Where to find illustrations icons & clip art for PowerPoint slides?

Looking for presentation clip art in PowerPoint? Wondering where Clip art has gone? Trying to find the PowerPoint icons library?

Microsoft Clip art feature in its original format was removed from PowerPoint a number of years ago, leaving many PowerPoint users wondering where to find images and illustrations to use in their PowerPoint presentations.   We’ve had a few customers ask us about this during our PPT Productivity add-in for PowerPoint demonstrations, so we thought an overview to find Microsoft’s ‘revamped’ PowerPoint clip art might be helpful.

Meet PowerPoint Stock Images, the new PowerPoint Clip art

The good news is, Clip art hasn't been permanently removed. Microsoft has renovated / regrouped clip art on PowerPoint into PowerPoint Stock Images. You can find the Clip art Images feature on the Standard PowerPoint ribbon under Insert > Pictures > Stock Images. Once you open the PowerPoint Stock Images popup, by default you will see the Images tab and a search bar.

Each group of Stock Images in PowerPoint is set up as a separate tab, so you can select to search through Images, Icons, Cutout People, Stickers, Videos or Illustrations. Each tab has a search bar, so you can search for images from each category.

What we all previously knew as PowerPoint Clip art is primarily replaced by the Illustrations tab in PowerPoint's Stock Images. Loaded up with two-toned graphics which can be adapted to your PowerPoint template’s color theme, this new feature might be just what you’re looking for to jazz up your PowerPoint presentations. Icons have a dedicated Icons tab - it is quite a large library of icons for PowerPoint.

Following is a step by step guide to find Clip art in PowerPoint (now aka PowerPoint Stock Images popup!):

Step 1: To use the PowerPoint Illustrations, navigate to the ‘Insert’ tab on the top ribbon, click ‘Pictures’ then select ‘Stock Images’ from the dropdown menu.

Step 2: Click the ‘Illustrations’ tab to reveal a gallery of different illustrations to insert into your PowerPoint presentations.

The PowerPoint illustrations are searchable by grouping or word search. Or you can select one of the thematic grouping buttons beneath the search bar (e.g. Food, Birthday, Education...).

Step 3: Once you have found one or more illustrations you want to include in your PowerPoint presentation, select them and click ‘Insert’ at the bottom right hand corner of the image library.

Illustrations from the Stock Images in PowerPoint feature are all two-toned in color and the colors are editable! You can easily change the illustration accent color to match your presentation theme.

Step 4: To change the accept color of an illustration, simply select the image, then right mouse click and select fill to reveal the color fill jug. From the ‘fill jug’ choose an accent color from your theme colors, or select ‘More Fill Colors’ to reveal more options.

Tip: to keep your PowerPoint presentations consistent, choose a color from your presentation ‘Theme Color’ choices, rather than introducing additional colors. PPT Productivity's Color Toolbar makes it easier to find your PowerPoint template theme colors including tints and shades of theme colors.

PowerPoint has Copyright-free Images to use in presentations

In addition to the Stock Images, you can also choose to insert an online image to your PowerPoint presentation. Microsoft has incorporated an integrated Bing Images search to Office 365. You can find online images to insert via Insert > Pictures > Online Pictures. The images search can be useful in finding copyright-free images to use in your presentations. The challenge is that many users find it confusing to navigate!

Can I add the Illustrations and older Clip Art images to the PPT Productivity Slide Library?

Yes you can! While it’s great that Microsoft still offer an extensive clip art library in PowerPoint, it takes quite a few clicks to navigate to the relevant tab and search.  You might find it easier to save illustrations to your PPT Productivity Slide Library.

If you find illustrations you’d like to reuse easily or if you have copies of old clip art images that have been retired from the current range, you can use PPT Productivity's Slide Library to save images for easy reuse. Simply save any shape or slide to your personal gallery by opening the relevant presentation file or copying the relevant illustration onto a slide, then click ‘save shape’ at the bottom of the Slide Library toolbar.

PPT Productivity also has an extensive range of ~1000 icons in the downloadable objects for the Slide Library. These are included in PPT Productivity Power Tools licensing and in the free trial.

You can also add video clips to your PowerPoint slides from the Microsoft 365 Image Library!

Want to add moving images to your PowerPoint slides? Microsoft 365 has now included a series of short videos that you can include in your PowerPoint presentations. Here are the steps for inserting video clips to PowerPoint slides from Microsoft's Image Library

Step 1: The video files are accessible from the PowerPoint Insert tab, via the Pictures dropdown menu. Choose Stock images and then the ‘Videos’ tab. Or by going directly to the ‘Video’ dropdown menu, also on the Insert tab and select ‘Stock Video’

Step 2: Mouse over the video image to view a brief preview of the video.  To insert the video onto your slide, click on the video and hit insert at the bottom right-hand corner of the Image Library.

Step 3: Once you have inserted your video, you can resize using a simple select and drag, or use the PPT Productivity Scale objects function.

Step 4: Videos from the Stock images library seem to run for less than 10 seconds, but you can also edit the duration using the video trimming tools.  These are found by using a right mouse click on the insert video.

Here’s a quick example:

Found a video in the Stock Image video library you think you’ll use again? You can save it to your PPT Productivity Slide Library for fast access next time you want to add it to a slide.