Including Images in Documents

Images can convey a great deal of information very succinctly and the straightforward facility to include images in documents that can be displayed on a wide range of computers is one of the major attractions of the Web. Some information, such as maps, designs, diagrams, mathematical formulae and so on, cannot easily be conveyed in words. Furthermore, clickable images can be used to simplify the user interface, minimizing or even obviating the user's need to key directly. Images break up dry text into more digestible chunks and, carefully chosen, can make it very visually exciting.

On the down side, the inclusion of images within documents can slow the response time considerably, making the browsing of such documents a frustrating experience. Some browsers don't display documents until they have received the complete content, including all the in-line images, which can make for a lot of waiting around. Many users, especially those with slow Internet connections, habitually disable the automatic display of in-line images to improve performance. A few browsers lack the facility to display images at all, and a proportion of users cannot view images due to the limitations of their hardware. Visually impaired users, who rely on Braille or speech interfaces, are effectively denied information presented only in image form. Any of these factors can cause a document that relies heavily on images to lose much of its effectiveness. This is widely recognized as a problem on the Web, so much so that documents frequently appear in two versions: one with images and one text-only.

Copyright is an important issue which needs to be considered. All images are invested with copyright by default, irrespective of whether a copyright statement is displayed, so if you copy an image, however simple, from somewhere on the Net to use in a document of your own, you may be breaking a law somewhere in the world. This is rather a grey area and many of the legal ramifications have not yet been tested. Of course, some information providers have no objection at all to their designs being used. If you want to use someone's icon or image, the easiest thing is simply to ask the author. In addition to any legal considerations, organizations use icons, logos and the like to create their own recognizable styles, which can become quite widely known. If others use these then confusion over the origin of material can ensue.

Design issues should not be overlooked. Consistent use of graphic elements can contribute greatly to the creation of a coherent house style. It is important to avoid the temptation of being carried away by enthusiasm for including images in a document, which can all too often result in the `angry fruit salad' look. If you are not a professional designer it is as well to talk to or employ one, or at least read up on the subject. There are also cultural aspects of design which are not always immediately apparent. We may assume some symbols are universal, when in fact they can be quite culture-specific; for instance, the German post horn, displayed outside every post office, would be immediately recognizable by anyone over the age of four in Germany, but by virtually noone outside the country. US-style mail boxes, although perhaps slightly better known, might be another case in point.

Please note that this chapter covers the use of in-line images only. See the Resource Guide at the back of the book and Section for details of the use of external viewer programs which can be invoked by browsers.

Next: The IMG element Up: Preparing Documents Previous: Hypertext links

[ITCP] Spinning the Web by Andrew Ford
© 1995 International Thomson Publishing
© 2002 Andrew Ford and Ford & Mason Ltd
Note: this HTML document was generated in December 1994 directly from the LaTeX source files using LaTeX2HTML. It was formatted into our standard page layout using the Template Toolkit. The document is mainly of historical interest as obviously many of the sites mentioned have long since disappeared.