Grow Your Own Clipart Using copyright-free sources you already own

Sharon Elin 2009 Or, How to use PowerPoint as a clip art studio Tweak artwork, build collages, create jpeg images, and add a Works Cited page

Even if Microsoft clip art is your only choice, you still have plenty of options!

First option : Draw your own pictures. Second option : Take your own photos. Third option : Get creative with clip art!

Use PowerPoint as your personal graphic artist’s studio

Note: Everything shown here is based in Windows XP and PowerPoint 2003. Look for newer ways to accomplish the same techniques in whichever platform or interface you use for slideshows. Mac users, you can probably find similar methods in your non-Windows world!

When you look for clipart, you can enlarge your view of the collection From this narrow view To a wider view Pull here

This allows you to use Microsoft clipart in other presentations or projects! You can save a piece of clip art on a slide as a picture file (JPEG) Right-click on the clip art and “Save Picture As.”

Learn how to convert an entire slide to a JPEG image to use as clip art in another presentation or project. This is useful for creating illustrated title slides in PhotoStory or MovieMaker

Insert clip art on a PowerPoint slide and layer it to create a collage. Then save the slide as a picture file. Check out my visit to Cousin Bessie’s farm This is a creative way to tell a visual story in one frame!

Let’s save this arrangement of clip art as a new picture.

Click “File” > “Save As” 2. Choose a destination and a title for the picture file 3. Change the file type from “presentation” to “JPEG interchange file”

Click “File” > “Save As”

Select “Current Slide Only” to save a single slide.

Now your collage slide is a picture you can use anywhere

You can harvest several pieces of clip art and save each one as a separate file. Or….

You can group several pieces of clip art to create a new picture Arrange the group. Hold down “Ctrl” while selecting each picture. Then right-click and choose “grouping > group” Right click & select “order” to bring different layers in front of others

Now the group stays together as one piece of clip art P.S. You can right-click and “ save as picture ” to use it in another program.

One drawback: When these files are used in Photostory or MovieMaker, they have black backgrounds.

Solution: Insert the clipart on a blank PowerPoint slide. Save the entire slide as a picture. Reminder: To save the slide as an image: File > Save As > (scroll down in file types & select JPEG)

If you only want one part of a piece of clip art, isolate one area by using the crop tool in the picture toolbar. Here’s how …

This is one piece of clip art with many figures, but I only want to use the little pear man.

Insert the clip art on a PowerPoint slide. Click on the clip art and find the picture toolbar. If the toolbar isn’t showing, click on “View > toolbars” and select “Picture”

Click on the crop marks.

Look for bold trim markers on the corners & all sides.

Click on a marker and drag the border to the area you want.

Click on a marker and drag the border to the area you want.

Click on a marker and drag the border to the area you want.

Click on a marker and drag the border to the area you want.

Now you can right-click and “Save as picture.” Hi! I’m Mr. Pear! Don’t believe them when they say eat more fruit!

Add a “Works Cited” bibliography slide to your project. First, create a bibliography in Word (Use easybib.com or another online bibliography generator)

You’ll need to make several adjustments to the text so it will be readable on a slide. 1. Enlarge the type size to size 18 or 20

2. Adjust linespacing

Format > Paragraph 2. Adjust linespacing 1.5 lines

3. Shorten the margins

File > Page Setup 3. Shorten the margins 0.5” margins

4. Turn off Spell Check to get rid of squiggly lines.

4. Turn off Spell Check to get rid of squiggly lines. Tools > Options Continued on next slide

Uncheck all spellcheck options

Use “Printscreen” on your keyboard to capture a screenshot of the bibliography Printscreen works like “copy.” After you click it, you can “paste” the screenshot image into a presentation or document.

Paste the screenshot into a blank Powerpoint slide to crop it. You may need to split the bibliography into two or more sections and use several slides to show the entire bibiliography.

After cropping it, enlarge the image to fit the slide.

Save the slide as an image: File > Save As > (scroll down in file types & select JPEG)

Repeat the process for the remaining portions of the bibliography.

How it looks in PhotoStory3

How it looks in MovieMaker

Have fun being creative! Sharon Elin 2009