Those of you that used computers in the good old days, the mid to late 90s, may be well familiar with the Office clip art and image library that has been a mainstay on the productivity suite for years now.
And while it offered a variety of clip part, the images were rather outdated and, at times, clichéd.
Sure that did not stop them from invading schools and workplaces — clip art is very much a cultural phenomenon on PowerPoint presentations and Word assignments. However, today, we may have finally seen the end of this feature.
Microsoft have officially retired the Office clip art and image library, and will instead direct Office users to Bing Image search instead. Proof that times have changed, eh?
The company announced this, saying:
“Starting today, customers searching for Online Pictures in Office desktop products worldwide will view and download royalty-free images curated through Bing Images. The Office.com Clip Art and image library has closed shop. Usage of Office’s image library has been declining year-to-year as customers rely more on search engines.”
Saying it as they see it!
This new feature will, of course, be directly integrated into Office programs like Word, Outlook and PowerPoint. All three versions 2007, 2010 and 2013. Obviously, not all images you seek through here will be vector based, meaning scaling or breaking down the images into parts will not be on.
But overall this is a win, as business documents and student reports will now have much more modern images. At least, theoretically. At least, theoretically.
source:eyeonwindows
