About this lesson
Two methods to adding a picture inside of a shape.
Quick reference
Shapes with Pictures
Insert a shape and fill it with a Picture.
When to use
A creative use of shapes and design when using pictures and shapes together.
Instructions, Method #1: Start with a shape and fill with a picture
- Click the Insert Ribbon
and click the Shapes button - Click the Triangle shape and click into the blank publication and a perfect triangle appears:
- Notice the Drawing Tools Ribbon at the top of the screen, choose the Fill Color button:
Fill Color, then choose Picture: 
- Browse to your picture files and choose a picture:
- Move the yellow diamond tool to adjust the way the shape displays the picture:
Instructions, Method #2: Start with a picture and apply a shape
- Click the Insert Ribbon , click Pictures
and choose one: 
- The picture comes into your publication page and the Picture Tools Ribbon appears:
- Click the drop down arrow on the Crop Tool
and choose “Crop to Shape”: 
, then choose the Triangle shape. - Notice the full picture remains in view and you can click and drag the picture to change what portion displays inside the shape:
You can even enlarge the picture to help it fit:
- When you click off the shape, the background picture will no longer be available to move around. To reactivate it, simply click the CROP tool again and adjust the picture.
- 00:04 In this lesson we're gonna work with shapes and fill them with pictures and
- 00:08 there's two ways to do this.
- 00:10 First way is click on your Insert ribbon, go ahead and click on Shapes and
- 00:14 I'm gonna choose my triangle.
- 00:16 When I click on that I can click and drag a nice triangle.
- 00:20 I get my drawing tools format and you can do any of these
- 00:24 items up here that you'd like but the one we're going to focus on is the fill color.
- 00:29 When I hit the drop down arrow I can change the fill color of the shape or
- 00:33 right down here I have an option that says picture.
- 00:36 When I click picture it's going to take me to my browse to my files, I'll go ahead
- 00:41 and click on that and I'll choose this picture right here, Japan flowers.
- 00:46 Now here's hoping that the part of the picture I wanted to appear
- 00:50 actually showed up in the right spot.
- 00:52 I have a little bit of control because up on top,
- 00:54 this yellow diamond, I can click and drag and move that yellow diamond and
- 00:58 hope to wrap it around the portion of the picture that I'd like to see.
- 01:02 But that's about all I have for control.
- 01:05 Even if I resize the shape it’s not going to wrap around anymore of the picture.
- 01:10 It's just going to make it little larger.
- 01:12 Well here’s the reverse of that, instead of starting with the shape and
- 01:15 filling with the picture, let's start with the picture.
- 01:19 All right, going back to my insert ribbon and this time I'm gonna click on pictures,
- 01:23 it's gonna take me directly to my pictures file and I'll choose that same picture.
- 01:28 Notice it comes in in a nice, big rectangle.
- 01:31 Now, instead of my shape tools, I have picture tools.
- 01:35 And right over here on the right we have crop and
- 01:37 crop with a drop down arrow which gives me crop to shape.
- 01:42 Now I'll go ahead and choose that same triangle, and there we have it.
- 01:45 But notice I still have the full image in the background.
- 01:49 Now it's important you understand how to operate this.
- 01:52 When I click off of it,
- 01:53 I am left with basically the same picture I have over here on the right hand side.
- 01:57 But I want to move that picture inside the triangle.
- 02:00 I'm going to activate the shape.
- 02:02 I'm going to go back to my Picture Tools, Format.
- 02:04 I'm going activate crop and now I can see the picture in the background.
- 02:08 Now I have total control and I can move the picture around,
- 02:12 notice the shape is stationary, I'm just moving the picture.
- 02:16 Well obviously you can see the peak of my triangle is gone,
- 02:19 let me click off of it to demonstrate.
- 02:21 My right corner is gone, the peak is gone.
- 02:23 Well that's unacceptable.
- 02:25 Active the shape again, go back to your Picture Tools, Format,
- 02:29 activate Crop again and now I see the picture in the background.
- 02:33 I simply resize the picture and make it larger.
- 02:36 And then I will click and drag and move a little buds into the corner.
- 02:40 And maybe resize the picture a little more just to make it all fit the way I'd like.
- 02:45 Now when I click off of it you can see that I had full control
- 02:50 over which portion of that picture landed inside the triangle.
- 02:53 Rather than being stuck with what the computer decided to put
- 02:57 inside the triangle and that is the difference between those two.
- 03:01 Now the best way to avoid this problem
- 03:05 is to have a picture that fills all the edges of a shape.
- 03:10 So let me go back here to my Insert, Shapes, I'll go ahead and
- 03:13 get another triangle.
- 03:15 Draw another triangle right here and this time I'll go ahead and
- 03:19 get my fill color picture and I'm just gonna choose a different picture
- 03:24 of the Japanese Maple that is just, fills everything corner to corner and
- 03:29 I don't have to deal with any of these problems.
- 03:32 But you need to know that you have the flexibility and
- 03:35 you have the total control.
- 03:36 And that's why I wanted to show you both methods.
- 03:39 All right, have fun with that.
- 03:40 Thank you.
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