperlinks are replaced by {HYPERLINK … }, images are { EMBED … } and {PAGE } etc. This is happening on all edit modes *exept* Full screen reading. This affects all my documents (*.doc;*docx). Fortunately this mode has an edit option so I should be able to rescue the situation.
November 24th, 2008 at 08:38
Found the answer to my problem. Word Options —> Advanced
“Show document content” section.
Untick show field codes
Untick show picture placeholders.
I think the wrong settings came in when I merged changes from an emailed document, maybe?
December 7th, 2008 at 05:40
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December 26th, 2008 at 13:05
I am running Word 2002 and had the very same problem which this solution fixed!! The only difference is the location of “picture placeholders” is under Tools/Options/View. Thanks!
Johnny B – should fix your problem with the embedded code displaying instead of the real text. Good luck!
December 31st, 2008 at 19:16
Excellent! clear concise and it works! I hate the new ‘improved’ version of office.
January 4th, 2009 at 09:26
Oh my god!
Had this bug, was driving me mental. Took me all weekend to do a couple of easy changes in a doc.
YOU are an angel , man!
Cheers for this!
January 5th, 2009 at 12:36
thanks, worked for me :)
January 7th, 2009 at 09:25
Thanks very much for this. Same happened to me a couple of weeks ago, couldn’t work out why, and it’s been driving me mad.
January 19th, 2009 at 10:22
Thanks, this has been driving me nuts in Word 2003 for the last few weeks. Lifesaver!!
January 23rd, 2009 at 13:06
Thank you so much for posting this – I’ve tried for months to resolve this problem!
January 28th, 2009 at 11:08
Worked like a charm.. Thanks for the great fix!
February 13th, 2009 at 02:36
Thanks so much. Like everyone else I have been trying to solve this problem for a while.
March 3rd, 2009 at 14:36
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 9th, 2009 at 20:18
Gods bless you! :)
March 10th, 2009 at 12:31
Thank you! have been grappling with this recurring problem for months! Such a simple fix for a problem that really shouldn’t exist.
March 15th, 2009 at 00:16
Thank you.
March 22nd, 2009 at 13:16
I can not thank you enough. It have am working on a 100 plus page word document that just when white.
It would have been a nightmare if i had not found your solution!.. Many , many thanks
March 26th, 2009 at 17:24
Thanks a lot! Saved me a lot of trouble!
March 27th, 2009 at 22:25
THANK YOU VERY MUCH. IT WORKS. I’VE TRIED TO FIND THE SETTING THAT LEFT PICTURES VACANT FOR 18 MONTHS.
April 2nd, 2009 at 01:19
This is really awesome i searched in net a lot but only this site was helpful in fixing this problem….Appreciate it
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:38
I have done several searches over several months on and off to find a solution. Finally, that was so annoying.
thank you thank you thank you
April 2nd, 2009 at 12:33
I have a form of stationery in the .docx file, when i go to print i do not print the header or footer, where are the company logo and addresses and other elements of the company, can help me make print all of these elements please
April 4th, 2009 at 21:37
dude.. thanks ALOT.
here i was thinking id have to hand in my thesis on a laptop with full screen reading mode..
April 19th, 2009 at 18:42
Out of NOWHERE, when I copy an image from the Internet, I can not longer see them. I see a “box” around where the image should be. I tried reloading Word. It didn’t help. I have XP Dell, 2007 Word. Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks much.
April 29th, 2009 at 04:17
thank you, thank you! this has been driving me mad!
May 19th, 2009 at 06:39
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May 26th, 2009 at 11:37
Never woulda thought in a million years…
Thanks for that!
June 21st, 2009 at 18:01
I just had to thank you, because this stupid “error”, bug or whatever gave me a good scare.
If you where here I would pay you a beer… thank you so mutch…
Bruno
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:07
Thank you so much for this post! Had a bunch of guys all staring at my screen trying to figure out what was wrong cause yesterday it was ok and today its bust! so relieved!!
*shakes fist at microsoft*
June 29th, 2009 at 12:05
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
June 29th, 2009 at 17:21
Thank you soooo much xD. I knew it was as simple as that and, of course, I couldn’t find the solution.
Best regards ^_^.
July 9th, 2009 at 05:30
What a legend! If you ever feel the inclination to publish such an simple solution to such a debilitating problem, do so – your solution helped so much! (after a very long time of not being able to see the images)
July 14th, 2009 at 04:04
thank you, at last the solution for that .. :)
its been making me crazy for days now..
10x
July 16th, 2009 at 09:16
Thank you very very much. It was making me crazy and I couldn’t find a solution for a long time. Thanks again. Cheers.
August 14th, 2009 at 03:45
Thanks very much, easy but you needed to find it, otherwise you think there is a bug somewhere.
