There are three common anchors:
- To paragraph, this places the anchor at the beginning of the paragraph, the image can be to the side or below the anchor
- To character (default), this places the anchor at the chosen point in the paragraph, the image can be to the side or below the anchor
- As character, this places the image into the text as a large character. If you press Enter immeditaly after the image, the text will begin a new paragraph below the image
You can choose Wrap > None to have the image without text to the side.
There is a fourth anchor mode which is not readily available because of surprises. It is Anchor to Page, it anchors the frame to the page count. If you anchor the image to the page on the 10th page of a 10 page document and then insert two pages prior to the 10th page, the image will remain anchored to the 10th page and not move to the 12 page as anticipated. If instead you delete 2 pages, the image will not go to page 8 but will enforce two empty pages so it can remain on the 10th page.
My copy of Word 2010 uses anchor as character by default, you can make this default for Writer by clicking Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer > Formatting Aids and under Image select As Character. OK
There is a way of using Frame styles to specify position but it requires some knowledge,skill and the willpower not to touch it with the mouse.