Getting frustrated with clipart, please give me some advice!

[VBM]

We just upgraded from Office 2000 to 2003 and, for the most part, everything
is going fine. The one problem we are having is with clipart, which we use
a LOT. With 2000, we just downloaded the entire 900 MB of clipart to the
hard-drive (with drives SO large, why not?) and it was very nice having huge
selections very fast. From a previous inquiry, I found out there is no
practical way to use this clipart from the 2000 disc with 2003, and there is
no way just to go to the website and download a large "general" database.
With 2003, and its web-integration, the process of seeking out clipart and
getting it into our documents is so slow that it is almost not worth it. My
wife has given up on more than one occasion and just gone with what was on
the first "page" or two of choices.

We have a cable connection, which runs very fast otherwise, and a fast new
computer with a solid amount of memory. We have it set just to search Web
Collections (although we have found that it does not run much slower if we
include the Office Collections). Rather than popping up, it is "click and
wait", just like the bad ol' days before fast internet connections. Bottom
line is that projects that used to take 20 minutes now takes over an hour.

So, I thought maybe there were some tricks or tips for getting the clipart
faster. I know we can download a certain amount each visit and can build up
our own databases, and we are doing that, but this will only help when we
need to find the same "type" of stuff again. We could load up puchased
clipart, but we actually like the MS variety and always find what we need
(eventually). Any suggestions?

 

[Eric Lawrence [MSFT]]

The Office Online webservers are undergoing significant performance tweaking
and should run faster shortly. You'll also want to check your Internet
Explorer Tools | Internet Options | Temporary Files settings to ensure that
the caching is set to "Automatically."

Can you elaborate on what sorts of searches you're doing that you're
spending an hour on clipart? Is this just a matter of browsing around
looking for that perfect clip, or are you trying to find lots of clips for
each project?


--
Thanks,

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Assistance and Worldwide Services

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Vance McAlister]

That is good news about the servers. Actually, what my wife (and kids) tend
to do is look at a dozen or more "pages" of clipart before choosing EACH
single piece. When they were all on the hard drive, this simply meant click
and a new page pops up instantly, then another, then another, etc. With
2003, they will type in the search, hit go and wait up to 15 or 20 seconds
(sounds silly, but this is a long time compared to "pop!") for the handfull
of icons in the right panel to come up (the search for "star" was the one I
watched them do). Then they scroll down and wait again for another five or
six. Sometimes these few more come up in just a couple seconds, most of the
time it doesn't.

If they go to the website itself, it is a bit better, because they can see
more per page (with about the same delay), but this requires the additional
steps of downloading, then going and searching in that folder to access them
for insertion.

 

[Eric Lawrence [MSFT]]

Rather than downloading from the website, have you tried using Copy/Paste or
Drag/Drop?

--
Thanks,

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Assistance and Worldwide Services

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Vance McAlister]

That is not a bad idea, since the website is more "productive" in showing
more clip art. I will have them give it a shot. Control-C, Control-V might
just be the ticket.

 

[Eric Lawrence [MSFT]]

Umm... I hate to say it, but I don't think CTRL+C works on the website. You
should be able to right-click on the clip and choose copy though.

--
Thanks,

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Assistance and Worldwide Services

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Eric]

 

[VBM]

Ah, OK, that works. Thanks!

Umm... I hate to say it, but I don't think CTRL+C works on the website. You
should be able to right-click on the clip and choose copy though.

--
Thanks,

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Assistance and Worldwide Services

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

most there over what