Word downsizing pics unnecessarily when inserted - new behavior

[PEVA]

Word 2000 is suddenly resizing pictures as they are inserted to a size
smaller than necessary (i.e., according to margins; no graphics, text boxes
in the way, etc.).

The pictures are graphics (data plots) generated by a thrid-party program.
I set the height and width of the graphics in that program - am using the
same settings as always, and that program has not been updated/changed. I am
using the same methodology to insert the graphics from the third-party
program (Paste Special | Picture (AKA Windows Metafile)).

Left margin: 0.75"
Right margin: 0.5"
8.5 - (0.75+0.5) = 7.25 width for picture when pasted in.

Graphics width is set to 7.5" when copied in the third-party program - in
the past, Word has changed the size to 97% for 7.25 width - exactly as
expected and desired.

*NOW* those same graphics are getting reduced to 80% for a 6" width when
pasted into Word with the same margins (7.25" space) and absolutely nothing
(text boxes, etc.) in the way. I even opened an older document in which the
same graphics had been inserted correctly, and when inserting the same
graphics again into that document, they get reduced to the 6" width (80%).

I also played around with setting the graphics widths to different values in
the third-party program - the results are that they get downsized to 6" wide
if anything larger than 6" in width, and get pasted in at the stipulated size
if under 6" in width - exaclty as would be expected if the margins were in
further than they are or a text box was in the way - but that is not the case.

Also, I have tried changing various settings in Tools | Options | General |
Web Options | Pictures with no effect on the results.

Based on this experience - and, BTW, on some recent postings by others
scratching their heads over a similar type of change in behavior - I am
wondering if an Office Update messed something up in Word to cause this
incorrect behavior.

Any ideas at all on what to look for in these docs. that would be (so far)
unexplainably sizing the pictures down more than necessary by the known rules?

TIA!

 

[PEVA]

Well, I figured out a work-around. I tried recording a macro to resize and
change the layout to "In line with text" and to re-size.

Guess what: Even though you can manually change layout to "In line with
text" in picture format on the individual pictures after pasting, that option
is greyed out when recording a macro! I had resigned myself to the fact that
I am going to have to go thru and re-format each and every picture manually
after pasting - I have over 150 pictures (data plots) in this one document,
and we do this same type of document all the time, so I was not looking
forward to manually doing that several thousand times over the next year.

The trick/work-around I came up with, since a macro is useless for this
operation, is to use the "Repeat command" (Ctrl-Y) function. I remembered
that whatever you do in most (all?) dialogue boxes is considered one command.
IOW - I do the first picture - resize and layout change *AND* *THEN* click
on the next one and simply hit Ctrl-Y. Select the next one and hit
Ctrl-Y...Repeat 150 times. I could have made 10 changes in the picture
format, and the Repeat Command function would do all 10 with one key command
(Ctrl-Y).

Not as good as if I could change the default layout for Paste Special, but
better than having to go thru the process of opening up the picture format
dialogue box and changing multiple settings.

*HOWEVER* - if anyone knows the cause and fix of the incorrect sizing and
default layout problem, I would very much be interested. The incorrect
sizing thing appears to be a genuine bug in Word 2000.