MS Word figures with same font size (style) as document

When writing (e.g. techical reports) in Microsoft Word (or another text processor), I often produce figures as image files using a range of different programs. These programs can be

• matplotlib (Python)
• Inkscape
• Excel

and all sorts of other software with custom plotting tools.

One can often select font face and size in these tools. But when saving figures as image files and inserting them into a Word document, font sizes (and also thickness of lines and similar) depend on image resolution and is unrelated to the document. I am looking for some tips or solutions that will make the quality of my documents resemble TikZ figures in LaTeX. TikZ figures keep line thicknesses and font size constant when scaling.

How can I make graphs and figures that match the graphical style in my Word document?

AFAIK, Microsoft just hasn't done anything like this. The only vector formats they support are enhanced metafile (.EMF), Windows enhanced metafile (.WMF), and extended-postscript (.EPS). (I recall SVG support, but I think you may need to download a plugin from Microsoft for it)

Your best bet is to export from your aforementioned tools to the .EPS format, since you can modify which system font is used in text (as well as line widths) from a simple text editor. While it is not a trivial task to go through all the line widths and fix them, you can easily make font and colour changes using an external text editor, or write a small program/batch file to make the replacements for you.

While this is a less then ideal solution, it does allow you to create your figures, then create your document, and then do a little of post-completion work to simply find-and-replace the fonts in the .EPS to match them with your document choices.

As a final note, when working with vector graphics formats in Microsoft Office, if the image quality appears sub-par, try viewing the document from "Print Preview", or saving it as a .PDF, and proofing it like that. Sometimes, aliasing occurs to increase rendering speed when working on documents.