How to Crop a Picture with the Ribbon in Office 2011 for Mac

By Geetesh Bajaj and James Gordon from Office 2011 for Mac All-in-One For Dummies

9 of 11 in Series: The Essentials of the Office 2011 for Mac Ribbon

The Crop tool has new behavior in Office 2011 for Mac. Instead of just one kind of crop, Office for Mac now has four kinds. To get at the additional crop tools, click the small triangle to the right of the Crop button.

Making a simple crop with Office 2011 tools

Here's how to perform a simple crop:

Select the picture you want to crop.
On the Format Picture tab, go to the Adjust group and click the Crop button.

Dark crop handles appear in addition to the selection handles.
Drag the crop handles to select the area you want to keep.
Click away from the picture.

Everything except the selected area is subtracted from the picture.

Mask to Shape in Office 2011

With Mask to Shape, you start with a picture and finish with a shape that’s filled with your picture. Here are the steps to take:

Select a picture
Click the purple Format Picture button on the Ribbon.

Picture formatting tools display on the Ribbon.
In the Adjust group of tools, click the small triangle on the Crop button and choose Mask to Shape.

You’re presented with a submenu that takes you to the Shapes gallery.
Choose a solid, fillable shape.

Your picture is cropped to the chosen shape.

Some shapes have yellow diamonds, which you can drag to alter the shape's appearance.

Crop to Fill with Office 2011 formatting tools

With Crop to Fill, you start with a shape. You move the shape in a see-through mode over a picture from a file. The result is a shape filled with the see-through portion of your picture.

This example has fireworks. The Sun shape might give an interesting result. Here are the steps to take:

From the Standard toolbar, choose Media Browser.

The Media Browser displays.
Choose the Shapes button on the Media Browser.

All Shapes display in the Media Browser.
Drag a solid shape to use as the cropping shape.
Right-click on the shape. From the pop-up menu, choose Format Shape.

The Format Shape dialog displays.
In the Format Shape dialog, choose the Picture or Texture tab and then click the Choose Picture Button.

The Choose a Picture file browser appears.
Choose the picture you want to crop and then click the Insert button to return to the Format Shape dialog.

You can select or deselect the Rotate with Shape check box.
Click OK to close the Format Shape dialog.

Your picture is now inside the shape.
On the Format Picture tab of the Ribbon, click the small triangle on the Crop button and choose Crop to Fill.

The shape is now in see-through mode. You can now adjust the crop shape and the picture size and position independently.
Drag the shape's handles.

You can resize both the shape and the picture. Drag the handles on the shape to adjust the crop. Drag the picture handles and the picture itself to reposition it under the shape until you get just the crop you want.
Click away from the picture to display the cropped area.

Crop to Fit

The Crop to Fit option lets you use a shape to crop a picture, and the shape can extend beyond the size of the picture. As with Crop to Fill, you start with a shape that is filled with a picture. But with Crop to Fit, you can make the crop constraint extend beyond the edges of the picture. The instructions are the same as for Crop to Fill in the previous heading, except you choose Crop to Fill in Step 8.