Clip art and media blog

The fat lady has sung

camblog — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:07:00 GMT

It’s all over here. We’ve moved our blog. Please go to our new home at http://blogs.office.com/b/templates_and_images/default.aspx.

Looking for something? See our new blog

camblog — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:29:42 GMT

We’ve been getting reorganized over the holidays and decided to move. So if you’re wondering where to find us, mosey on over to our new blog. We’re just getting up to speed, but we’d like you to come along for the ride.

Enjoy your holidays

camblog — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:56:00 GMT

We’re off till after the new year.

cheers!

We welcome our latest partner to Office Online: iCLIPART

camblog — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:03:00 GMT

iCLIPART.com is the largest royalty-free clipart site on the Internet with over 7.8 million clipart illustrations, photos, fonts, sounds, animations and web graphics. Most of the illustrations are available in 9 different vector and raster formats, including: .WMF and .JPG files. Look for the special section featured on our Clip Art Home page:

The professionally produced photos are available up to 5,000 x 5,000 pixels at 300 dpi. Thousands of new images are added each month from some of the best artists in the world. With this many files to choose from, you are sure to find something you like for your Word documents, PowerPoint presentations and other projects!

Be a PowerPoint pro with iStockphoto images

camblog — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:45:00 GMT

I don’t know about you, but creating a PowerPoint presentation always takes longer than I expect it to, even with all the wonderful tools at hand. Sometimes I am just looking for something different to give my presentation that extra little polish.

If you feel the same way, check out this article from our partner, iStockphoto, about how to punch up your PowerPoint presentations by using their fabulous images available on Office.com.

--Nancy

Get some Zen this holiday

camblog — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:59:00 GMT

Here are some ways to keep your peace of mind this holiday:

Set up an e-mail reminder to stretch during the day. Add one of our yoga images to the Outlook appointment for inspiration.

Start a journal with some beautiful journal page templates for Word. Better to vent your frustrations on the page than to your spouse, kids, or co-workers (although maybe a little less satisfying).

Walk, jog, take an exercise class…just get moving. Plan it out and write it down in this Exercise planner template.

Make shopping easier with a holiday budget planner, grocery list template, and gift shopping list template.

Save some money - make your own gift tags and cards this year.

Breathe.

Here come the holidays!

-Sheila

Technorati Tags: yoga,images,exercise,journal,planner,holiday,budget,grocery list,gift tags,gift card

Need a party flyer for Halloween? Here’s how to make one fast

camblog — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:35:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: halloween,templates,images,clip art,flyers,menus,place card,gift certificate

Get your Halloween groove on and plan a party. We’ve got templates and illustrations that will make putting together your party invitations, menu, etc. quick and fun.

Steps for making your own flyer, menu, place card, or gift certificate:

Here’s a new set of Halloween party templates we just published. They use free illustrations from the Clip Art site – to find them search for style 1450.

New Halloween Templates Design set

Flyer	Party menu

Place card	Gift certificate

1. Download any of the templates above or find a different Halloween template on Office Online.

2. Edit the text in the template, save, and print.

Optional: Change the images in the template – you can find more Halloween illustrations on the clip art site.

Here’s a tip for adding images to templates in Word: Draw a text box first, and then paste your image into that text box. You can move the image freely around the document when you do this. When you’ve got the image placed, remove the text box background and outline color.

--Sheila

Add Fotolia photos directly to Word or Powerpoint

camblog — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:01:00 GMT

We've been getting a little press today for a new plug-in available for Word and PowerPoint 2007 that enables you to search Fotolia's stock photos and add them directly to your documents.

We think this type of add-in helps our users be more productive. Why not give it a try and tell us what you think!

--Nancy

Newly Designed Holiday Image Collections Are Here!

camblog — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:30:00 GMT

Check out our new and fabulous Holiday Image Collection pages - we've redesigned them so they'll be easier to use and we have added even more categories to choose from. They are chock full of photos, illustrations and clip art to fit anything you might need for your holiday work and home projects - and best of all - they're free! Start out with Autumn and have fun.

Clip Art + Templates = Newsletters Made Easy

camblog — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Combine your resources from the Office Online library of Clip Art Images and Office Online Newsletter Templates to create great newsletters quickly and easily.

