Instead, users would now have to use either images from their own devices, or those found through Bing Image Search, where they’re now automatically sent when searching for art within Microsoft apps - step-by-step directions can be found here. “The Clip Art and image library has closed shop,” the statement read. In December 2014, Microsoft announced that it would be doing away with any in-app art libraries. And like so many other things - books, for one - clip art was becoming available for purchase online via sites like, which is still in existence, but today looks a bit different than its 1996 counterpart above.Īnd while clip art isn’t exactly one of those things that we think of as having suffered “death by download” - like books, music, and movies - the ability to procure images online made something like Microsoft’s in-app feature obsolete. households had computers with internet access, indicating that people were using it more and more for consuming information and media. The Early 2000s Source: Wayback Machineīy August 2000, at least 41% of U.S. That could be because its in-app nature - across the entire Microsoft Office Suite - made adding art to documents and presentations a groundbreakingly seamless process. So in 1996, Microsoft Word 6.0 came equipped with 82 clip art images - a miniscule amount compared to the 120,515 files available on today.Īnd yet, Microsoft became the brand most strongly identified with the idea of clip art, despite its predecessors having laid much of the groundwork.
#Microsoft word for mac clip art install#
Microsoft took note of ClickArt’s success, and thought to eliminate the extra step of having to install additional software to access artwork. Source: Vetusware The 1990s Source: MakeUseOfīy the mid-1990s, T/Maker was the largest distributor of unlicensed images, with a library of roughly half a million in 1995. While it’s not clear if that particular program came equipped with its own image library, the same company began producing and selling groups of bitmap images under a new name: ClickArt. Not long after that, however, the T/Maker Company collaborated with Apple to develop another word processing program, WriteNow. As the story goes, they were the only two applications pre-installed on this historic Macintosh 128K.īut what made MacPaint so important was its role as the first program that allowed users to manipulate bitmap images: The “simple line art,” according to The Atlantic, that comprised “early electronic clip art.” Source: DigiBarn That’s partially due to the 1984 development of MacPaint, which was released alongside Apple’s word processing program, MacWrite. But the $400 software didn’t come with these image libraries - instead, they were available on separate floppy disks that had to be purchased for $90 each.īut despite this seemingly trailblazing effort on behalf of IBM, it was really Apple who may have emerged as a leader in the digital image space, at least around the early-to-mid 1980s. Think of it as a primitive version of PowerPoint. That was made possible by a program called VCN ExecuVision, a presentation program created in 1983 for IBM personal computers. It all began with the idea to create a digital library of images. The History of Clip Art The 1980s Source: Computer History Museum But where did clip art come from, anyway? Today, we’re honoring its legacy with a trip through time.
That’s an important distinction - clip art isn’t limited to Microsoft, and actually had several predecessors before it found its way into the likes of Word and PowerPoint.Īnd maybe its retirement was for the best - when I think back to some of its more popular images, they would look positively antiquated today. Clip art opened up a whole new world of visuals for academic assignments - not to mention, the newsletters that my childhood, future-writer self liked to put together for fun.īut today, clip art has become a bit of a thing of the past, at least since Microsoft retired its version in 2014. When I was in school, the only way to include a picture in a book report, for example, was with enough luck to find what I was looking for in a magazine. Today, it’s hard to imagine a world where you can’t procure an image just by searching for it online. Not only were you likely to have the coolest games, but also, you probably had access to clip art libraries, which made for hours of entertainment - for me, at least. If you had an Apple, or even a computer with Windows, your house was the place to be. When I was growing up, it was a pretty big deal to have a computer with an operating system other than DOS.
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