Customize Clip Art Categories within Media Browser in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

You have learned how to use the Clip Art tab of the Media Browser in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac. This tab shows the clip art that is installed as part of Microsoft Office 2011 -- you will notice that the clip art collection is divided into convenient categories, as you can see highlighted in red in Figure 1. However, you'll find only a few categories -- and there is no obvious way to create your own categories. However, we discovered a solution outside Microsoft Office altogether that lets you get over this limitation.

Figure 1: Categories within Clip Art tab of Media Browser

Using the process explained on this page, you can add/remove clip art graphics within the existing categories and even create a new category. This process of adding new categories, or customizing the existing categories is not done within PowerPoint or another Microsoft Office program -- so before you start, it is a good idea to ensure that PowerPoint or any other Microsoft Office program is shut down.

Follow these steps to add a new category within the Clip Art tab of Media Browser:

1. On your Mac desktop, double-click Macintosh HD, as shown in Figure 2.
   
   
   Figure 2: Macintosh HD
2. This opens Macintosh HD Finder window (see Figure 3). Within this window, double-click the Applications folder (highlighted in red in Figure 3).
   
   
   Figure 3: Applications folder
3. This opens the Applications folder which lists all programs installed on your Mac. In this window, navigate to the Microsoft Office 2011 | Office | Media folder. Within the Media folder, you'll find all the pre-built asset libraries, as shown in Figure 4.
   
   
   Figure 4: The Clipart folder
4. Double-click the Clipart folder (highlighted in red in Figure 4 above). This opens the folder where all content is categorized in separate folders, as shown in Figure 5.
   
   
   Figure 5: All the Clipart asset folders
5. We already created a new folder named "Office People", that contains some pictures on our Mac desktop. Now just drag and drop the new category folder with all the pictures it contains into the Clipart folder, as you can see in Figure 6.
   
   
   Figure 6: New folder being dragged into the Clipart folder
6. The new category folder named "Office People" is thus added (highlighted in red in Figure 7). You can now close the Finder window.
   
   
   Figure 7: Office People category is added within Clipart folder
7. Launch PowerPoint, and select the Clip Art tab within Media Browser. Click the drop-down list to bring up the category list -- you'll see the new category "Office People" has been added, and can be seen in the drop-down list (highlighted in red in Figure 8).
   
   
   Figure 8: Office People within Clipart category list
8. Click the category to see the content pictures, as shown in Figure 9.
   
   
   Figure 9: Office People category contains the pictures that were placed in the folder