A Duck for your Docs

posted Dec 6, 2012, 6:29 PM by Eric Curts   [ updated Dec 6, 2012, 6:30 PM ]
Almost one year ago from today (December 13th of last year) Google rolled out Stock Images for Google Docs.  For years one of the biggest concerns from teachers had been the lack of clip art readily available in Docs, like the way it is built into Microsoft Office.

The addition of Stock Images was a great step forward to address that need, providing thousands of high quality, free-to-use, searchable images for use in Google Documents, Presentations, and Spreadsheets.  (See my original post here: http://www.appsusergroup.org/news/google-docs-gets-stock-photos).

Well one year later, and just in time for the holidays, Google has announced that they have added 5,000 more pictures to the Stock Image archive (see Google's post here: http://googledrive.blogspot.com/2012/12/5000-new-stock-images-in-google-drive.html).

The new images cover all sorts of categories including education, sports, food, nature, and even ducks!  If you have not taken advantage of Stock Images before, here's how you do it:
  1. Have open any Google Document, Presentation, or Spreadsheet.
  2. Click "Insert" in the menu bar.
  3. Choose "Image..." from the drop down menu.
  4. Click "Search" on the bottom left of the "Insert image" window.
  5. Choose "Stock" from the search menu box (where it has "Google" or "Life" or "Stock").
  6. Type in your search term and click the search button.
  7. Scroll through the matching images and click the one you want.
  8. Finally click "Select" at the bottom to insert the Stock Image.
  9. As always you can re-size and re-position the image as desired.

Perhaps new images will become an annual tradition and we will get gifts of clip art each Christmas!  After all, what better stocking stuffer than stock images!  Well, maybe a Nexus 7, but let's not get greedy.