Positioning photos in a multi-column page

[didlinghill]

I need to compile an A4 newsletter which has two columns and I need to insert text-wrapped photographs in various places. However, whenever I do any editing, the illustrations have a mind of their own.
I realise I can control positioning and type of wrap, but what do I do if I just need an illustration to move and stay where I place it - manually. I do not wish it to move with the text or anything else, I just need to annul the location setting so that it is readily mobile. There does not appear to be any setting other than those with specific location, and I just want to cancel these restrictions - but this does not seem to be possible!
Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

[Guessed]

When you have graphics with text wrapping you need to understand the complexities of HOW Word gets its instructions for positioning that graphic. Just turning on wrapping and dragging it around the page means you are not considering the possibilities.

Firstly, floating shapes can be positioned in a wide variety of ways. By default it is relative to the vertical and horizontal position of an anchoring paragraph. If you right click the photo and choose Size and Position the Layout dialog will appear. On that dialog you have a tab for Text Wrapping but the more important one is the Position tab.

On the Position tab, you should explore the settings to see that the position can be relative to the various parameters like paragraph, column, margin, and PAGE. If you set the Horizontal and Vertical positioning relative to Page then the graphic will stay put.

Now, despite me saying it is going to stay put, you also need to know that every floating graphic has an Anchor. The anchor is a hidden element that sits in a paragraph on that page. If you edit the text that causes THAT anchor paragraph to move onto another page, then the graphic will also move to stay on the same page as that anchor. You can usually see the anchor appear on screen when you select the graphic although you may need to change an option to show this if it doesn't appear.

[didlinghill]

Many thanks for that helpful reply, Andrew. It makes me realise in what a careless way I have been working until now. All I've been doing is to compose all the text, then paste selected photos where needed - even adjusting their size down by dragging the diagonal corners as ultimate resolution isn't needed. Now I will at least look up the position coordinates on the page, and adjust those figures by trial and error if necessary to move it.
I had not realised about the hidden anchor, which has never been visible to me. I have tried to show it using various options but nothing seems to work - could you give me some clues as to what else I could try?
I can only say, in defence of my lack of technique, that I cut my teeth on DTP using the likes of PageMaker, Quark Press and Ventura, when I created boxes for text, illustrations and graphics and they were then easy to manipulate. It is impressive that Word is capable of producing similar results, and perfectly understandable that the correct technique has to be followed with such a versatile program.
Incidentally, if you'll forgive the further digression, my early days even included emailing by Telecom Gold's Microlink and separate modem; I still have the manual somewhere of the instruction codes which had to be painstakingly added to each message. How we have advanced since then!

[Guessed]

I too learnt DTP with PageMaker and used Quark and Interleaf back in the 90s so have played with a few different tools over the years.

The anchors can be displayed by going to File > Options > Display
ObjectAnchors.png
You need to also know what paragraph is anchoring the graphic to fully understand what will happen to your floating graphic as text is edited nearby. If you drag the shape around the page, you may notice the anchor changes paragraphs to stay close to the picture. You can stop that by ticking the 'Lock Anchor' on the dialog where you set the positioning.