The horizontal alignment of a picture changes in a Word 2000 document when you view the document in Word 97

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This article was previously published under Q220480

For a Microsoft Word 2002 version of this article, see 273986 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/273986/EN-US/ ) .

SYMPTOMS

When you open a Word 2000 document in an earlier version of Microsoft Word, and the following conditions are all true:

In Word 2000, you inserted a picture into the document.
In Word 2000, you set the Wrapping style of the picture to any selection other than In line with text (on the Format menu, click Picture and then click to select the Layout tab).
In Word 2000, you set the Horizontal alignment of the picture (on the Format menu, click Picture and then click to select the Layout tab).

The horizontal alignment of the picture in the earlier version of Word may change from the alignment as set in Word 2000.

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This behavior occurs because of a change in the way Word 2000 handles horizontal alignment positioning with floating image objects such as a picture.

For example, if you have an image at horizontal position "x", and then you set the horizontal alignment for the image to be right-aligned, Word 2000 adds an offset to "x" to align the object as you want it. Word 2000 calculates the value for the alignment so that "x" + the offset equals the right-aligned position.

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Image in Word 2000:

                                                       --------
                                                      |        |
x ->|------------------Offset------------------------>|        |
                                                      |        |
                                                       --------

Because earlier versions of Word do not understand the new offset value, when you open a Word 2000 document in an earlier version of Word, the original horizontal position value "x" is where the image appears.

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Image in Word 97:

     --------
    |        |
x ->|        |
    |        |
     --------

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WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, you can first position the picture to the approximate horizontal alignment you want by clicking and dragging the picture. Then you can set the picture's horizontal alignment, using the Format Picture dialog box.

To format the horizontal alignment of a picture:

Click to select the picture.
On the Format menu, click Picture.
On the Layout tab, click to select the Horizontal Alignment you want to use.

NOTE: After performing the steps above, when you open the document in earlier versions of Word, the horizontal alignment is close to, but does not match exactly, the settings as viewed in Word 2000.

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