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Yet another feature yanked from the NEW Microsoft Office 2007

While working with a small business client today, they asked how to insert a picture into a Word document from their scanner. “Oh, that’s an easy one”, I said to myself. Then I realized they were using the new Office 2007.

In all previous versions of Microsoft Word and other word processor worth their weight, you follow these steps to insert a picture from a scanner into a document: 

  1. Click Insert from the menus
  2. Click Picture –> From Scanner or Camera
  3. Use your scanner software to select and scan the item you want and it instantly appears in the document

I looked for the same feature in Word 2007, and it wasn’t there. I immediately clicked to the Help menu in Word and searched for scanner. The first item in the search results (from Microsoft…not on the web) was:  “Where did the Insert Picture from Scanner feature go”? Clicking the item reveals this fun fact from Microsoft:

The From Scanner or Camera option for adding pictures to a document is not available in Microsoft Office Word 2007. Instead, you can add pictures from your camera or scanner by downloading the pictures to your computer first and then copying them from your computer into Word.

Wow! Great job Microsoft…let’s take away features that are useful and have been around for years and add features and interfaces that decrease our productivity! Thanks.

Now let’s go through the steps to Insert a picture from a scanner into a Word 2007 document:

  1. Click Start
  2. Click All Programs
  3. Click the Windows Photo Gallery application
  4. Click File from the menus
  5. Click Import from Scanner or Camera
  6. Click the name of your scanner
  7. Click Import
  8. Click Preview button to see your scan
  9. Click Scan when ready
  10. Add keywords to your scan
  11. Click OK
  12. Close Windows Photo Gallery
  13. Start Microsoft Word
  14. Click the Insert tab from the Word Ribbon
  15. Click the Picture button
  16. Navigate to where the scan was saved (usually Pictures –> then a folder named with the date you scanned the picture)
  17. Double-click the pictures
  18. After you finish with your Word document, remember to go back and delete the scan because you didn’t really want to save it…just insert it into a Word document!

Woo hoo!! A brand new program that has already decreased my productivity by moving items around and making me hunt for features I could find in a second on older versions and taken away tried and true drop down menus has now taken away a feature that for more than 12 years could be accomplished in 3-4 steps and turned it into an 18 step feature! I challenge anyone reading this to show me how this is in-any-way-shape-or-form progress?

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21 thoughts on “Yet another feature yanked from the NEW Microsoft Office 2007”

  2. joe

    Found this searching for the same fix. MS confuses me sometimes, but they must have a reason to keep people employed so why not make unnessesary changes, thatll keep em employed at least until they change it back LOL. Hope this helps everyone!

    not taken away just moved to a less obvious place.

    Insert Tab -> Clip Art -> Organize Clips(Lower Right) -> File -> Add Clips to Organizer -> From Scanner or Camera

    the window that opens is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\MSTORE.EXE if you wanna create a shortcut to it.

    1. pierre

      joe, it’s people like you who make my day! I’ve been searching the net for a long time to get this answer. 1 for joe, 0 for microsoft

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