Microsoft Office 2003 comes with its own Picture Manager. You can open the Picture Manager by clicking Start, choosing All Programs (or Programs), choosing the Microsoft Office folder, choosing Microsoft Office Tools, and clicking Microsoft Picture Manager. (Whew!)

 

 

The first time you open Picture Manager, you will be prompted to choose what file types you want to associate with the program. Check the ones you want (or uncheck the ones you don’t want) and click OK.

 

 

Here’s an overview of the main Picture Manager screen. You’ll notice many familiar elements like menus, toolbars, help dialogs, and task panes.

 

 

Let’s get a general overview of each part.

 

1	Menu Bar	Like Word menu bars, you can click each heading to see a list of commands.
		File menu: Use this menu to add picture shortcuts; locate pictures; save, print, and export pictures; and view picture properties.
		Edit: Contains basic editing commands like Cut, Copy, Paste, and Select All.
		View: Choose how to view your pictures and what elements of the screen to show.
		Picture: Edit your picture with resizing, red eye, crop, brightness, and resizing tools.
		Tools: Change file types associated with the Picture Manager and customize Picture Manager’s toolbars and menus.
		Help: Contains help tools for Picture Manager.
2	Picture Manager toolbar	Just like the Word toolbar, you can click each icon to perform a specific action. You can also mouse over each icon to see a description of its command.
3	Type a Question	If you have a question, type it here and press enter. Results will be displayed in a task pane on the right, just like Word help results.
4	Shortcuts Pane	This list contains picture shortcuts. You can add more shortcuts using the link at the top of this pane or using the File menu command.
5	Viewing Pane	This pane displays your pictures.
6	Task Pane	This is the task pane area. The task pane currently displayed is the Getting Started pane, which provides links to common commands (including sending the files to Microsoft Office Word 2003).
7	Status Bar	Shows you the name and size of your photo. It also has tools for zooming into photos and moving around in the picture list.

 

To insert a picture from Microsoft Office Picture Manager, first browse to and select your photo(s). Then, click the File menu and click Send to – Microsoft Office. The dialog shown to the right will appear.

 

The first option lets you choose to insert your picture into an open file. You can click the drop-down arrow to see all files open in all Microsoft Office 2003 applications.

 

The next set of options allows you to insert your picture into a new document.

 

You can also click the Options link above the OK button to set the size of your picture from a few pre-defined choices.

 

Once your options are set, click OK. Then, your picture will appear in the selected file, just as if you had used the Insert – Picture – From File command.

 

Microsoft Office Picture Manager has all the basic options you need for customizing pictures in a familiar layout. If you don’t have photo-editing software, it can be a good alternative to spending hundreds of dollars on complex photo editing software with more advanced options you might not use.