- Working with Shapes
- Inserting Images
- Formatting and Editing Graphic Objects
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Inserting Images
Although the shape tools that come with the Office RT applications are handy for creating simple graphics effects, your document might require something more ambitious or specific. Office RT can help here, too, by offering several types of images that you can insert:
- Picture—You can enhance the visual appeal and strengthen the message of a document by adding a picture to the file. The Office RT applications can work with the most popular picture formats, including BMP, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, and GIF. This means that you can insert almost any photo that you have stored on your computer.
- Clip art—This refers to small images or artwork that you can insert into your documents. Office RT doesn’t come with its own clip art, but it does give you access to the online Office.com clip art collection, which contains thousands of images from various categories, such as business, people, nature, and symbols. You can use any of these clip art images without charge.
- SmartArt—You use these graphics to help present information in a compact, visual format. A SmartArt graphic is a collection of nodes—shapes with some text inside—that enables you to convey information visually. For example, you can use a SmartArt graphic to present a company organization chart, the progression of steps in a workflow, the parts that make up a whole, and much more.
- Text box—The graphics you add to your documents will usually consist of images, but times will occur when you need to augment those images with some text. For example, you might want to add a title and subtitle or insert a label. To add text to an existing image, you draw a text box and then type your text within that box.
- WordArt—You can add some pizzazz to your documents by inserting a WordArt image, which is a graphic object that contains text stylized with shadows, outlines, reflections, and other predefined effects. WordArt images enable you to apply sophisticated and fun effects to text with just a few taps. However, some of the more elaborate WordArt effects can make text difficult to read, so make sure that whatever WordArt image you use does not detract from your document message.
Inserting a Picture
If you have a photo or other image on your computer that you think would add just the right touch, you can insert it into your document.
- Select the Insert tab.
- Select Pictures to open the Insert Picture dialog box.
- Open the folder that contains the picture you want to insert.
- Select the picture.
- Select Insert. The Office RT application inserts the picture into the document.
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Inserting Clip Art
Clip art is professional-quality artwork that can often add just the right touch to a newsletter, brochure, or presentation, and Office.com offers a huge selection of clip art images in dozens of different categories.
- Select the Insert tab.
- Select Online Pictures to open the Insert Pictures dialog box.
- Type a word that describes the type of clip art image you want to insert.
- Select Search. The application displays a list of clip art images that match your search term.
Select the clip art image you want to use.
- Select Insert. The Office RT application inserts the clip art into the document.
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Understanding SmartArt Graphics
One of the most impressive of the Office RT graphics features is support for the SmartArt format, which is based on the XML (Extensible Markup Language) standard. A SmartArt graphic is a collection of nodes—shapes with some text inside—that enables you to convey information visually. You use SmartArt to illustrate concepts in seven main categories:
- List—These are concepts that are sequential or that form a progression or a group. Most of these SmartArt graphics consist of shapes arranged in vertical or horizontal lists.
- Process—These are concepts that progress from one stage to another, where the overall progress has a beginning and an end. In most of these SmartArt graphics, each stage is represented by a shape and accompanying text, and one-way arrows lead you from one shape to the next.
- Cycle—These are concepts that progress from one stage to another in a repeating pattern. In most of these SmartArt graphics, each stage is represented by a shape and accompanying text, and one-way arrows lead you from one shape to the next. The most common structure is a circle, with the last stage leading back to the first stage.
- Hierarchy—These are concepts that either show the relative importance of one thing over another, or show how one thing is contained within another. These SmartArt graphics look like organization charts.
- Relationship—These are concepts that show how two or more items are connected to each other. In most of these SmartArt graphics, each item is represented by a shape and accompanying text, and all the shapes either reside within a larger structure, such as a pyramid, or are positioned relative to one another, such as in a Venn diagram.
- Matrix—These are concepts that show the relationship between the entirety of something and its components, organized as quadrants. These SmartArt graphics have one shape that represents the whole and four shapes that represent the component quadrants.
- Pyramid—These are concepts with components that are proportional to each other or interconnected in some way. In most of these SmartArt graphics, the component shapes are arranged in a triangle pattern.
Inserting a SmartArt Graphic
To build a SmartArt graphic, you use the Text pane to add text to each node as well as add and delete nodes.
- Select the Insert tab.
- Select SmartArt to open the Choose a SmartArt Graphic dialog box.
- Select a SmartArt category.
- Select the SmartArt style you want to use.
- Select OK to add the SmartArt graphic to the document.
- Select a node in the Text pane and then type the text that you want to appear in the node.
- Repeat step 6 to fill in the other nodes in the SmartArt graphic.
- To add a node to the SmartArt graphic, select the existing node you want the new node to come before or after.
- Select the Design tab.
- Select Add Shape and then select either Add Shape After or Add Shape Before.
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Inserting WordArt
WordArt takes a word or phrase and converts it into a graphic object that applies artistic styles, colors, and shapes to the text. WordArt is therefore useful for newsletter titles, logos, and any time you want text to really stand out from its surroundings.
- Select the Insert tab.
- Select WordArt to open the WordArt gallery.
- Select the WordArt style you want to use. The Office RT application adds the WordArt image to the document.
- Type the text that you want to appear in the WordArt image.
- Tap outside the image to set it.
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