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About this lesson

Two methods to add a picture inside of a shape.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2016, 2019.

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.

  • 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.   

             

         

Method 2: Start with a picture and apply a shape

  • Click the Insert Ribbon.

  • Click Pictures.

  •  Choose a picture.

  • The picture comes into your publication page and the Picture Tools Ribbon appears.              

  • Click the drop down arrow on the Crop Tool.

  • Choose Crop to Shape.

  • 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.
                                                     
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  • 00:04 All right, in this lesson what we're going to do is we're going to insert
  • 00:08 a shape and then put a picture inside of it.
  • 00:10 So on the Insert ribbon click Shapes, and we're going to go ahead and
  • 00:14 choose triangle.
  • 00:15 That looks fine to me.
  • 00:17 Click that and just drop a triangle and resize it on the screen.
  • 00:21 Now we want to put a picture in here.
  • 00:24 So what we do is up on top where we have Shape Fill,
  • 00:27 I'm not going to just change the colors or more colors.
  • 00:30 We're going to aim for Picture.
  • 00:32 So I'm going to click Picture.
  • 00:34 Now we can choose which picture we'd like to use.
  • 00:37 I'm going to go to my files, and
  • 00:39 I've got one right over here that is the Japan flowers.
  • 00:42 Go ahead and click on Insert.
  • 00:44 This is pretty much what you get, okay.
  • 00:45 Now you can kind of change it around to see different parts of the picture,
  • 00:49 but there's no way you get to move that picture around inside that shape.
  • 00:53 Well that's exactly what I want to do, so
  • 00:56 we're going to do this a different way, all right.
  • 00:58 So click back on the white piece of paper, head back to the Insert ribbon.
  • 01:03 Now before we were at the Shapes, this time we're going to start with the picture.
  • 01:07 So go ahead and click Pictures, find the same picture, and hit Insert.
  • 01:13 And I'm going to move this over here.
  • 01:15 And this time we're going to crop this picture to a shape.
  • 01:19 So that's on the Crop button, right on top.
  • 01:22 Hit the drop-down arrow and Crop to Shape.
  • 01:25 And go ahead and click the triangle, there we go.
  • 01:29 Now there is a difference though,
  • 01:31 notice you can still see the image of the picture in the background.
  • 01:35 I can literally click and drag and move the picture into the shape area.
  • 01:40 Now that doesn't make any sense,
  • 01:42 it looks like I chopped off portions of the triangle.
  • 01:44 So click on the picture again, click on the Crop button again, and
  • 01:49 you can see the original picture, it never leaves.
  • 01:52 So I'm going to click this, and I'm just going to enlarge that background picture.
  • 01:55 And now I'm going to move those buds into the area of the triangle that I like,
  • 02:00 all right.
  • 02:01 Who's the boss of this?
  • 02:02 You are, your the boss of this.
  • 02:04 You don't have to take what's happening over here on the right hand side,
  • 02:07 you can completely control it just by going at it a different way.
  • 02:12 All right, so I'm going to click on that.
  • 02:14 So any time you'd like to change this or ajust it a little bit,
  • 02:17 you just simply click on the picture itself, go up to the Format, hit the Crop,
  • 02:23 and then just move that picture around to fill whatever you want in there.
  • 02:28 Now the shape is still changeable of course.
  • 02:30 I can click on this, and
  • 02:31 I can totally change the parts or the angle of the picture.
  • 02:36 I can change the size of the entire thing.
  • 02:38 Actually the picture inside got larger as well, so be careful with that one.
  • 02:42 We'd have to work with them separately, but it's kind of a great feature.
  • 02:46 So I guess the lesson here is if it's not working the way you expected it to,
  • 02:50 you have to rethink it.
  • 02:51 Can you go about it in another way?
  • 02:53 And actually, yes you can.
  • 02:55 Put the picture in there first, and
  • 02:56 then simply hit Crop to Shape, change the shape, and there you go.
  • 03:01 You can move the picture around wherever you'd like, all right.

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