eLearning: What Happened to Microsoft's Free Image Gallery?

by AJ Walther  

In my Optimizing PowerPoint Design for eLearning & Presentations class I like to sing the praises of Microsoft's free online image gallery. But then, a few weeks ago, the unthinkable happened. I went to pull an image from said image gallery, and was met instead with this: 

Do you know what this is? I'll tell you what this is. Useless. It looks like maybe you can search here, but believe you me-you cannot. Where once I found easily searchable free images, I am now met with a screen telling me how to use the newest Office to search for Images (which doesn't work for me as I have Office 2010), how to use Office Web Apps to find images (does anyone use that?),  or how to use Bing to find these images (which I tried with zero success). The bottom of the page gives me links to images for Office 2010 or 2007, which I thought would be just the ticket. But no. Those links instead navigate to a page outlining how to insert clip art. Thanks for nothing.

I guess I shouldn't have been upset that a free service had disappeared. But, ya know what, I was upset. (Spoiler alert: I was upset enough that I kept digging until I found a solution. Read on for more!)

If you've used the free image gallery you probably know how great it is. But if you haven't, here's why it's such a valuable tool for eLearning designers:

You Can search by Style numbers

Let's say you found this image:

  

If you found the image in Microsoft's free image gallery, then it came complete with a linked style number.

 

Clicking the style number pulls up other images from the same style that can all be used together for a cohesive design. That's awesome.

 

Unless you already know the Style number, you cannot search by style number from the Office Clip Art pane. Nor does the clip art mention anywhere in its keywords what the style number is.

Search by General Style 

 Maybe a particular style doesn't have quite enough images for you. That's okay, the image gallery has a feature allowing you to search by general style--pulling up other images that look similar, even if they aren't technically part of the same style group.

 

The Search feature within Office's Clip Art pane does not have this feature.

Note: This feature did not work for me in Chrome or Internet Explorer without first downloading Microsoft's Silverlight. I'm running Parallels, however, so I used Safari on the mac side without having to do any additional downloading.

More Selections

When I search within PowerPoint's Clip Art pane using the keyword "construction" for illustrations, including content from office.com, I get back 106 images to choose from. The same search online in the MS Image gallery brings back 156 images.

When I found I could no longer access my beloved Images section of MS Office's site I spent two hours being bounced around between Microsoft's live online chat and multiple tech support hotlines. I tried explaining what was missing every way I knew how and no one seemed to know what I was talking about. If I couldn't access the site anymore I was hopeful that someone could at least tell me how to identify a clip art image's style number from within MS Office for easy searching. This was not the case.

Luckily (and I know it is cruel to make you wait this long for the solution, but at least you weren't on the phone for two hours), I found the solution on my own. By bypassing the image search page of the Microsoft Office page and instead searching the Office site as a whole, I was able to find the hidden images! For your convenience, here is a direct link.

You're welcome.

(Note: When you click the direct link above, the resulting page will say "found no results” because you haven't searched for anything yet. Go ahead and type your search keyword into the search bar above the text to look for images. After you search you can adjust the Media Types at the left to filter your results.)

Comments

[SunshowerBiz]

Thanks so much! I was convinced this was a marketing ploy by Microsoft to force Office 2010 users to upgrade. :p

[Joyce Valent]

thank you, you are AWESOME!!!

[Mary M]

You are the BEST! A million thank yous!!!

[Anne Goldenberger]

AJ - THANK YOU!!!! I've been so dependent on this gallery for years, and was crushed when I found it was gone. You're a lifesaver!

[MHH]

Does not work as of July 15th. If anyone can find it again, please post.

[AJ]

Hi MHH--clicking the direct link at the end of the article above is still working for me. Alternately you can just go to http://office.microsoft.com/, type your search term into the search field, and then scroll down to Image Results.

[Jinglz]

Fantastic Job!! Thank you for your hard work and your time. It's the bomb.

[Erika]

Thank you sooooo much!

[this is my name]

THANK YOU

[Lady K]

Thank you for being willing to share. You very well could have kept it to yourself. I'm so glad you didn't. Thank you again. Create a beautiful day for yourself and others. (Oh wait, you just did for me - wink, wink, smile). Peace...

[Allison]

Thank you!!! I was looking for the same thing! Thanks for saving me tons of time (and frustration!)

[Suella Palmer]

Thanks. Can you please explain how to find the image styles? I can find a single image, eg 00040186.wmf, but not the entire collection of images in that style.

Appreciate your work.

[AJ]

Hi Suella,

After you've found your image, click the image to navigate to the image's page. To the right of the image you should see a link for the Style number. Click that to be directed to a page (or multiple pages) of images of the same style.

[Amanda Lamela]

Holy cow, thank you a million times over! This was frustrating me to no end.

[Kathryn]

Thanks for spending the time to find the images and for posting this!! I've used them a lot the past few years and was wondering where they went.

[Ellen]

Thank you!! I was so frustrated and about to give up.

[andy scarcliffe]

thank you! this was a source of good resolution, free, sometimes excellent images, that, as you say, just seemed to disappear. You're a star!

[Liz C-J]

Thank you a million times. I went through the same hoops as you, and then found this lifesaver. Merry Christmas.

[Orit]

thank you so much!!

[LD]

Thank you. How can we get Microsoft to put it back?

[A Lurker]

You, madam, are the best! You have saved me!

[Cath]

Thanks for posting this! I think it's gone for good now. I had the link saved to my bookmarks and was able to access it as of a week ago, but now it redirects me to this (link below) and I can't find my way back to the seemingly disappearing image library that we all know and love. Any help is appreciated! Thanks!

https://support.office.microsoft.com/en-us/article/Search-for-pictures-or-clip-art-online-0a01ae25-973c-4c2c-8eaf-8c8e1f9ab530?legRedir=true&qu=hugs&ex=1&CTT=5&CorrelationId=81eea86d-93f4-4d86-8a6d-879c9b2ac402&ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

[AJ]

Hi Cath,

Unfortunately I'm finding the same thing and am unable to find a backdoor way to the old site. Looks like it really is gone for good now :(

Of course, if anyone finds differently, I would love to be notified!