Clever Clips


Wow, that star is really sweet! But we need more than that. I mean, this man had his pet goldfish stolen by aliens!! How about some art?


Okay, let's bring in a little clip art. I have lots of clip art in my library. Perhaps a picture of a goldfish will do best. You know, to give the police an idea of the poor man's loss.

Now you're talkin'. I love it!

Adding clip art
You can add clip art to any slide by going to the Illustrations Group in the Insert tab, then click the Clip Art button.

Try adding a fish image to your slide.

    1.  Go to the Illustrations Group in the Insert tab, then click the Clip Art button.

Clip Art button

    2. The Clip Art window appears on the right side of your screen.

    3. Type "fish" in the search box and click Go.

    4. Clicking on an image will automatically add it to your slide.

Here's a artoon in your slide

Note: Some built-in slide Layouts in PowerPoint already have placeholders for clip art. To insert clip art into one of these slides, simply click the placeholder and the clip art gallery will open.


Is there a way to resize the clip art? I think we need to make the picture of the goldfish a little smaller.


Resizing clip art
Like text boxes and shapes, it's easy to change the size of a clip art image. Here's how:

    1. Click the fish image to select it.

    2. Place the pointer on a resizing handle. The pointer will change into a two-headed arrow.

Resize arrow

    3. While holding down the mouse button, drag your mouse inwards. This will reduce the image. If you drag your mouse outwards, you will enlarge the size of the image.

    4. When the image is the size you want, release the mouse button.


Resizing tip


What if we decide we just want a picture of the goldfish, and nothing else? You know, for identification purposes. Is there a way to crop an image so that only part of it shows?


Cropping clip art
When you resize an image, you make the whole image larger or smaller. When you crop an image, you actually remove parts of the image.

The following steps will show you how to crop an image.

    1. Click the image to select it. Resizing handles will appear around the image.

Resizing Clip Art

    2. In the Size Group in the Picture Tools tab (one of the Format tabs that can only access when a picture is selected), click the Crop button. The resizing handles change to crop handles to indicate the crop mode is active.

Crop button

    3. Place the pointer over one of the crop handles. The pointer will change into a cropping tool.

Cursor changes to the crop tool

    4. Holding down the mouse button, drag inwards. A part of the image will disappear.

    5. When enough of the image has been cropped, release the mouse button. You can use the other crop handles to crop other parts of the image if you want.

    6. Click outside the picture to turn the cropping tool off.

Before and After

Did you accidentally crop off too much of the image? No problem. To restore an image that has been cropped, select the image again, and then click the Crop button. Click a resizing handle and drag outwards. The cropped portion of the image will reappear.


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