Here are few keyword searches you might consider when customizing content:

Technology

Backgrounds

And here are just a few of the most popular Newsletter Templates downloads:


Newsletter wizard Word 2000 or later		Business newsletter Word 2007		Newsletter (2-pp) Publisher 2002 or later

Using Word? Office Online Products Word 2007 Help and How-To offers the following resource links:

Adding pictures, shapes, WordArt, or clip art
Clip art | Clip Organizer | WordArt

Using Publisher? Office Online Products Publisher 2007 Help and How-to has abundant help resources for managing those graphics. Be sure to bookmark these helpful links:

Adding or deleting graphics or objects
Formatting graphics or objects
Arranging graphics or objects

Additional recommended reading includes: Create a newsletter to keep in touch with customers, Make Clip Art look original in Publisher and Steps to a simple, effective, black-and-white newsletter.

--Aaron

Animated PowerPoint: use Clip Art to customize Templates and create something new!

camblog — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:32:00 GMT

This is an excerpt from an entry recently posted on the Templates blog, It gives one in-depth example, that while Templates are often intended to use as-is, many are also a starting point for original expression, and here’s how this was done, with Clip Art.

A community submitted customization example:

Click these links to find a list of submitted animated PowerPoint templates and discover some interesting things happening -- (from the quiet Animated Snowflakes slide to this audio-tracked Self-Running, Animated Presentation). ***

Here you will find the animated countdown calendars that have utilized the Clip Art library of images. And here’s how one Community submitter turned this into something new, twice.

*** Note: you may made need to change the website’s Community Filter setting to see some of the following. Here is a review of what those settings mean:
[Strict]- Allows only templates created by Microsoft or its partners to be displayed.
[Moderate]- Allows Microsoft and partner templates, plus templates from established community members to be displayed.
[Unfiltered]- All templates are displayed, even from non-established community members.

Version 1: same template, now a 12 point business presentation.
Version 2: same template, now an animated memory game.
How-to edit (from simplest to advanced):
- To edit characters:
  1. Right-click characters to Format Picture or Edit (add) Text.
  2. If you select Format Picture, choose FILL (from the pop-up dialog box, left menu) and hit the radio button for “Picture or texture fill”
  3. Hit the FILE button to get images from your hard drive, or click CLIP ART to get images you have downloaded from Office Online Clip Art & Media.
    Here are some animated, clear-background styles to consider:
    
    Web Animators from Clip Art
    <---- Style #917
    Style #655 ---->
  4. Tinker with Offset size to focus your image. And explore the dialog box for additional image effects.
  5. Note: The video instructions previously located --> here <-- are offline at this time.
- To edit clickable button graphics:
  1. Ctrl-click to select multiple shapes and change style all at once.
  2. Edit size to contain more text, or (as above) Format Picture to fill with clip art such as calendars, clocks, etc.
- To create a completely new background:
  1. Duplicate slide #1. On the new #2 slide (your future background), delete characters and buttons, leaving one each of a rectangular shape where the 15 “open door” images appear.
  2. In each of the 15 shapes, right-click to Format Picture to update your “closed door” image, and then tweak to fit.
  3. Now right-click the #2 slide’s Background Image and replace with a texture or image that ties-in visually with the 15 doors.
  4. Save the current #2 slide as a jpg. This is your new scene for slide #1.
    Note – This is a good time to edit the jpg in image software to add special details, like shutters, roofs, etc…
  5. Returning to slide #1, replace its background with the new #2 jpg.
  6. Replace the 15 “open door” images on slide #1 using the same right-click Format Picture method.
    Note - The steps outlined above keep the “open” and “close” images directly above each other. If needed, move the Character shapes directly over these too, if they contain edge-to-edge photos.
  7. Optional: In the video, the “open door” shapes are given a Soft Edge effect at the very end, to help them blend a bit better on appearance.
  8. Note: The video instructions previously located --> here <-- are offline at this time.

To change animation and sounds:
1. You can change animation timing, order of operations, visual effects, and special effect sounds by accessing Animations from the top menu and selecting Custom Animations from the ribbon.
2. To create a new animated series of events: Draw a shape, this will be a #Button, and add effects to it from the Custom Animation menu such as Disappear.
3. Right click the #Button name, which is now listed in Custom Animation. Select Timing. From the dialog box hit the Trigger button and select the radio button for “Start effect on click of:” and find the name of your #Button. Hit OK. (This creates a tab named Trigger in your list).
4. Click on another shape in your scene (for example the dog character), and in the Custom Animation window, add an effect to Appear. Use the drop down to have it Appear only With Previous action.
5. Now that its name appears listed in the Custom Animation window, drag the name of this shape beneath the On Click action of #Button.
6. Proceed with other shapes in the desired chain of events, adding timing and sound effects as needed.
  Note – With the On Click of Button #1, the character and “open door’ image appear then disappear after 3 seconds, looping the Button to Appear again on the visible screen.
7. Note: The video instructions previously located --> here <-- are offline at this time.

