How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher

Microsoft Publisher lets you incorporate photographs and drawings into your booklets, brochures, certificates, cards, and other desktop publishing. Although not a graphic editing program on the order of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro,...

Method 1 of 3:

Cropping Rectangular Images in Publisher 2003 and 2007

How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 1

Click the picture you wish to crop. Your picture is surrounded by a set of white dot-shaped sizing handles. The floating Picture toolbar appears above the picture.
How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 2

Click the "Crop" button on the "Picture" toolbar. The "Crop" button displays a pair of overlapping right angles. After clicking it, the dot-shaped sizing handles change to a set of black dashes, which are the cropping handles.
How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 3

Move your cursor over a cropping handle. Your cursor will change from a 4-headed arrow to the shape of the cropping handle it is over.
How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 4
Drag the cropping handle to crop the picture. Which handle you drag depends on how you wish to crop the picture.
1. To crop a single side, drag the center cropping handle on the side you wish to crop toward the center of the picture.
2. To crop adjacent sides, drag the corner cropping handle touching the sides you wish to crop toward the center of the picture.
3. To crop opposite sides evenly at the same time, drag the center handle on either of the opposite sides while holding down the CTRL key.
4. To crop all 4 sides of the picture at once, drag any of the corner handles toward the center while holding down both the CTRL and SHIFT keys.
How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 5

Click the "Crop" button again to turn off cropping once your picture has been cropped to the size you want. The cropping handles will change back to sizing handle dots.

Method 2 of 3:

Cropping Non-Rectangular Images in Publisher 2003 and 2007

How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 6

Insert a picture image into a Publisher shape. This shape will serve as a frame/border for cropping the picture.
How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 7

Crop the picture to the edge of the shape using a photo editing program. Possible programs to use for the cropping include Microsoft Digital Image Pro, Digital Editing, Photoshop, or Paint Shop Pro. The version of the program you use needs to support cropping images in the shape you used to create the frame for the picture.

Method 3 of 3:

Cropping Images in Publisher 2010

How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 8

Click the picture you wish to crop. Your picture is surrounded by a set of white dot-shaped sizing handles. The "Picture Tools Format" ribbon appears over the work area.
How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 9
Select the frame for your picture from the "Picture Styles" menu in the "Picture Styles" group. There are 6 available border styles for each of 4 frame shapes: rectangle, oval, rounded rectangle, and wave-bottomed rectangle. Click the frame style you want to display your picture in.
1. You can edit the appearance of the frame by clicking the down arrow button to display the "Format Shape" dialog box. Select the options you want and click "OK" to apply them and close the dialog box.
How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 10

Click the "Crop" button in the "Crop" group. The sizing handle dots change to dashed blank lines, which are the cropping handles.
How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 11

Move your cursor over a cropping handle. Your cursor will change from a 4-headed arrow to the shape of the cropping handle it is over.
How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 12
Drag the cropping handle to crop the picture. Which handle you drag depends on how you wish to crop the picture.
1. To crop a single side, drag the center cropping handle on the side you wish to crop toward the center of the picture.
2. To crop adjacent sides, drag the corner cropping handle touching the sides you wish to crop toward the center of the picture.
3. To crop opposite sides evenly at the same time, drag the center handle on either of the opposite sides while holding down the CTRL key.
4. To crop all 4 sides of the picture at once, drag any of the corner handles toward the center while holding down both the CTRL and SHIFT keys.
How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 13
Choose how you want to crop the picture. Click 1 of the 3 small buttons to the right of the larger "Crop" button in the "Crop" group to determine how your picture will be cropped.
1. Click the "Fit" button at the upper right to make the entire picture display in the cropping area while retaining the proportion of the picture's height to its width. This essentially resizes the picture.
2. Click the "Fill" button at right center to make the picture fill the entire area bounded by the cropping handles while retaining the proportion of its height to its width. Areas of the picture that fall outside this area will be cropped.
3. Click the "Clear Crop" button at the lower right to cancel the effects of the other 2 buttons. Any cropping you gave the picture with the "Fill" button will be removed, and any space around the picture created as a result of using the "Fit" button will also be removed. The picture will be restored to its original appearance, but not necessarily to its original size.
How to Crop Graphics in Microsoft Publisher Picture 14
Click the "Crop" button again to turn off cropping. The cropping handles will revert to sizing handles.
1. You can also turn off cropping by clicking somewhere in the work area other than the picture. The cropping handles will disappear altogether, as will the "Picture Tools Format" ribbon.

picture crop handle

Kareem Winters

Update 05 March 2020

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