How to Lock an Image in Microsoft Word

Keeps your layout from getting messed up

If you’ve ever struggled to keep your carefully positioned images from moving around when editing Microsoft Word documents, you’re in the right place. Images tend to move after you add text. If your image moves, it can change the whole layout of the document and ruin all your formatting.

Knowing how to lock an image in Word is a game-changer, especially when you want to maintain precise layouts,create professional-looking documents, or protect your content’s visual integrity.

1. Lock an Image in Microsoft Word with the Position Anchor Tool

The anchor tool literally anchors the image to the fixed position in the Microsoft Word file. Once anchored, the image won’t be able to move, not even if you try to move it manually. You’ll first have to remove the anchor.

Follow these steps to lock an image into the position with the anchor tool:

You’ll notice a little anchor to the bottom-left side of the picture each time you select it. It means that the image is anchored to this specific position in the Word document.

2. Lock an Image in Microsoft Word with the Watermark Feature

This method is preferred if you have an image set as the background of your document. The Watermark feature will secure it in place, and prevent you from accidentally dragging the background image around. Here’s how you can use the watermark feature in MS Word to set an image as locked background:

The selected picture will now be displayed as a locked Document background image.

3. Lock an Image in Microsoft Word with Restrict Editing Feature

If you want to protect an image so that other people who have access to your document can’t move it around, you can use theRestrict Editing feature. This will put password protection on the selected image. However, other content of the document will also be locked. That’s why you should use this feature if you intend to share your document with others, but don’t want them to make any changes.

Here’s how you can password-protect your document with Restrict Editing feature:

Make sure to remember the password you just set so you can edit this MS Word document at a later time.

4. Lock an Image in Microsoft Word with Developer Tab’s Picture Content Control Feature

The Developer tab is available in Microsoft Word versions 2010, 2013. 2016, and 2019. It’s also available on Word for Microsoft Office 365. If you don’t see it on your ribbon, perhaps you just need to set it to be displayed. Here’s how:

Now that you have the Developer tab on the Ribbon, you can proceed to use it to lock an image in your Microsoft Word document. Here’s how:

This is enough to lock the image in the fixed spot in the document.

5. Lock an Image in Microsoft Word with Header and Footer

You can use Header and Footer options in Microsoft Word documents to lock an image in place. If you do that, you need to understand that your images will be displayed at the very top or the very bottom of the page, and you won’t be able to move them around. That’s because the header is the topmost area of the page and the footer is the bottom area.

This is a good method of locking an image in place while still being able to manipulate other content as you want.

Your image will appear inside Header or Footer, depending on which one you placed your cursor in.

Close the Header and Feature by double-clicking the document page. This will allow you to continue working on your Microsoft Word file.

And that’s it! Always lock your images in Microsoft Word to prevent messing up your page layout later on. Manipulating images in Word has always been tedious, but it doesn’t have to be any longer if you apply the steps above.

Nicolae is a Jack of all trades technology writer with a focus on hardware, programming languages, and AI image-processing software. Over the last five years, he has ghostwritten numerous tech how-to guides and books on a variety of topics ranging from Linux to C# programming and game development. Nicolae loves everything that has to do with technology and his goal is to share his knowledge and experience with others.Read Nicolae’s Full Bio

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How to Lock an Image in Microsoft Word#

1. Lock an Image in Microsoft Word with the Position Anchor Tool#

2. Lock an Image in Microsoft Word with the Watermark Feature#

3. Lock an Image in Microsoft Word with Restrict Editing Feature#

4. Lock an Image in Microsoft Word with Developer Tab’s Picture Content Control Feature#

5. Lock an Image in Microsoft Word with Header and Footer#

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