Photos mysteriously ‘missing’ from Word docs

I’ve been running Microsoft Office 365 on a desktop computer and two laptops. But after a few months, the program suddenly stopped saving images that I’d previously added to Word documents. When I called up the documents, the photos were gone. This happened on the two laptops at the same time, even though they aren’t networked together. What can I do?

The issue isn’t really that Office 365 has stopped storing the photos. They are still contained in the same Word documents as before, but they are not being displayed when you open those documents. Both laptops were affected because they are “networked”; they can share Word files that are stored online.

The “invisible photo” problem can be caused by incorrect Word settings or by how you “view” the document in Word (whether with “draft” view or “print layout” view). Photos can also become invisible based on how you added a photo to Word, and on where the photo originated.

If you added a photo to a Word document as “text,” a tight arrangement of words may prevent the picture from appearing if you look at the document in “draft” view (a blank space appears instead). But if you look at the document in “print layout” view, the photo will be displayed. Put more space between the lines of text to make a photo visible in draft view.

Something similar happens if you add a photo to a Word document as a “drawing.” The photo can be seen in “print layout,” view, but not in “draft” view. So, use the print layout view.