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My question is simple: I want to change some tables in my Word documents to images embedded in my documents with same characteristics. Currently I have two options:

  1. Taking pictures of my tables, adjusting them and reinserting them. I have done that hundreds of times today. This is annoying to say the least.
  2. Use the special copy/paste tool (select it, copy it, paste it as an image). I feel like it would be a better solution for me. But it is not working; there is always something missing in the image; color, border, whatever.

A better way to do one of these tasks would be a great step forward. Another way (VBA to iteratively select all tables and transform them to images) is welcome too.

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  • What OS do you use? In windows shopping tool can be an option.
    – Máté Juhász
    Dec 1, 2015 at 22:25
  • yes windows, but in french so i don't know what shopping tools are ...
    – Lucas Morin
    Dec 1, 2015 at 22:50
  • sorry I mistyped it, it's snipping tool, I don't know the french name
    – Máté Juhász
    Dec 1, 2015 at 22:53
  • Oh ok, it is exactly what i do in 1). it is not very fast plus sometimes I have problems with both background and tools that appears when you hover your mouse befor a table.
    – Lucas Morin
    Dec 1, 2015 at 23:10
  • Word already has screen clipping feature built in
    – clhy
    Dec 1, 2015 at 23:58

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I also faced this problem in the past when copy a table from MS Word and then use Paste Special... ► Enhanced Metafile item.

At first, some considerations:

1) Usually missing delimiters in the pasted metafile are just an on-screen issue due to inaccurate rendering of metafiles by Word. When you print it you get the correct table.

2) Sometimes we do get some of the borders missed on the print. It seems they are simply cropped because when creating metafile Word slightly incorrectly determines the area of the screen from which the metafile should be created. This problem usually can be solved by selecting larger screen area for copying. The best results usually can be achieved by copying the table into another (blank) Word document, then selecting everything (Ctrl+A) and copying. If this method also fails there is another workaround which works almost always: open PowerPoint and using Edit ► Paste Special... menu item paste the table as MS Office Word Document Object, then slightly adjust the size of the pasted object in order to have everything rendered properly, copy it and paste in Word as Enhanced Metafile.

From the above you probably already see that creating metafiles using MS Office is a mess. Actually there are some free third-party solutions allowing creation of high-quality metafiles from any MS Office application. You have several choices:

1) If you are on Windows 2000 or Windows XP without Service Pack 3 (which broke this functionality) the best what you can do is to install a tiny free utility called PrintMirror created by Vipin Aravind. This utility allows to extract metafiles of exceptionally high quality. Unfortunately it does not work on newer versions of Windows.

2) On modern versions of Windows probably the simplest solution is to install trial version of LEADTOOLS ePrint Professional. The trial version has no limitations on the printing to EMF feature and works quite reliably. You can use it for free.

3) There are other solutions having similar functional. Some of them allow to create metafiles for free, some are not. I simply list some of them without any particular order here:

  • FinePrint FinePrint

  • O&K Printer Viewer

  • UsefulSoft Print Censor Professional

  • Mabuse Virtual Printer

  • Amyuni EMF Printer Driver

  • Two Pilots Virtual Print Pilot

  • Black Ice EMF Printer Driver

  • VeryPDF Document Printer (docPrint)

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