Add Clip Art

The Clip Art task pane is a shared program that is also accessible from other Microsoft Office applications. Besides providing an easy way to locate and insert images, the task pane lets you insert sound and video files. This tool also gives you direct access to Microsoft's Design Gallery Live on the Web.

1. Choose Insert> Illustrations> ClipArt. The ClipArt task pane appears.
2. In the Search For box, type a brief description of the image type you want, such as food, buildings, animals, or people.
3. From the Search In list, choose where you want Excel to search.
   
   • My Collections: Includes searching in your private folders such as Favorites and My Documents.
   • Office Collections: Includes clip art, organized by category, installed with the Microsoft Office application.
   • Web Collections: Includes clip art from the Microsoft Office Online Web site.
4. Choose the type of image you want from the Results Should Be drop-down list. Excel can locate clip art, photographs, movies, or sound files.
   Click the plus sign next to any image type to further define the search options.
5. Click the Go button. Excel displays a number of images representing the art you specified.
6. Select the desired image. Excel places the image onto your worksheet.
   For thousands of additional pieces of free clip art, click Clip Art on Office Online.
7. Click the Close button to close the Clip Art task pane.

Inserting graphics files

If the graphic image that you want to insert is available in a file, you can easily import the file into your worksheet. Choose Insert> Picture. Excel displays its Insert Picture dialog box, which enables you to browse for the file.

When you insert a picture on a worksheet, you can modify the picture in a number of ways by choosing Picture Tools> Format context tab. This tab appears automatically when you select a picture object. For example, you can adjust the color, contrast, and brightness. In addition, you can add borders, shadows, reflections, and so on-similar to the operations available for Shapes.