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In MS Word, what dictates the "Original Size" of a bitmap picture?

Super User Asked on November 9, 2021

I have a .docx containing a picture imported from PNG.

On a number of different computers, we see different information about the picture when we right-click => "Size and position…".

Some of these are Macs running Word for Mac 16.39. Others are Windows running recent versions of Office

The original PNG is 400 pixels wide. I unzipped the .docx and located the PNG within – it remains at 400 pixels wide. All the online PNG metadata tools I’ve tried report no pixels-per-metre metadata; OSX Preview reports 72 DPI, but I think it’s just reporting OSX’s own default.

  • On everyone’s versions of Word, the dialog box does not report size in pixels
  • On everyone’s versions of Word, "Absolute" width is reported as 10.58cm — this is the size we want, and corresponds to 96DPI, which is the pixel density we expect. (96DPI isn’t great print resolution, but that’s a different topic for another day).
  • But the "Original size" varies, and since "Scale" is the ratio of "Absolute" to "Original" size, "Scale" also varies:
    • On some Macs, "Scale" is 75% and "Original" width is 14.11cm
    • On other Macs, "Scale" is 150% and "Original" width is 7.06cm
    • On all the Windows PCs we’ve tried, "Scale" is 100% and "Original" width is 10.58

In a sense none of this matters – the physical appearance of the printed document is the same in all cases, as is the apparent resolution of the image when zoomed in on screen.

… but it has led to some wasted time, as people debate the resolution and the scaling. So:

  • What does Word mean by "Original size" and how is it calculated?

One Answer

Original size for copy and paste “pictures” is the actual size on the monitor as measured with a ruler/tape measure when it was copied. Displayed size is then a percentage of the original size.

Answered by Hugh on November 9, 2021

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