In last week’s PPT post about Recording in PowerPoint, I mentioned that I was going to do a few weeks highlighting some great tools within PowerPoint itself. This isn’t the “Old PowerPoint”. This week I am talking about some of the insert image options.
Online Pictures
You could always insert images, but Microsoft has made it easier to search for, and insert, images straight from within the program. Select the Insert tab and then choose Online Pictures.
A new window opens. You can choose from some categories to click on or you can search for a keyword to find images online through Bing. I really like that by default it searches for images with a Creative Commons license. We are showing our students that copyright is important and helping them to follow infringement rules. You can see below I searched for “dog”. Many options display.
There are other filters you can utilize as well. You can narrow your search by choosing a certain Size, Type, Color, and/or Layout. It is useful to filter the type if you are looking for a specific type of image, such as clipart.
Photo Album
Another favorite of mine that has been around for a while but it seems not many know about is the ability to add a large number of images to a presentation at one time. It is a great option for when you are creating a slideshow that you want running to highlight images from your classroom activities. Start by selecting the Insert > Photo Album > New Photo Album option. Keep in mind, you MUST have your images saved first in a folder location that is accessible from the device you are using.
Your new window will open to guide you through the album upload. Choose to insert your album from File/Disk.
Browse to where you have the images saved. Open the folder, select all the images, and click Insert.
Your images will all be listed on the pop up window now. There are some options to consider in this window before moving on.
- Under Picture Options, you can choose to place captions below the pictures. You can also turn all pictures to black and white.
- Under Album Layout, you can choose how many pictures you want on the slide and what the slide template will look like. You can also choose what type of frame you would like showing around each picture.
Once you have those decisions made, select the Create button at the bottom right of the window.
Now all of your images will appear on slides the way you commanded them to. My image below shows my PPT file with one image on each slide. It creates a title page automatically which you can edit or remove. The background is also black on all slides. You can change this in the Design tab to change to whatever you feel looks best.
If you need to edit the entire album, you can return by selecting Insert > Photo Album > Edit Photo Album. Make changes to the entire album at one time.
