Vector graphics in Microsoft Word

Posted on 2014-02-08

I needed to put a logo in a Microsoft Word document and have it look good:

• On screen
• In print
• On screen in a generated PDF
• In print from a generated PDF

This proved to be surprising difficult: MSWord doesn't support any standard format, including Microsoft's own VML. The only one that I could get to work was WMF and even that took some doing. I tried EMF, which is supposed to be a more compatible version, and that didn't work either.

Here are the steps I used:

1. Start with an SVG
2. Open in InkScape and clear the margins, fit page to image size
3. While InkScape can save to WMF, the colors aren't correct, so just resave the SVG
4. Open in LibreOffice Draw. Export to WMF

Tags: MSWord Microsoft Word wmf svg vector graphics