August 17th, 2009 at 18:09
Thank you for taking the time to publish this solution – I’ve been knocking my head against a wall for too long on this!
August 23rd, 2009 at 06:25
Thanks man for finding time to share this remedy! Big help!
August 26th, 2009 at 01:03
Ah, the wonders of the Internet. Here it is over a year since the fix was posted and it’s still improving the lives of confused souls like me. Wonderful! And many thanks.
September 2nd, 2009 at 04:15
Thanks so much for this. Word 2007 was beginning to stress me out, but I can feel my blood pressure returning to normal levels now! :-)
September 10th, 2009 at 04:25
You made my day :)
September 13th, 2009 at 22:24
Thank you a lots , u really solved my problem. amazing!!!
September 16th, 2009 at 04:12
I accidentally clicked on this check box and saw a dumb whitespace in place of embedded pics ever since…. till I came across this nice post. Many thanx dear mate. May ur tribe increase.
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:26
Thanks very much. It was driving me round the bend. I also had another symptom of the crash – dotted boxes around my text which I couldn’t get rid of. It is in the same bunch of options. “show text boundaries”. Again just uncheck it. Now I’m back to normal.
September 26th, 2009 at 14:45
Oh my gosh, I am SO glad I found your simple fix. Like Kevin (previous poster) I had other symptoms show up too — all of which absolutely drove me crazy, all of which showed up for no discernible reason, and none of which were addressed in any of the Microsoft “help” items. This has been driving me crazy for weeks. Now I’ll have to find something else to use as an excuse for being crazy! Thank you.
October 4th, 2009 at 05:14
Thanks from Bulgaria!!! :)
I have searched in Google for the solution of this problem (tried several explanations of the problem) – but couldn’t find out how to solve this issue, until I came upon here! Thank you again! Now I can go on working on my diploma project! :)))
October 5th, 2009 at 15:16
Well, this didn’t work for me.
Neither did these suggestions from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918788
It looks like it might be my crappy on-board video “card”. *sniff* I’ll tell you, they expect a lot around here. Expecting us to actually be productive on these 5yo PCs is like expecting a carpenter to pound nails with a rock.
I did like your ExpertSexchange joke, though. I don’t pay for their answers either. Hmmm, they have a hymen…HYPHEN….in their name now….I seem to recall a few years ago it was actually http://www.expertsexchange.com.
October 5th, 2009 at 15:19
gaaak- i just wasted my valuable time typing in a response and then got your unfuckingreadable confirmation graphic, THEN on subsequent tries NO graphic. Stop wasting my time!!!!!
October 9th, 2009 at 22:03
Me too – I searched Google for the following terms ”ms word 2007 stop displaying images”, “ms word 2007 disable image printing”, “ms word 2007 print text only”, “ms word 2007 don’t print images”, “ms word 2007 turn off image printing” in a vain hope that I could find it. I guess that’s one hour of my life that I’ll never get back – how does a major software powerhouse let stuff like this slip through – it seems such an obvious one.
Hopefully, by including my search terms in this comment, somebody else will find it and not have to go through the frustration I went through.
Thanks very much for your information – helped me to solve it.
Regards,
Liam.
October 10th, 2009 at 12:03
THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH, JOHNY B!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 13th, 2009 at 16:30
Thanks!
October 15th, 2009 at 16:23
For me the option “Show drawings and text boxes” was the culprit.
Thanks for the tip.
October 15th, 2009 at 19:30
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! Now why is it that none of those dopes at Microsoft, nor their so-called “Knowledge Base”, nor any of their so-called “Help” sites know anything about this?
October 18th, 2009 at 20:14
THANK YOU! I had this problem after Word 2003 crashed on me. I called tech support and they said I had to pay $49 to get the problem resolved. You saved me money I didn’t have!!!
October 19th, 2009 at 09:45
THANK YOU!!!!! I don’t know what I will do without people like you, publishing solutions.
so grateful.
God bless
Su
October 21st, 2009 at 20:34
Thanks!
October 23rd, 2009 at 09:04
Thank you very much!
BR
Sasa
October 26th, 2009 at 10:50
Thank you, worked well!
November 7th, 2009 at 12:12
Thank you so much for posting this! I have been so frustrated with Windows 2007 – it seems like one thing after another and none of the Microsoft help is of any use!
November 16th, 2009 at 03:39
Thank you very much.
November 24th, 2009 at 05:47
Thank you so much…. I didn’t even think it as a bug, I was about to reinstall the whole thing Again!!!…
Thank you again :)
November 24th, 2009 at 05:49
Thank you so much… I was about to reinstall the whole thing Again!!!
Thank you again :)
November 30th, 2009 at 10:36
Hey man
Thanks a lot for your time and concern, it was really a pain in the ass, especially that I had the same problem on my desktop, with Office 2003, and also I could not solve the problem, and when the people ask me why the images does not show, I claim to them that I did it on purpose to make the computer faster, but I have a big big laptop, but still I say the same thing. Thanks for saving me from embarrassment.
Salam
November 30th, 2009 at 17:09
Thank you so much bro..
that was of great help :)
December 3rd, 2009 at 17:12
AMAZING! THANKS. THIS WAS THE FIX.
December 5th, 2009 at 18:36
excellent work! did just the trick
December 7th, 2009 at 17:26
Thanks mate, was looking for the solution for over 2 weeks now. Thanks!
December 15th, 2009 at 18:55
I was really hoping this would solve my image display problem, but when I looked at the show picture placeholders it was already unchecked. Any other thoughts about why I get a little red x instead of my .bmp logo image in the header of my document?
December 17th, 2009 at 19:22
ymmd, thx! <3
December 19th, 2009 at 07:47
Thank you, it works
December 23rd, 2009 at 09:28
Thank u very much..
I was very disturbed by this problem. Thank u for the solution….
January 11th, 2010 at 23:16
this is very helpful.thats a lot for the solution.it has saved many stress
January 13th, 2010 at 10:51
You sir are a scholar and a gentleman !!! Thank you soooo much for this solution. I have been living with this issue for a while due to the fact that it just wasnt important enough for me to research. It finally annoyed me enough to do a second google search and BINGO !!! … again Thanks !!
January 13th, 2010 at 10:53
strike that, reverse it … Gentleman and a scholar !!!
January 21st, 2010 at 09:40
Wow, am I grateful! You just about saved my life – was about to go crazy needing to solve the problem fasst and not finding the solution anywhere, and then it was so simple! I have a deadline to keep, and after my computer got up and running after a crash, the time I have for the job is very limited – and then I couldn’t see the equations I needed to write in the text, only those blank boxes…. It was killing me! Thank you so much for being so generous that you save the rest of us poor souls lost in Microsoft-world! You’re great! :-)
January 24th, 2010 at 14:35
Microsoft word has been giving me fits for years with links to images.
I have a very large document with my family history in it and I insert links to hundreds of pictures by using the insert picture, from file, insert link to picture feature.
If I ever copy the directory to another computer or to a different drive, I find all the links broken. I toggle field codes to see what is wrong with the field code and the field code looks perfectly valid. The directory path and image file name is fine but I still see the rectangle with the broken link icon. The only way I have found to recover is to delete the link and re-insert the image which takes hours every time this happens.
Also, when I insert new images, it often inserts a path that is incredibly long such as ..\documents and settings\..\user\..\..\..\tmr\…
Is there another document editor out there that doesn’t have all these problems?
January 28th, 2010 at 22:11
Thank you for the information!!! I’ve no idea why this option was turned on suddenly. I’ve tried restarting MS Word again and again, restarted my computer, and bugged office MIS one whole day.
I’m short of re-installing the whole MS Office system. Your solution saved me!!
February 3rd, 2010 at 00:27
The solution worked and was to the point. Thanks very much.
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:11
Thank you for this. I was working on a 140 page doc when it crashed and thought I had lost them for good!
February 8th, 2010 at 08:28
Yup … it turned out to be genuinely that simple! Thanks.
February 12th, 2010 at 05:35
Thanks a lot……..
February 16th, 2010 at 07:39
Hello Sir,
Please help me out as well with two problems I am facing with MS Word 2007 documents.
1. When I write some text (English font), it appears perfect but when I print it, there are only special characters like !”#$%’() in the printout. I do not get any text.
2. And, second is the problem similar to what you have discussed above. I am not able to see any figure I add, but in full screen view, it is there. However, when I followed the steps, you mentioned, I found that “Show pictureplaceholder” was already unchecked in my case!
I would be very grateful if you could tell my some way out!
Thanks in advance!
February 16th, 2010 at 12:04
Thank You SO much!
February 18th, 2010 at 15:40
Argh!!!!! I have a similar problem, but my images will not display in outline mode only, fine in all other modes… !@#$%*
Jacob
February 19th, 2010 at 02:29
That was a real solution. Me also feel that this option is for better performance. But this is very annoying.. May be a bug…
Any way I have reported this is Microsoft forum… and waiting for the responses
March 8th, 2010 at 06:31
It is really a great help you did by posting this details. it saved me hell lot of time, one of my document to Client had got spoiled because of this issue, now i got back all the details.
thanks a lot for this posting and it really made a big difference.
thanks again,
Kanchana
March 8th, 2010 at 21:08
wow, this was driving me nuts on several computers! many thank ye’s good sir
March 9th, 2010 at 10:53
Thank you so much! Like you, I thought it was a bug, especially since the Picture Tools – Format ribbon doesn’t appear any more. I was getting ready to uninstall Word and re-install because I thought a major piece of functionality had been corrupted. Thanks again!