Clip art is a graphic that you select from a collection and insert into a document. People typically think of clip art (also called a clip)
as a simple line drawing, but clip art can be an illustration, a photo,
or even a small video or audio file. Word comes with goodness knows how
many built-in clip art images, and you can download many others from
the Office.com website.
Like a picture, clip art can go pretty much anywhere
in a document. The difference is in how you access clip art images.
Because clip art is built into Microsoft Office, you can find images by
searching for them in Word’s Clip Art pane. Because there are about a
bazillion clip art images in Office, you control your searches by using
descriptive key words and simple filters.
Finding clip art is a lot like searching the
Internet with Google. You type one or more keywords that describe the
kind of image you’re looking for; then Word displays images that match
your description. Depending on how relevant your keywords are, your
search can yield hundreds of images or none at all.
A clip art graphic behaves just like a picture when
you insert it into a document, so some of the advice from the preceding
section on photos also applies here. Be sure to place the insertion
point where you want the image to go. Also, clips are inserted
full size, so they may be a lot larger than you imagine. And Word
inserts the clip as an inline image, so it will behave like text.
Finding and Inserting a Clip Art Graphic
Before you launch your search, you can tell Word
what kind of clips you want—illustrations, photos, videos, or audio
clips. You can also tell Word whether to display matching clips found
on the Office.com website. Here’s how to find a clip and add it to a
document:
1. | Place the insertion point where you want the clip to be inserted.
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2. | On the Insert tab, click Clip Art. The Clip Art pane opens, as shown in Figure 1.
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3. | Click
in the Search For box and type one or more keywords that describe the
type of image you need. If you’re writing a holiday letter, for
example, a keyword such as “snow” should bring up illustrations of
snowmen, snowflakes, and other wintery images.
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4. | Click
the Results Should Be drop-down arrow; then check the types of clips
you want to see and clear the ones you don’t want to see, as shown in Figure 2.
If you’re interested only in illustrations, for example, select the
Illustrations check box and clear all the others. (Selecting the All
Media Types check box selects all four types of clips.)
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5. | Make
sure that the Include Office.com Content check box contains a check
mark; if it doesn’t, click it. This option ensures that your search
includes clips from the Office.com website and Word’s built-in clips
(as long as you have an active Internet connection). It also gives you
a better chance of finding clips that match your keywords.
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6. | Click Go. Word searches for matching clips and displays the results in the Clip Art pane.
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7. | Scroll through the results, and point to a clip you like. A drop-down arrow appears at the clip’s right edge, as shown in Figure 3.
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If Word says it can’t find any clips that match your
keywords, clear the text in the Search For box and try again, using
more descriptive keywords.
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8. | Click the drop-down arrow; then click Insert. Word inserts the image at the insertion point’s location in the document.
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9. | Click the Close button at the right end of the Clip Art pane’s title bar.
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If you aren’t satisfied with the results of
your search, you can click the Find More At Office.com link at the
bottom of the Clip Art pane. Your web browser opens and takes
you to the appropriate page of the Office.com website. Note, however,
that if you checked the Include Office.com Content check box in step 5,
then clips from the website have already appeared in your search
results. In that case, a better strategy is to refine your keyword
search and try again.
