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When you first click on the text box tool in the Drawing Toolbar in Word you may find some strange things happen as a huge ‘drawing canvas’ explodes on the screen in some versions of Word, apparently wrecking any previous attempts at layout. Once you’ve dragged out a box of about the right dimensions for what you need life should return to normal. If a ‘drawing canvas’ does persist then use the bars at each side to reduce it to the edges of the text box.

Type what you want in the box:

follow the steps illustrated.

In the Fill selection panel choose No Fill for a transparent background.

Change the font style and colour as required

If the text box has a line, remove it using the Line Colour panel, selecting No Line

That should be it.

Your image editing program may include a way to add text to the picture. This is usually added as new layer. It is better to add the text after reduction and compression of the image itself and then using minimal compression to avoid losing definition for the letters, especially thin fonts where the fine lines can become too feint.

For printed documents there is lot to be said for the comparatively old-fashioned text box method but for the web you will find it simplest to add any text to the picture using your editing software and then using the amended composite image.