Getting Higher Resolution Images

Vince is editing a document prepared by someone else. The images in the document are a low resolution, and if he saves them out of Word into their own files, they are quite small. The author informs Vince that he doesn't have high-resolution originals for the images. So, Vince wonders if there is some way to save or convert the images to a higher resolution so they look better.

The short answer is no, there is no way to do what Vince needs—at least, not within Word. The underlying fact to remember here is that Word is not a graphics program. It can do awesome things with words, but only some marginally helpful things with graphics. You can place graphics, resize them, rotate them, and a few other minor things. What Vince needs, though, is something major.

Why is it major? Because if a graphic is low resolution and you actually need it to be high resolution, then you need to come up with a way to provide detail in the image that is currently missing. Word cannot do this. Most image software cannot do this. The closest thing you can do is to try using programs or services that apply AI techniques to extrapolate or "guess" at the missing data. This process is called "upsizing" or "upscaling," and results can be anywhere from excellent to disappointing to outright hilarious.

In other words, you'll need to get the images out of Word (as Vince said that he did) and then use an upscaler or upsizer to work on the image, and it will take trial and error. Here are a few that you might check out:

• Pixelcut: https://www.pixelcut.ai/image-upscaler
• Pica AI: https://www.pica-ai.com/
• ClipDrop: https://clipdrop.co/
• TinyWow: https://tinywow.com/image/upscale
• Topaz Gigapixel: https://www.topazlabs.com/gigapixel

Some of these potential solutions are free, but most cost something. If you have access to specialized photo editing software, such as Photoshop or GIMP, you might try using them. They have tools that allow you to adjust image size and resolution. While they can't create new details, they can smooth out pixelation and improve sharpness, which may suffice for some needs.

If you would like to dive deeper into matters of image resolution and size, then you may find this WordTip to be helpful:

https://tips.net/T13939

The tip deals with reducing document size when it comes to images, but goes into a lot of detail about things such as resolution and picking the best resolution for your needs.

Finally, there is a takeaway to all of this—always keep original images somewhere outside of Word. Many people will insert an image into a document and then lose the original image. That's a sure recipe for disappointment if you later need to do something with that image, like Vince is facing. There is a better-than-even chance that the original image files will be of a higher resolution than any image you might export from Word.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (9805) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Word in Microsoft 365.