How can you extend this example? For additional exploration of Clip Art, Templates, and animation with image-masking: see also (Team effort fundraiser goals presentation and 10 Question Test for Pop Quiz).

For more Clip Art resources see Clip art tips and articles and the Office Online Discussion Group - Discussions in Clip Art and Media.

-- Aaron

Clip Art for Outlook Signatures and Electronic Business Cards

camblog — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Have you considered Clip Art library content for your Outlook signatures? A quick step to this feature would be the Email signature template from the Office Online Templates library. This template contains professional layouts you can copy and customize within Outlook, with two of these layouts designed for both image and text. (For additional instructional assistance see also the Office Online Products section of Signatures tutorials -- including Change your e-mail signature and Create and include a signature in outgoing messages).

To personalize these signature layouts with Clip Art, here are a few helpful key words to download the perfect image to fit your career: Industry, Symbols, and Characters.


Industry		Symbols		Characters

Also note, that if during your search you like a particular style, try searching by that Style number when linked from the clip description. Here are just a few: #1280, #1541, #1443, and #487.


#1541		#1443		#487

And finally, a different option for the Outlook signature is closing with an Electronic E-mail Business Card that really integrates text and background.

See this article on Office Online Products for assistance: Add or edit an image for an Electronic Business Card. And, among the keyword searches previously mentioned, consider a general background image to stylize this card.

-- Aaron

Customize your Clip Art with Word 2007

camblog — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:32:00 GMT

Background and ideas:

A previous blog entry discusses Word 2007’s ability to turn downloaded clip art into editable content. Building on this idea exponentially extends Office Online Clip Art library content. Grouped and stylized to your own devices, clip art customizes to fit business document color-schemes, or arranges and overlaps within animation storyboards, and on and on.

Again, some good styles (with uncomplicated line and shape) are #1450, #1434, or #1255. Much of Style #1450 appears in the following templates: Aquatic animals, Farm animals, Forest animals, Christmas, and Halloween. And has founds its way into Word themes for the Summer Santa correspondence set.

For this example, here is one page from the Farm animals coloring book:

The scene:


Flowers	A tree	And various shapes drawn in Word

The cast:


One frog…	Two frog…!	A boisterous fowl	And 1 awed snail

Note: The video instructions previously located --> here <-- are offline at this time.

Import clip art into a new Word 2007 document.
Right click on your selected clip. Choose to Edit Picture, and this will show the image highlighted inside a dotted-line bounding box.
Click and drag the mouse inside this box from one corner to the other to capture the most pieces of the art initially possible.
On the Ribbon Format tab, change the Shape fill to White, and the Line color to Black.
This will reveal shapes in the art you might have missed. Keeping all your original shapes selected, Control-click to gather any of the remaining shapes.
Repeat step 4-5 until you’ve gathered all the visible shapes.
With all shapes still selected, right click Grouping - Group.
Copy or Cut your grouped image outside of the bounding box. Delete the bounding box and unwanted images inside of it. (Note: a stray bounding box can cause headaches by pushing around other objects).
Optional: Right click to Ungroup your art, and re-group it into smaller sets. (Note: Overlapping objects may take practice. Lost objects may have gone behind a larger one. Be prepared to backtrack).
You can now arrange your art within the overall document Use the Format tab in the Ribbon to Arrange shapes/groups with Bring to Front, Send Backward, etc.

Final suggestions:

Have fun! Play with Word 2007 styles to create text, color variation, stage placement, or texture and photographic elements.

-- Aaron

Create a Spark with Office Online Clip Art

camblog — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:39:30 GMT

Technorati Tags: clip art,inspire,PowerPoint,presentations

Our May 7th blog entry (Got the presentation blahs? Use Office images to add some spice to your PowerPoint presentations) describes how to add background images from the Office Online Clip Art collections.

Combine this with the June 1, 2009 entry announcing the Office Online Create a Spark PowerPoint contest (deadline June 26, 2009 11:59 PST), and here’s your chance to use those resulting presentations to inspire and motivate a community.

Here are just a few additional image ideas from the Microsoft’s Office Online Clip Art library using key words searches :


Achievement	Flag	Mountains


Nature	Space exploration	Sports

To find more great ways to make a great impression and explore the possibilities of PowerPoint, see the Office Online Help and How-to section.

--Aaron

Calling all inspired PowerPointers

camblog — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:11:00 GMT

Have you created a wonderful PowerPoint presentation that others find motivational or inspiring? Now's your opportunity to share it with others. Submit your entries to the Office Online "Create a Spark PowerPoint contest." Winners will be promoted online the week of July 6th.

Just think how inspiring it would be to see your work promoted on our site.

--Nancy