WD97: Picture Displayed as Red "X" in Document

ID: Q162349

The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Word 97 for Windows
  • Microsoft Word 97 for Windows, version Service Release 1 (SR-1)

SYMPTOMS

In Word 97, when you open a document that contains graphics, some of the graphics are displayed as partial or whole red "X"s.


CAUSE

This problem occurs most often with inserted bitmap (.bmp) files or pasted graphics. Note, however, that this behavior may also occur with other graphics formats.

Word uses either a red "X" or a general picture (a circle, square, and triangle) to represent any graphic or picture it cannot display. Word will not be able to display corrupted or damaged graphics or may lose picture data in low memory or low resource situations.


RESOLUTION

In most cases, you can resolve this problem by upgrading to Microsoft Word Service Release 1 (SR-1). For information about how to upgrade to SR-1, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q172527 WD97: How to Obtain Word 97 for Windows Service Release 1
If you have installed SR-1 and you continue to have red "X" problems, please see the "If You Have Installed SR-1 But Continue to See a Red 'X'" section of this article. Once you have installed SR-1, you will need to manually restore the graphics in the document. Note that you can also use these steps as a temporary workaround if you are unable to install SR-1.

To manually restore the graphics in a document, follow these steps:

  1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and click the Save tab.


  2. Click to clear the Allow Fast Saves check box.


  3. On the File menu, click Save As and save the document with a new name. Restore the graphics in this new document and use this new version of the document from now on.


  4. Use the following methods to determine the nature of the problem and restore the graphics.


Method 1: Verify Sufficient Free Space on Your Primary Hard Disk

Follow these steps:

  1. Double-click My Computer on the desktop.


  2. Right-click your primary hard disk (for example drive C).


  3. Click Properties. The amount of free disk space should be approximately 20 megabytes (MB) or more.


There is no specific minimum amount of free disk space required to run Office programs. However, most computers do require a certain amount of free space (usually around 20 MB) to open, close, and save files, and to print documents.

If your hard disk has less than 20 MB of free disk space available, you should consider removing unused data files or temporary files or programs. After you have freed 20 MB or more space on your primary hard disk, restart Windows, and re-open the file.

Method 2: Replace the Graphic from the Original Source File

Follow these steps:

  1. Delete the red "X" from the document.


  2. On the Insert Menu, point to Picture, and click From File.


  3. Select the original graphics file and click OK.


Method 3: Open the Picture in Picture Editor, Paste It Back in the Document

Follow these steps:

  1. Double-click the picture to open it in the picture editor.


  2. On the Edit menu, click Select All.


  3. On the Edit menu, click Copy.


  4. On the File menu, click "Close & Return to document."


  5. In Word, click Paste on the Edit Menu.


Method 4: Refresh the Field Results

If the graphic is linked, you can refresh the field results. For example, when you view field codes, if you see a field that resembles either of the following
{IMPORT c:\\clipart\\picture.pcx}

-or-

{INCLUDEPICTURE c:\\clipart\\picture.pcx}
make sure that Picture.pcx file does exist in the Clipart folder. Then, select the field and press F9 to update the field.

Updating the field will cause the graphics filter to read the picture again. When this occurs, the picture display should be refreshed and the red "X" will be replaced with the expected picture.

IF YOU HAVE INSTALLED SR-1 BUT CONTINUE TO SEE A RED "X"

In some cases, a red "X" is displayed in your document on purpose. An image can be displayed as a red "X" if any of the following conditions are true:

  • The Image is a GIF or JPEG image that contains complex formatting options such as animations, sounds, or progressive displays.
  • The directory specified as a temporary directory in Windows does not exist.
  • The image has been corrupted or some other aspect of the document has been corrupted.
  • You have insufficient free space on your hard disk.
To determine whether the nature of the graphic in your document is causing the display problem, use the following methods.

Note that documents created in the pre-SR-1 release of Microsoft Word 97 for Windows will continue to display red "X"s until you repair the graphics. That is, the damaged graphics are not corrected automatically when you install SR-1. In these cases, use the steps and methods in the "Resolution" section of this article to recover the missing graphics.

Method 1: If the Image is a GIF or JPEG Image

Many JPEG or GIF images downloaded from the Internet contain complex formatting options such as animations, sounds, or progressive displays. Word does not use these options. To modify the graphic so that it includes only those elements that Word will use, use a graphics editing program to save the graphic in a simpler format:

  • For a GIF graphic, lower the complexity to CIS GIF 87 or 87A rather than GIF 89A.
  • For a JPEG graphic, save it in the "simple" or "baseline" format, without any progressive redraw features.
For more information about these graphics formats, see the documentation that comes with your graphics editing program and see the "More Information" section of this article.

Method 2: Verify That You Are Using a Valid Temp Directory

Verify that the SET TEMP and SET TMP lines in your Autoexec.bat file are pointing to valid folders. To verify the SET TEMP and SET TMP lines in the Autoexec.bat file, follow these steps:

  1. Click Start, and then click Run.


  2. In the Run box, type "sysedit" (without the quotation marks) and click OK.

    This command will open the System Configuration Editor.


  3. Click the Autoexec.bat window.


  4. In the Autoexec.bat file, look for a line beginning with SET TEMP or SET TMP. These lines if they exist, should be set equal to a valid directory. Make note of any directory referenced.

    NOTE: (If the Autoexec.bat file does not contain a line that starts with either of these commands, skip to the next method.)


