When pasting pictures into Microsoft Word 2003 (for example, images of spreadsheets or graphs from Excel) only the bottom portion of the image is shown. However, highlighting the image outlines the border of the entire image indicating the image has been inserted into Word. This issue only occurs intermittently, but is most frustrating.

Your question was very well timed, as the day I wrote this article I had to resolve this exact problem on a computer! The issue was resolved through reducing the hardware acceleration on the graphics card. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Control Panel’ and open the ‘Display’ control panel (you may need to first open the ‘Appearance and Themes’ category). In the window that appears, click the ‘Settings’ tab and the ‘Advanced’ button. In the next window, click the ‘Troubleshoot’ tab. Move the ‘Hardware acceleration’ slider to ‘None’ and then click OK. Restart Word and check if the problem persists. Should the problem be resolved, close Word and then go back into the Troubleshooting tab and increase the ‘Hardware acceleration’ slide by one notch. Click OK to save the changes, then check Word to see whether the problem re-occurs. Continue increasing the slider by one notch until the problem re-occurs, at which stage you will know the highest acceleration which can be set before the problem occurs. So, set the acceleration one notch below the setting which causes the problem to occur.

You could also try downloading the latest drivers for your graphics card, which may resolve the issue completely allowing the acceleration to be set to the maximum with no problems. You should visit the website of the graphics card manufacturer to check for updated drivers. If you are unsure about the type of graphics card in your computer, go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Control Panel’ and open the ‘System’ control panel (you may need to first select the ‘Performance and Maintenance’ category). In the window that appears, click the ‘Hardware’ tab and the ‘Device Manager’ button. Expand ‘Display Adapters’ and your video card will be displayed.