Is there a way to make an image non-printing

There is no such thing as a non-printing image in Word. The methods suggested by myself and fellow contributors are workarounds.

The image will need to be a background image so that the user can write over it. As Doug has pointed out, it is the QAT of the document template you are creating that will contain the button (or you could edit the template's ribbon) and not your personal normal template. That button (or ribbon) will then only be present when documents are created from the template, and the button and associated macro in question will only work on such documents.

See http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm

You're forgetting this is to be sent to a client. I was hoping for something simple and seamless that would require no explanation other than "now you see it (on screen), now you don't (once printed)".

The easiest solution I can find is to style the image as a hidden character, but I'd still have to explain they need to be showing hidden characters in order to see it (I believe that's a system setting, and not document specific).

Those settings are not document specific so yes, the other person would need to make the changes as well (and it is undesirable to have to get them to do that).  What sort of document is it that you would be requiring such a feature?

Are those settings saved only on my end though? So if it's a template I want to send to someone else, they'd have to change their settings as well, correct?

Thanks.

There is a couple of settings under File>Options>Display>Printing options that you can probably use:

Print drawings created in Word

Print background colors and images

Each of those has a check box which enables or disables the feature.