If you've ever grappled with positioning an image in Word in just the right spot in relation to your wrapped text, you should turn on object anchors to show where the image is actually tethered. This works in Word 2007 and Word 2010. Go to File , Options , Display and check the box to show Object anchors...

If you use pictures in your Word documents and PowerPoint presentations, you probably hunt regularly for useful clip art on Office.com. But you don't have to stop there. Make the imagery your own by changing the colors and even removing unwanted elements. First, make sure you use illustrations (not photographs...

When receiving HTML emails, you know doubt have noticed that Outlook 2010 blocks images by default, like so: The reason is to protect you from identifying your account is active when opening messages from unscrupulous spammers, who will detect when you open the message and increase the assault on your...

If you want to design your own postcard, there's no need to start from scratch. You can find some great templates on Office.com, which you can access from inside of Microsoft Word. Here's an example of how to modify a picture postcard template to make it your own. First, if working with high resolution...

Whether it's for the office team-building offsite event or the weekly sales status summary, a quick way to add impact to your emails is with the Insert tab in Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010. You can add shapes, such as arrows, flowcharts, and word balloons: And search through clip art for the perfect...

It's easy to create an Outlook signature. Just click on the Signature button in a new message, select Signatures and then click New and start typing. The only problem with this approach is that the signature editor is fairly limited. A better option is to use the new mail message itself. You'll have...

If you've ever wanted to pick a theme in PowerPoint but didn't care for its gaudy background, this tip is for you. There's a very quick way to turn off the background in both PowerPoint 2007 and PowerPoint 2010. On the Design tab, select the theme that has the fonts and layout you want to start with...

There are those among us who carefully lay out hierarchies of folders, each clearly named, in which to store the many documents we create. These folks can very quickly access, for example, the budget spreadsheets from Q2, three years ago, for the Southwest region engineering departments. Or whatever...

Most people think of PowerPoint as just a presentation tool, but it makes a great picture library as well. You can paste images into it and include all sorts of notes about when and how the pictures were taken or created, add the names of the people in the photos, and document details about the event...

It's 2011, and if you're like me, you know there are some things you should have mastered last year that you didn't get to - so you resolve to tackle them when the calendar rolls over. Here are 65 popular tasks we frequently hear that customers want to learn - and which Productivity Hub can help you...

If you have an image that you want to imbue with new life or perhaps alter for a special event or time of year, the artistic effects built in to Office 2010 can be used to quickly add visual flair. Let's take the Productivity Hub icon we use for our Twitter and Facebook page : I'm thinking that since...

If your PowerPoint slides are packed with engaging ideas that no one reads because your audience gets lost in the sea of gray letters, there's a quick solution: Make them pop using SmartArt in PowerPoint 2007 and 2010. First, select your bulleted text: Now click the Convert to SmartArt button on the...

If you create screenshots for use in Word, PowerPoint, or Excel, you can say goodbye to the PrtScn button. Just use the Insert tab's Screenshot button, new in Office 2010: Select which open window you want by looking at the thumbnails, and you're done. If you only want to clip part of a screen image...

We received a question from a Productivity Hub blog reader who wants to use OneNote as a thumbnail library. While it is possible to resize your images in OneNote , it's not the quickest way to create consistent thumbnail-sized images. Microsoft Word, however, makes this task easy. When you paste images...

If you're not handy with advanced graphics programs but know your way around PowerPoint, there's an easy way to create a background image for your desktop, Twitter page, Web site, or just about any place you might want to decorate with an artistic statement. First, before you start, you may want to give...

If you're still using the PrntScn button in Windows to take screenshots, you're missing out one of the best kept secrets of OneNote: its screen clipping tool. You don't even need to be running OneNote to use it (as long as it's installed!). Just press the Windows button + S on your keyboard, click and...

Today, we have a guest blogger. Elyssa is an editor and project manager at Brainstorm, a leading provider of online and onsite software training and one of our partners that provides customized content for your Productivity Hub. ---- In my job, I produce a lot of written documents, and I always want...

If you're lucky enough to work for an organization that has adopted Office 2010 and Exchange 2010 since the business launch a few weeks back (or participated in the beta), you may have noticed the appearance of your coworkers' pictures at the top of their mails to you. This is a great feature for a number...

In honor of the Office 2010 business launch today, here’s our first Office 2010 tip! We’ll start sprinkling these in for those users who have adopted Office 2010 or are thinking about it – but we’ll still post tips that work in Office 2007 for the foreseeable future. One of the nice new features in Word...

If you want to overlay text over a picture in OneNote, the important thing is that you should NOT paste the picture into a container. You can cut and paste, drag and drop, or use the Insert menu and select Pictures and then the source ( From Files if the picture is on your computer). If you don't see...

I recently had to edit a file that someone sent me. In it, there was an image I needed to replace - but for some reason the image would not select when I clicked directly on it, so there seemed to be no way to remove it. I even tried a Special find and replace, searching on Graphic in the expanded Find...

As you know if you read this blog regularly, OneNote is one of my favorite programs. It's great for notetaking and managing large amounts of information. You can create notebooks and tabs for separate projects and even search within handwritten text, images, and embedded audio. If you paste an image...

If you're not using the Microsoft Office Picture Manager, you're leaving a powerful image editing tool on the table that's included free with Office 2007. When you take screenshots to illustrate your Word and PowerPoint documents, sure, you can simply resize them directly in the document. But, in terms...