Determining Picture Size in a Macro

Word keeps quite a bit of information together about the images that you insert in your documents. This information is necessary so that Word knows how to size, position, and display images. If you want to find out more information about the images in your document, then you need to know something about how Word stores the information.

Images are stored as either of two types of graphic objects: regular shapes or inline shapes. Regular shapes are those that reside on the drawing layer, as opposed to inline shapes, which reside in the text layer. Both types of objects are stored with different object collections. Regular shapes are in the Shapes collection, and inline shapes are stored in the InlineShapes collection. To access information about the objects, you just need to use a little VBA.

The following VBA macro will work in Word 2000 (or later versions) to create a document that displays the size of all the graphics objects within a document, in both points and pixels:

Sub FigureInfo()
    Dim iShapeCount As Integer
    Dim iILShapeCount As Integer
    Dim DocThis As Document
    Dim J As Integer
    Dim sTemp As String

    Set DocThis = ActiveDocument
    Documents.Add

    iShapeCount = DocThis.Shapes.Count
    If iShapeCount > 0 Then
        Selection.TypeText Text:="Regular Shapes"
        Selection.TypeParagraph
    End If
    For J = 1 To iShapeCount
        Selection.TypeText Text:=DocThis.Shapes(J).Name
        Selection.TypeParagraph
        sTemp = "     Height (points): "
        sTemp = sTemp & DocThis.Shapes(J).Height
        Selection.TypeText Text:=sTemp
        Selection.TypeParagraph
        sTemp = "     Width (points): "
        sTemp = sTemp & DocThis.Shapes(J).Width
        Selection.TypeText Text:=sTemp
        Selection.TypeParagraph
        sTemp = "     Height (pixels): "
        sTemp = sTemp & PointsToPixels(DocThis.Shapes(J).Height, True)
        Selection.TypeText Text:=sTemp
        Selection.TypeParagraph
        sTemp = "     Width (pixels): "
        sTemp = sTemp & PointsToPixels(DocThis.Shapes(J).Width, False)
        Selection.TypeText Text:=sTemp
        Selection.TypeParagraph
        Selection.TypeParagraph
    Next J

    iILShapeCount = DocThis.InlineShapes.Count
    If iILShapeCount > 0 Then
        Selection.TypeText Text:="Inline Shapes"
        Selection.TypeParagraph
    End If
    For J = 1 To iILShapeCount
        Selection.TypeText Text:="Shape " & J
        Selection.TypeParagraph
        sTemp = "     Height (points): "
        sTemp = sTemp & DocThis.InlineShapes(J).Height
        Selection.TypeText Text:=sTemp
        Selection.TypeParagraph
        sTemp = "     Width (points): "
        sTemp = sTemp & DocThis.InlineShapes(J).Width
        Selection.TypeText Text:=sTemp
        Selection.TypeParagraph
        sTemp = "     Height (pixels): "
        sTemp = sTemp & PointsToPixels(DocThis.InlineShapes(J).Height, True)
        Selection.TypeText Text:=sTemp
        Selection.TypeParagraph
        sTemp = "     Width (pixels): "
        sTemp = sTemp & PointsToPixels(DocThis.InlineShapes(J).Width, False)
        Selection.TypeText Text:=sTemp
        Selection.TypeParagraph
        Selection.TypeParagraph
    Next J
End Sub

This macro doesn't work in Word 97 because Word 97 does not recognize the PointsToPixels statement. If you remove the lines that use this statement (or create your own PointsToPixels function), then the macro will work just fine under Word 97.

Note that the macro returns the names of regular shapes, but not the names of inline shapes. The reason for this is that Word doesn't maintain the names of inline shapes. When you insert a regular shape in your document (again, on the drawing layer), then Word assigns a name to the shape, such as Rectangle 2 or Oval 3.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1497) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Determining Picture Size in a Macro.