After Killing Clip Art Microsoft Is Adding Bing Image Search To Its Presentation App Sway

Microsoft has integrated Bing Image Search into its Office presentation app Sway, making it easier to add visuals. The integration of Bing Image Search will also improve the Sway's 'suggested source' feature. 

Sway, unlike traditional slide-based tools like PowerPoint, allows users to create shareable online presentations that scale gloriously from smaller screens of smartphones to large PC displays. 

Sway already lets its users collect contents from slew of built-in cloud-connected sources such as OnceDrive, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. 

The latest integration aims at streamlining the process of finding royalty-free images and adding them to the presentation.

"In response to requests from users (particularly in the education space) about wanting to be able to search for Creative Commons licensed images directly from the Internet, we've integrated Bing Image Search functionality into Sway," announced Microsoft's Sway group in a blog post. "Now you can search for images tagged with Creative Commons licenses within Sway."

Users of Sway can now access Creative Commons-licensed images, thanks to the Bing Image Search Integration. 

"Simply click the source dropdown and select Bing. Type anything into the search bar, press Enter and get back the results for a Bing Image Search," the blog post instructed. 

However, the caveat is the feature is not a free-for-all. "A URL to the source of the image is provided, which allows you to navigate to the original image and review the license terms to make sure your use is permitted," wrote the Sway Team members. "You are responsible for respecting others' rights, including copyright," Microsoft cautioned. 

Sway team is also improving the 'Suggested' searches features with the help of machine learning . 

"From the first word you add to your Sway, 'Suggested' searches uses natural language processing to begin showing tags for related words and phrases you might be interested in, based on what you've already written," stated the Sway Team. "When you see a tag you like, tap or click it to perform the Bing Image Search based on these words or phrases," the blog post revealed.