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Recolouring Clip Art

All the formatting you can apply to regular shapes you can also apply to Clip Art (such as rotating, changing brightness etc).

There is however one extra formatting option that is available for clip art (and other vector graphics).

You might have found the perfect clip although the colours clash with your presentation.

The Recoloring dialog box can only be accessed from the Recolor Picture button on the Picture toolbar.

 Recolor Picture - Only available in PowerPoint. Displays the Recolor Picture dialog box.

Insert a piece of clipart on to a slide and select the Recolor Picture button.

Changing the Colours

This dialog box displays all the colours that make up the image

Each item of clipart is basically made up of groups of lines and filled shapes and it is possible to change the colours used on your clipart

You can replace each colour one at a time.

All the colours which make up the clip art are listed on the left.

Click the checkbox next to one of the colours and use the drop-down list to select a new colour.

The preview will change automatically to reflect your changes.

Colours - This is the default and will display both line and fill colours.

Fills - This will only display fill colours.

Resizing

This exactly the same as for all the other objects

If you hold down the Ctrl key while you drag a handle the picture will become anchored at its centre point as it is resized.

You can stretch a clipart by dragging one of the edge handles

Things to Remember

The Recolor Picture button was added in PowerPoint 2002.

A piece of clip art is just a collection of lines and filled shapes.

You can also add standard text over ClipArt pictures using the text tool (large A) and draw text outlines.

It is not possible to change the colour of bitmaps in this way. It is only possible with clipart.