Insert Clip Art

Works with PowerPoint 2002, and 2003 for Windows

by Geetesh Bajaj, February 15th 2007

In this tutorial I will show you how you can access the Clip Art task pane, search for visuals and other media, and then insert them on a PowerPoint slide.

Although the word "clip art" in the conventional sense does mean a drawing or illustration, the Clip Art task pane in PowerPoint serves pictures, animation clips, sounds, and movies as well.

Follow these steps to get started:

1. Navigate to the slide where you want to insert a visual.
   
   
2. Choose Insert | Picture | Clip Art, as shown in Figure 1.
   
   
   Figure 1 : Insert a Clip Art
   
   
3. This will summon the Clip Art task pane, which typically shows up on the right side of PowerPoint interface, as shown in Figure 2.
   
   
   Figure 2 : Clip Art Pane
   
   
4. This pane provides several options:
   
   
   1. Search for: Type the keyword(s) for the search in this text box, for example, food.
      
      
   2. Search in: Opt to search in one or more locations -- Everywhere, My Collections, Office Collections, or Web Collections. Once you choose the Web Collections option, your search results will include many more visuals and media clips accessed from Microsoft's online clip art collection -- needless to add, you must be connected online to use this option.
      
      
   3. Results should be: Choose the clip media type you want the search results to comprise -- clip art, photographs, movies, sounds, etc.
      
      
   4. Once you have made the choices, as explained above you can click the Go button.

The search results are shown within the pane (see Figure 3)


Figure 3: Search results

5. Select any clip from Clip Art task pane. Right-click on it which will display a context menu, as shown in Figure 4. Select the Insert option.
   
   Tip: You can also drag the clip to the active slide to insert it.
   
   
   Figure 4: Insertig a clip
   
   
6. The selected clip is inserted into the PowerPoint slide, as shown in Figure 5 .
   
   
   Figure 5: Inserted clip
   
   

The other three options in the Clip Art pane (refer to Figure 2 above) are explained below:

1. Organize Clips: When clicked, this opens the Microsoft Clip Organizer window, as shown in Figure 6.
   
   
   Figure 6: Clip Organizer
   
   Clip Organizer arranges and catalogs clip art and other media files stored on your hard disk, and quickly find the clips you need based on the keywords you provide for cataloged clips.
   
   
2. Clip Art on Office Online: This opens the Office Online web site.
   
   
3. Tips for Finding Clips: This launches a help window.