Working with a wonderful designer, Ally Hood, and collaborating together, we brought some fabulous new imagery to CAM - from her work with Templates. We know that you love backgrounds, borders and other design elements, so I am happy to have recently published a whole new batch of them! Check them out and let us know what you think!
I asked Ally to write something about how she came up with the designs and also how to implement them using Office programs. So, in her own words....
I have been creating templates for Office Online for several years and I am always exploring new ways to really push the limits of what Office applications can do. With the release of Office 2007, came great new features. This inspired me to create more complex art and really take advantage of the cool new features!
I created backgrounds and other coordinating clip art to be used (and reused) specifically in templates, for different Office applications; primarily Word, PowerPoint and Publisher. I ended up creating a lot of art and it’s used in a lot of templates on the site. However, rather than keep it hidden in templates, the Office Online Clip Art and Media site manager, Natalie, and I, teamed up to publish the art and provide it to our customers, as free downloads from CAM.
The great thing about these backgrounds is that you can insert them into your favorite application, crop them, re-color them, layer them, rotate them and make a really great document, with your own personal spin on it.
One of my most recent templates is the Fourth of July photo album. By using four of the new backgrounds, I was able to create a fun template to compile family photos in.
You can use these same backgrounds or even use different backgrounds and make Fourth of July greeting cards or party invitations:
This same layout, with different, theme-ready, backgrounds can make anything from a baby photo album to graduation photo album.
These backgrounds can be used for so much more than just photo albums. If you want to see more of what you can do with these backgrounds; including invitations, stationary, name cards and more, check out the Templates site!
I hope you enjoy working with this art, as much as I did creating it. If you end up creating some really great documents, and want to share them with the world, publish those documents, as community templates, on the Templates site!
We know we can always do a better job and really value your feedback and suggestions; every day, decisions we make are guided by what you tell us: the images we select for our collection, the topics we write about in this blog, the features we implement on our site...
Yes, we love to hear from you and want to hear from you even more! So we want to learn how you would like to engage with us and with other users on the site, and how you like to interact on your favorite sites today.
- What compels you to post a comment, rate an item or forward a page to a friend?
- How do you like engaging with the site, other users of the site, and experts?
- What brings out the "chatty" you? For example, do you read reviews by other users before you purchase something on Amazon or book a hotel on Expedia? Later on, do you go back and add your review to help others with their decisions?
- Do you comment on images on sites like Flickr or iStockphoto? Do you read other users' comments?
- What about sites, such as Wikipedia, that allow you to add and edit? If you could edit a Web page or share a how-to video on a site, would you?
I just came across these very cool anime-style illustrations and animations that a Korean high school student named Han Byul Jang created entirely in PowerPoint.
According to http://pptheaven.mvps.org/zzangdol.html, "Han Byul Jang is a rising star, PowerPoint artist and animator in Korea's PowerPoint Expert Club (An online PowerPoint Community). Also known as Zzangdol in the community, he can draw realistic anime characters (completely using PowerPoint's Freeform tool) and animate them all in PowerPoint." The image below is an example of his work; there are many more on http://pptheaven.mvps.org/zzangdol.html, including downloadable animations.
So, I'm curious - have you ever used PowerPoint to create animations? Or for that matter, have you used any Office applications to create illustrations, comics etc?
If so, tell us all about it and show it off ! Just leave a comment to this post with a URL to your masterpiece :-)
A few people have asked about this lately, so here are a few easy steps to use images from http://office.microsoft.com/clipart as wallpaper or screen savers.
If you're using Windows:
- For wallpaper:
- Go to http://office.microsoft.com/clipart and download the image(s) you'd like to use.
- Navigate to the images (they should be in My Pictures folder, in a subfolder called Microsoft Clip Organizer)
- Right-click the image you want to use and select Set as desktop background
- If you want to change the way the picture is displayed on your desktop, right-click the desktop, and then click Properties
- On the Desktop tab, in the Position box, select a display option.
- For screen saver:
- Go to http://office.microsoft.com/clipart and download the image(s) you'd like to use.
- click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Display.
- On the Screen Saver tab, under Screen saver, click My Pictures Slideshow in the list.
- Click Settings to specify the folder containing your pictures,
- Navigate to the images (they should be in My Pictures folder, in a subfolder called Microsoft Clip Organizer)
If you're using a Mac:
- For wallpaper:
- Go to http://office.microsoft.com/clipart and download the image(s) you'd like to use.
- In the Apple menu, go to Preferences
- Click the Desktop & Screen Saver icon
- Click the Desktop tab
- Navigate to the image you'd like to use (should be under Applications > Microsoft Office > clipart) and select it
- For screen saver:
- Go to http://office.microsoft.com/clipart and download the image(s) you'd like to use.
- In the Apple menu, go to Preferences
- Click the Desktop & Screen Saver icon
- Click the Screen Saver tab
- Navigate to the image you'd like to use (should be under Applications > Microsoft Office > clipart) and select it
Tip: Images in wmf format work best, because they stretch and resize without quality loss; jpgs can work too, it depends on your screen resolution.
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La semaine dernière, nous avons lancé sur nos sites francophones une collection de photos et illustrations fournies par notre partenaire, iStockphoto.
