New! DevWave Picture Drop for Word

[Rose B]

DEVWAVE SOFTWARE INC. September 2007

DevWave Picture Drop is a new toolbar add-in for Microsoft Word that inserts and format images in your documents without the extra steps to format, position and resize!

Originally only available as a component of our INSPECTEXPRESS Home Inspection Software, this handy tool is now available to anyone using Microsoft Word 2000 or later.

Images can be inserted and formatted in one easy step from either the toolbar or our floating 'Quick Picture Drop' form that displays images from any directory specified. Picture Drop also lets you save your own settings for arrows, text boxes, circles and rectangles so it's even quicker to annotate your images.

Available for only $42.95 US!

Visit DevWave Picture Drop for Word to purchase and download now!

[n/a30]

It is very easy to insert a picture into a Word Document.

From the top menu just select Insert ->picture ->from file->select the file name and it comes in at the curser location.

Just right lick the image to format its justification.

Grap a corner to stretch it to the size you want and then your picture is done. So easy even a 5th grader could do it.

Good luck.

[Rose B]

Thanks for the feedback Al! For those who don't have a 5th grader with time on their hands to help complete their reports, here's a quick comparison of the steps to insert and format a picture with and without Picture Drop.

To insert a formatted and word-wrapped picture in a paragraph using Word alone - follow these steps:

1) Click on the paragraph in the Word document where you want your picture inserted.

2) Select Insert->Picture-> From File from the Word menu.

3) Browse to the folders where your pictures are located and select the picture to insert.

4) Right click the inserted picture and select 'Format Picture'

5) Click the 'layout' tab and select the wrapping style. Apply.

6) Grab the handles on the picture and resize.

7) Drag the picture to the position in the paragraph where you want it.

Select Format->Borders and Shading from the Word menu.

9) Select the line style and shading preferences and apply.

Now move to the next paragraph and repeat. Are all your final pictures the same size and aligned perfectly to the right or left and top of the paragraph?

Now with Picture Drop using the toolbar menu:

1) Click anywhere on the paragraph in the Word document where you want your picture inserted.

2) Select Insert Image->Word Wrap File Image from the toolbar.

3) Browse to the folders where your pictures are located and select the picture to insert.

Now move to the next paragraph and repeat. All pictures are the same size and aligned perfectly to the right or left and top of the paragraph with your default borders and shading applied.

Now the same with Picture Drop using the floating Quick Picture Drop form:

1) Click Insert-Image->Picture Drop Manager to open the 'Quick Picture Drop' form.

2) Ensure the form is reading from your correct picture directory.

3) Now for each picture to insert, place your cursor anywhere in the paragraph in your document and double-click the picture displayed in the form viewer.

Again, all pictures the same size and aligned perfectly to the right or left and top of the paragraph with the formatting applied.

And there is more...

Is it worth the price of admission? We'll leave that to you to decide...

Rose Balden

DevWave Software Inc.

[Jerry Simon]

Uhmmm...Mark C?

[kasterko]

Originally posted by Jerry Simon

Uhmmm...Mark C?

Jerry, are you asking Mark Cramer if this might work on IR? Did you get a response or check it out?

Thanks,

[Jerry Simon]

Originally posted by kasterko

Originally posted by Jerry Simon

Uhmmm...Mark C?

Jerry, are you asking Mark Cramer if this might work on IR? Did you get a response or check it out?

Thanks,

Hi Jim,

Mark's software already does the consistent picture formatting thingy, the consistent arrow and circle formatting thingy, and more, and his software is completely MS Word-based. Takes someone much more well-versed in Word than I am to tell one how to do the consistent picture formatting thingy, though (like Mark).

[kasterko]

Originally posted by Jerry Simon

Originally posted by kasterko

Originally posted by Jerry Simon

Uhmmm...Mark C?

Jerry, are you asking Mark Cramer if this might work on IR? Did you get a response or check it out?

Thanks,

Hi Jim,

Mark's software already does the consistent picture formatting thingy, the consistent arrow and circle formatting thingy, and more, and his software is completely MS Word-based. Takes someone much more well-versed in Word than I am to tell one how to do the consistent picture formatting thingy, though (like Mark).

Thanks Jerry,

I didn't think IR allowed a default line and circle formatting. I need to research this.

[Jerry Simon]

Thanks Jerry,

I didn't think IR allowed a default line and circle formatting. I need to research this.

It's not IR that does it, it's a Word function, and since IR is in Word...

Right click on the arrow, circle, or whatever, click on format autoshape, format to your liking, then right click again and click on format autoshape default. Then your arrow will always be a certain size or color or whatever. Just messing around for a minute and it seems like that's how you also format pictures and save the formats...right click on picture insert window, set and save defaults; picture size, layout, position, whatever.

[Jim Katen]

Can Picture Drop insert batches of photos?

I'd like to be able to select, say, 20 photos, push a "batch drop" button and have them plop into the report. Then I'd like to tab from one to the next, writing captions as I go.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[Rose B]

Originally posted by Jerry Simon

Right click on the arrow, circle, or whatever, click on format autoshape, format to your liking, then right click again and click on format autoshape default. Then your arrow will always be a certain size or color or whatever.

Actually, Word saves the default for that session only. The next time you open Word you have to do that all over again. Picture Drop saves the setting permanently.

Just messing around for a minute and it seems like that's how you also format pictures and save the formats...right click on picture insert window, set and save defaults; picture size, layout, position, whatever.

It's not that the option isn't there in Word - you can click on the picture you have just formatted and select 'Save As Default'. That doesn't mean it saves the picture size, position, borders etc for the next time though. Did you actually try it or just notice that the option appears to be there []

Originally posted by Jim Katen

Can Picture Drop insert batches of photos?

I'd like to be able to select, say, 20 photos, push a "batch drop" button and have them plop into the report. Then I'd like to tab from one to the next, writing captions as I go.

No, it doesn't do a batch drop. You have to click on each image individually, although you don't need to re-open any windows to do so.

Do you cross reference your photos? To insert images at the end of each section (or report) instead of including them in the report text, you can automatically cross-reference them with Picture Drop.

Insert one of our template pages where you want the grouped photos to be placed. Click on the sentence related to the photo where you want the cross reference to be and then double click the related picture on the floating form. The picture is inserted into the template and a cross reference label and caption are automatically created from the sentence you selected.

Rose Balden

DevWave Software Inc.

[Jerry Simon]

Originally posted by Rose B

Originally posted by Jerry Simon

Right click on the arrow, circle, or whatever, click on format autoshape, format to your liking, then right click again and click on format autoshape default. Then your arrow will always be a certain size or color or whatever.

Actually, Word saves the default for that session only. The next time you open Word you have to do that all over again.

Not if you save it to a template.

The picture thingy? I don't know. As I say, I was just messing around. But in Mark's IR, completely word-based software, pictures are permanently formatted, and I'll bet ya a shiny nickel he could tell us how to do it ('course, then he'd have to kill us).

[Chad Fabry]

Hi Rose,

Will PictureDrop remember the folder I last opened to get a picture?

One other thing: I had to fill out a form that someone else wrote using Word. For the spots that required my answer they used underscore to create a line. (jerks) Is there any way to make it so the response goes on the line instead of in the line? For every letter and space I typed I had to delete that much of the underscore lines to maintain the correct format.

[Rose B]

Originally posted by Chad Fabry

Hi Rose,

Will PictureDrop remember the folder I last opened to get a picture?

Absolutely! Word lets you set a default photo path once then always returns to it unless you change your Word properties. That's another annoying 'Wordism' isn't it? Picture Drop always remembers the last folder you used.

One other thing: I had to fill out a form that someone else wrote using Word. For the spots that required my answer they used underscore to create a line. (jerks) Is there any way to make it so the response goes on the line instead of in the line? For every letter and space I typed I had to delete that much of the underscore lines to maintain the correct format.

You can toggle the 'Insert' button on your keyboard so that your keystrokes replace the character (which in their case is the underscore) that is there.

[Rose B]

Originally posted by Jerry Simon

Originally posted by Rose B

Originally posted by Jerry Simon

Right click on the arrow, circle, or whatever, click on format autoshape, format to your liking, then right click again and click on format autoshape default. Then your arrow will always be a certain size or color or whatever.

Actually, Word saves the default for that session only. The next time you open Word you have to do that all over again.

Not if you save it to a template.

Hmm - I couldn't reproduce that. What version of Word do you do that in?

The picture thingy? I don't know. As I say, I was just messing around. But in Mark's IR, completely word-based software, pictures are permanently formatted, and I'll bet ya a shiny nickel he could tell us how to do it ('course, then he'd have to kill us).

Of course! I'm not saying that Mark's software doesn't format the pictures in his template. So does INSPECTEXPRESS. But this product works for those Word users that aren't already using someone's inspection software package. It's great helper for writing any kind of report at all. And it goes further by offering a lot of different options for the type of picture (wrapped or in-line etc), picture placement and adding borders.

[n/a30]

Many people do not need an actual fifth grader to be able to do the tasks that a fifth grader can do.

There is probably something in the public domain or as shareware that does the same simple macro task of inserting photos into a word document.

It is extremely easy to put your photos into a movie file. With the free Microsoft Movie Maker program, you can batch process with flexibility and all the photos are auto formatted. There are many simple time saving solutions.

Good luck in what ever path you take.

[Chad Fabry]

Is it as easy as using a spell checker?

[Jim Katen]

I've been playing with Picture Drop for a couple of weeks now. It's as slick as s . . . Well, I won't say exactly how slick it is, but it's pretty slick.

The interface is extremely user friendly and once you've played with it for about a half hour it's very, very fast. If you have a lot of pictures to insert, you can do it in a tiny fraction of the time it takes to do it with Word's built-in tools.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[Jerry Simon]

Originally posted by Jim Katen

I've been playing with Picture Drop for a couple of weeks now. It's as slick as s . . . Well, I won't say exactly how slick it is, but it's pretty slick.

The interface is extremely user friendly and once you've played with it for about a half hour it's very, very fast. If you have a lot of pictures to insert, you can do it in a tiny fraction of the time it takes to do it with Word's built-in tools.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

Jim...I think you use, or have used, Cramerware. Would Picture Drop be worth it to complement IR? Thanks.

[Jim Katen]

Originally posted by Jerry Simon

Jim...I think you use, or have used, Cramerware. Would Picture Drop be worth it to complement IR? Thanks.

If you're using Cramerware and you want to simply drop a picture into the report and a particular place, Picture Drop won't be any better than Mark's "Insert Photo Table" feature.

However, if you want to drop a bunch of pictures on one place in the document and cross-reference them to another place, then Picture Drop is faster & easier than the Cramerware tools alone. Picture Drop also has some nifty features for annotating the pictures without having to drill through a bunch of menus.

I've also added Picture Drop to my normal template so it's always there when I open Word.

It's a handy tool.

- Jim Katen, Oregon