Goodbye Office Clip Art, Say Hello To Bing Images
Microsoft has finally put to rest nearly a-decade-old library of Clip Art for Office and replaced it with more realistic images from Bing Search.
The iconic Clip Art is leaving the long-running and efficient Microsoft Office as its creator has upgraded it with real images. Microsoft officially confirmed the news on Monday, stating that its own collection of pictures and templates will no longer be accessible for Word and PowerPoint documents. The decision comes after Microsoft realized the declining use of Clip Art, which was popular during the 90's.
Learning from people's behavior on the internet and Office documents, Microsoft integrated Bing images as an alternative to make your Word and PowerPoint documents visually appealing. After all, a quick internet search can bring a better pictorial representation of what you intend than the limited Clip Art gallery.
By using Bing for image search, Microsoft has set a predetermined filter that only shows images that are licensed to use publicly under "Creative Commons." Of course, you will be able to widen your search but Microsoft warns, "You are responsible for respecting others' rights, including copyright."
To use Bing images in your documents, users can simply navigate to Insert > Online Pictures and look for suitable images from Bing.
If you still wish to use Clip Art, this is not the end of the world. There are several alternatives to Clip Art on the web. Websites like Clip Art and Open Clip Art offers royalty-free clipart designs for your documents.
This is basically an upgrade to the decade long tools that are used by hundreds and thousands of people worldwide. According to the company's By The Numbers page, more than 1.2 billion people use Office. With this new change, users of Office dating back to 2003 will no longer be able to use Clip Art as default image search.
