Tips and suggestions on how to customize Clip Art in unique ways
Have you ever played around with Clip Art?
Clip Art are color images that you can insert into any
slide to enhance the content of your presentation, to
visually explain a concept or to add more colors to
your slides.
Do you have any idea about how many million people in
the world have been using Clip Art in their
presentations?
I don't, but I bet they are millions...
Have you noticed that most of the times your colleagues
use the same typical Clip Art images in their slides?
If you still want to use Clip Art, but you want it to
be more unique and give it your "personal touch", there
are two ways you can do it.
Follow these easy steps, and no one will be able to
recognize your Clip Art!
Method A - If you only want to change the colors of any
Clip Art image, do the following:
1) Place the desired Clip Art into your slide by
clicking Insert >> Picture >> Clip Art...
2) Ensure the Clip Art is selected (if it's not, click
on it once)
3) Right-click on the Clip Art image and choose
"Format Picture..."
4) Go in the "Picture" tab and click on "Recolor"
At this point you have an easy way to modify, one by
one, all the colors used in the original Clip Art. You
can put a tick mark on the color you want to modify,
and choose from a drop-down list under "New" the new
color you want to apply. As soon as you change the
colors, you will preview, on the miniature on the
right, how the Clip Art image will look like.
Do all the necessary changes, then click "OK" on the
two little windows to close them.
Does your new Clip Art image look different? It does,
and this way you can change the colors of all the Clip
Art in the gallery.
Method B - In case changing the colors is not enough to
personalize a Clip Art, you can even modify its shape,
remove some elements, add new ones, and mix two or
three different images together.
Let's see how you can do this:
1) Insert the Clip Art (see previous paragraph)
2) Ensure it is selected otherwise select it by
clicking on it
3) Go to Draw >> Ungroup
Your Clip Art will be ungrouped, and you will now be
able to click outside the slide to deselect all the
elements, and then select only the ones you want
to modify.
What's the purpose of ungrouping a Clip Art?
What can I do now?
Well, it's up to your fantasy, but there are plenty of
changes you can now make:
a) You can increase or decrease the size of some
elements inside the Clip Art
b) You can modify the single colors
c) You can remove some elements or even add new ones,
by making copies of the other elements
d) You can even modify the shape of all the objects,
by using an advanced drawing feature we will see
later on (at the end of this paragraph).
Once you have personalized your Clip Art, I recommend
selecting all the elements and group them again, so you
will be able to resize and move them as a whole.
*Remember that most Clip Art images have been grouped
several times, so if you want to be able to access all
individual elements of an illustration, try to ungroup
them several times.
I explain: once you have ungrouped it the first time,
there might still be some elements grouped, so go back
to Draw >> Ungroup, and try again.
You will know that the "nested" groupings are ended
when finally the "Ungroup" option will be grayed out.
*Tip: if you find several Clip Art that may fit your
needs, you can mix them together and then group them
as a whole.
**Advanced Tip (as promised under point "d"): you can
modify the shape of some objects that make up a Clip
Art (useful when correcting maps borders or facial
expressions) by:
1) Selecting the ungrouped object inside the Clip Art
2) Going to Draw >> Edit Points (you can access this
manu choice only if you have previously ungrouped all
the elements of a Clip Art)
3) You will see that the usual little white squares
called "control points" become now black
squared dots
4) Clicking on them and dragging them to modify the
shape of the selected object
5) Clicking on the lines and dragging, and this will
create a new black dot that you can edit.
This way you can modify any shape that has been created
under PowerPoint. Once you are done with the editing,
go back to Draw >> Edit Points and deselect
this feature to turn it off.
You can read this article in the original issue of MasterView.
