Technology

How to Hide Images in Word: Surprisingly Easy but Everyone can Do It

Finding a way to hide images in Microsoft Word can make reading and editing documents much easier by removing distractions. If you're wondering how to hide images in Word, look no further. FPT Shop has got you covered with this informative article on hiding images in Word. Read on to discover the simple steps to hide images in your Word documents.

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29 November, 2023

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What is the purpose of hiding images in Word?

Unlike hiding data for privacy protection on a computer, hiding images in Word in this case is used not to protect private images but to:

Speed up the loading of text content by not having to load the full images, especially for Word documents with lots of pages and embedded images.
When hiding images in Word, it also helps users focus more on the displayed text content for reading without being distracted by other content.
In the case of Word documents with many pages, hiding images in Word also helps users focus more on checking and editing the document content.
Check, differentiate, and edit the text content at places where images are inserted.

How to hide images in Word

Using the picture placeholder feature in Word will help you speed up the display of the document. If you have a Word document containing many heavy graphic images, this can slow down Word. Picture placeholders do not delete all images from the document. By hiding images in Word, you simply temporarily hide the images so that your document can display faster.

Step 1: Open the Word file with the image you want to hide in Word.

Step 2: Click on the Office icon at the top left corner, from the drop-down menu select Word Options for Word 2007.

For Word 2010/2013/2016, access the File menu on the ribbon toolbar at the top left corner. From the drop-down menu, select Options at the bottom of the left sidebar. You can also use the shortcut Alt + F.

Step 3: From the displayed Word Options dialog box, click on Advanced in the left sidebar (for both Word 2007/2010/2013/2016).

In the left sidebar, scroll down to the Show document content feature group, click on Show picture placeholders.

Step 4: Click the OK button to close the Word Options dialog box and save the settings, then return to your document editing window. All images in your document will be replaced by a white placeholder.

Sometimes you need to insert images in Word to make the document content more explicit. Conversely, there are times when you just want to scroll and read the text quickly without accompanying images, because if multiple images load, it can slow down the text display process. In this case, you use the feature Show picture placeholders to hide images in Word, which will significantly speed up the display of the document.

How to unhide images in Word

After you have learned how to hide images in Word to speed up the loading of the document, if necessary, you want to unhide images in Word, follow these steps:

Step 1: Open the Word file with the image you want to unhide in Word.

Step 2: Click on the Office icon at the top left corner, from the drop-down menu select Word Options for Word 2007.

Step 3: In the displayed Word Options dialog box, click on Advanced in the left sidebar (for both Word 2007/2010/2013/2016).

Step 4: Click on the OK button to close the Word Options dialog box and save the settings. Immediately, the images in your document will be displayed again as before.

How to view hidden text in Word

If you have hidden some lines of text in a Word document, or some hidden content in Word, can you display that hidden text? And how to do it? By default, there are two options to display hidden text in Word 2016/2013/2010/2007.

Option 1. Display hidden text in Word 2016

The first method is to view hidden text from the Print settings.

Step 1: Open the Word document in Word 2016 with hidden text.

Step 2: Access the File > Print menu from the left sidebar and click on Page Setup in the right sidebar, just below the Printer settings.

Step 3: In the displayed Page Setup dialog box, click on the Paper tab, then click the Print Option… button

Step 4: In the Word Options window that appears, click on the Display option in the left sidebar. In the right sidebar, uncheck the Print hidden text option under the Printing options section.

Step 5: Click on the OK button to close the Word Options dialog box and save the changes.

Therefore, the hidden text in Word will only be displayed in the print preview window. But it is still hidden in the Word document. If you want to display the text in Word 2016, follow these steps:

Step 1: Press the shortcut Ctrl + A to select all contents in the Word document.

Step 2: Right-click on the content and select the Font… item from the drop-down menu.

Step 3: By default, the Font tab of the Font dialog box will be selected. You just need to check the Hidden option twice, uncheck this option, and click the OK button to save the changes.

Step 4: Now you can review all the hidden content displayed in your Word document.

Option 2: Display hidden text in Word 2013/2010/2007

Step 1: By accessing the File > Options menu for Word 2013/2010. For Word 2007, click on the Office icon at the top left corner and select the Word Options option from the drop-down menu in the right sidebar.

Step 2: Click on the Display option in the displayed Word Options dialog box, then in the right sidebar, uncheck the Hidden text option under the Always show these formatting marks on the screen section.

Step 3: Click on the OK button to close the Word Options dialog box and save the changes.

Conclusion

In this article, we have just explored how to hide images in Word, how to unhide images in Word, and how to view hidden text in Word, which are very simple and detailed. Hopefully, these tricks will help you speed up the loading of your documents during use, as well as easily check and edit documents without being disturbed by too many images inserted into the text. Good luck.

Frequently asked questions

To hide images in a Word document, select the image and click the ‘Format’ tab. From the ‘Arrange’ drop-down, select ‘Send Backward’ and choose ‘Send to Back’. This will hide the image behind the text. To unhide, use the same steps but choose ‘Bring Forward’ instead.

You can select multiple images by holding down the ‘Ctrl’ key while clicking on each image. Once selected, follow the same steps as above to hide them all at once.

While there is no direct way to password protect hidden images in Word, you can password protect the entire document. Go to the ‘File’ tab and select ‘Info’. Click on ‘Protect Document’ and choose ‘Encrypt with Password’. Set a strong password to ensure the document’s security.

Yes, you can. Simply use the ‘Section Break’ feature in Word to divide your document into sections. Images can then be hidden independently in each section by following the hiding process outlined earlier.

When printing a Word document, hidden images will not appear on the printed page by default. If you wish to include them, you must first unhide the images before printing. Alternatively, you can create a copy of the document with all images unhidden specifically for printing purposes.