  5. Click the Start menu and click Windows Explorer or Windows NT Explorer.


  6. In Windows Explorer, verify that the directory you noted in step 4 is a valid directory.


If you are running Windows NT, also check the following:

  1. Click Start, point to Settings, and click Control Panel.


  2. In Control Panel, click System, and click the Environment tab.


  3. On the Environment Tab, check the values for TEMP and TMP under User Variables. These values will be the path to a directory. Note the directory listed.


  4. In Windows NT Explorer, verify that the directory noted in step 3 is a valid directory. If the TMP setting is using wildcards (% signs), create a directory called TMP in two places: C:\tmp and C:\winnt\Tmp.

    NOTE: If you are running Windows NT version 4.0, ensure that you have Service Pack 3 (SP3) installed. This resolves a problem where the SET TMP in user variables can be accidentally reset.


For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q152734 How to Obtain the Latest Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack

Method 3: Verify That Your Graphic File Is Not Damaged or Corrupted

If you see a partial re-draw of the picture before it becomes a red "X" or if the size of your graphic is not what you expect, the graphic may be corrupted.

To see the size of your graphic, follow these steps:

  1. Click the picture to select it.


  2. On the Format menu, click Picture.


  3. In the Format Picture dialog box, click the Size tab.


  4. Verify the size of the picture using the numbers under Original Size near the bottom of the dialog box.


If the size reported is not what you expect the intact picture to be, the graphic file may be corrupted. If the size reported is 1 inch-by-1 inch, there is a different problem and you[ASCII 146]ll need to try some other workarounds to resolve the problem.

To restore the picture, follow these steps:

  1. Open the picture in a graphics editing program such as Photo Editor.


  2. Save the file in a different file format.


  3. Attempt to insert the saved file back into your document.


In some cases, a red "X" in your document indicates that some other aspect of the document has been corrupted. If you receive an "unable to open file" error message or if you receive an invalid page fault (IPF) when you open the file, some other aspect of your document may be damaged.

For information on how to troubleshoot a damaged document, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q87856 WD: Troubleshooting Damaged Documents in Word for Windows

Method 4: Verify Sufficient Free Space on Your Primary Hard Disk

Follow these steps:

  1. Double-click My Computer on the desktop.


  2. Right-click your primary hard disk (for example drive C).


  3. Click properties.


  4. The amount of free disk space should be approximately 20 MB or more.


There is no specific minimum amount of free disk space required to run Office programs. However, most computers do require a certain amount of free space (usually around 20 megabytes MB) to open, close, and save files, and to print documents.

If your hard disk has less than 20 MB of free disk space available, you should consider removing unused data files or temporary files or programs. Once you have freed 20 MB or more space on your primary hard disk, restart Windows and re-open the file.


STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Word 97 for Windows. In most cases, this problem was corrected in Microsoft Word 97 SR-1.

If you are running Microsoft Office 97 for Windows, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q172475 OFF97: How to Obtain and Install MS Office 97 SR-1
If you are running stand-alone Microsoft Word 97 for Windows, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q172527 WD97: How to Obtain Word 97 for Windows, Service Release 1


MORE INFORMATION

Additional Resources for Troubleshooting Graphics Problems

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q167738 WD97: Can't See or Manipulate Objects (and Other Odd Behavior)

Information About GIF and JPEG File Formats

Graphics interchange format (GIF) is the most common file format for graphic images on the World Wide Web. The next most common format is Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) format.

GIF:

GIF uses the two-dimensional raster data type, is encoded in binary, and uses a type of compression called LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch). There are two versions of the format, 87a and 89a. Version 89a lets users save an animated GIF, which is essentially a short sequence of images within a single GIF file. You can also save interlaced images in GIF89a format.

JPEG:

Essentially JPEG has two basic types: progressive and simple. A simple or "baseline" JPEG file is one top-to-bottom scan of the image. Progressive JPEG divides the file into a series of scans so that the image quality increases as each scan is loaded.

This has obvious advantages for images downloaded over low bandwidth connections. (Basically, progressive JPEG is just a rearrangement of the same data into a more complicated order.)

For more information on GIF and JPEG image formats, please see the following World Wide Web sites:
http://www.webreference.com/graphics/formats.html

http://www.jpeg.org

http://www.ijg.org

http://user.aol.com/royalef/gifanim.htm

Microsoft Support Options

If you cannot resolve this issue, several support options are available to assist you.

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To begin your search, go to the following Web address:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/

Microsoft Product Support

Contact a Microsoft Product Support professional to assist you with troubleshooting problems.

For more information about obtaining help with troubleshooting Microsoft Windows, click Help Topics on the Help menu in Windows Explorer. On the Contents tab, double-click to open the Troubleshooting book. Then double-click to open the Contact Microsoft Technical Support book to view your support options.

For more information about obtaining help with troubleshooting Microsoft Word, click About Microsoft Word on the Help menu, and then click Tech Support.

For additional information about Microsoft support services, please click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q102344 Microsoft Product Support Options Q&A

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Additional query words: sr1 release1 8.0 8.00 bitmaps copy paste picture big red x bigredx cross redx xs exs winword missing disappear lost artwork art x's xes

Keywords : kbgraphic kbualink97
Version : WINDOWS:97; :Service Release 1 (SR-1)
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbbug


Last Reviewed: January 31, 2000
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