Vous pouvez maintenant trouver ces images sur :
Ces images peuvent être téléchargées gratuitement sur Office Online par les utilisateurs d’Office. Ceux qui le souhaitent ont aussi la possibilité d’acheter une version haute résolution de ces images sur le site d’iStockphoto. C’est facile :
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pour télécharger la version gratuite, cliquez « Ajouter au panier »
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pour visionner et éventuellement acheter la version haute résolution, ou simplement flâner sur le site d’iStockphoto, cliquez « Pour acheter une version haute résolution… »
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We're pleased to announce that a new partner, Stockxpert, just joined the Clip Art and Media collection; here's a sneak peek of their cool images:
FAQ:
How do I find the Stockxpert content on the Clip Art and Media site?
Just search for Stockxpert:
What format are those images?
They are JPGs.
So, what's with the shopping cart icon? Do I have to pay for these images?
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If you check the "add to selection basket" box on the Clip Art and Media site, you're essentially downloading a lower-resolution "comp"; you are not purchasing the image.
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| If you click the shopping cart icon, you will be taken to a higher resolution version of the image on the Stockxpert site; if you choose to, you can purchase the higher resolution image from Stockxpert, or you can browse for other images in their collection. |
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Why would I want to buy a high resolution image?
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Look at the dimensions on the image you selected; will it fit in your project? Will you need to make the image bigger? |
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If the answer is yes, you might want to consider a higher resolution: the more you stretch a raster file (i.e. a jpg or png), the more image quality will be degraded; the image will become blurry, pixelated, and will not print out nicely: |
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How much would that cost me, anyway?
This link shows Stockxpert's per-image and subscription prices.
Questions about the Stockxpert site?
Here's an introduction article.
Questions about permitted use of images on the Clip Art and Media site?
Here's the Microsoft Service Agreement.
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Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year, is fast approaching; if you're looking to create your own greeting cards for Chinese New Year, we have plenty of choices for you: clipart/illustrations, photos... And since we'll be ushering in the Year of the Rat, here are a few of our Chinese Zodiac rat designs:
If you want to see more:
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If so, share it!
Here's an easy, fun way to create personalized gift tags.
What you’ll need for this project
- Images from http://office.microsoft.com/clipart
- Microsoft Office Word (instructions below are for the 2007 Word version)
- Printer
- 8.5-by-11-inch paper — a heavier stock works best
- Scissors
Demo (scroll further down for step-by-step instructions)
Video: Create your own gift tags
Step-by-step instructions
- Open a new Word document and save it
- On the Page Layout tab, click Margins and select Narrow (this will give you more space to work with)
- Back in the Word document, click the Insert tab and then click Table.
- Create a 2 x 4 cells table and click insert table. Each table cell will be a gift tag.
- Select the table, right-click it and select Table properties. On the Cell tab, click Cell Options and make sure that there’s a 0.08” margin left, right, top and bottom (this will make sure there is enough blank space around the image, and the image doesn’t get truncated when you cut out the tags)
- Select the table by clicking in it. A small rectangle appears at the lower-right corner of the table. Using your mouse pointer, click and drag from the small rectangle to resize your table so that it fills the page.
- Find the images you want to use in your gift tags on http://office.microsoft.com/. I find that styles 1452 and 1278 are well suited for gift tags; here are some examples of these styles:
- Insert an image in each cell of the table. If you need to resize the image, click and drag from a corner box
- Format the table cell so that the image is correctly centered. To do this, right-click in the cell, point to Cell alignment on the shortcut menu, and then click the Align Center Left icon.
- On the Insert tab, click Text box and select Draw text box; a little "+" sign will appear; drag it with your mouse pointer to create the text box
- In the text box, type “From” and “to”
- Click the box to select it, and on the Format tab, click Shape Outline and click No Outline
Voilà, you’re done!
All you have to do is save your document, print out the tags and cut them out, using the table gridlines as guides. Use a sharp pair of scissors or a paper cutter.
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Some of you have been asking how to flip images horizontally, so here's how.
In 2007 Word, PowerPoint or Outlook:
- Click the image you want to flip or rotate in order to select it.
- When the image is selected, you will see the Format tab become highlighted
- On the Format toolbar, click this icon:
- Choose an action depending on the results you want: flip horizontal, flip vertical, rotate left, rotate right
- This is what it should look like:
Move over, turkey: time for Christmas!
Are you planning to make your own greeting cards, gift tags, menus, place cards, party invitations this holiday season? Are you looking for high quality, free images to spice them up? Office Online has a wide collection for you to pick from: from fun, colorful illustrations to tasteful, high-quality photos - we'll have something that suits your tastes and needs! Here's a selection of our popular Christmas content:
Stay tuned: new postings coming soon for our Hannukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year selections!
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Check out our Thanksgiving collection:
If you've been browsing the Clip Art and Media site lately, you may have noticed that a new shopping cart icon recently popped up on some images:
Images displaying this icon are available for purchase at a higher resolution from a partner site. Clicking the shopping cart takes you to the partner site, where you can choose a higher resolution suiting your project's needs, and browse for other images if you feel like it.
If you don't need a high resolution image for your project, you can still download the basic resolution version for free from the Clip Art and Media site; all you have to do is click the selection basket checkbox:
