Make image backgrounds transparent in Word

If you have added a picture to a document in Word that has a coloured background you might not like the white-square effect. Word can set one colour in a picture to be transparent.

It won’t look as good as if you have an image with a transparent background from the off but it does make a big difference. It also won’t work if there are areas inside the image with the same colour as the background you are removing.

For example, if the background is white and there is lots of white in the picture it will all become the background colour. It also depends on the background being one solid colour, it won’t work with gradients.

Click on the image and then Format in the Picture Tools tab that appears in the Ribbon. Click on the Recolor and then Set transparent color. The cursor icon will change. Move it over the background of the image and click once. The background should disappear. This won’t change the size of the image so you may still want adjust that.
Robin Huges