Office 2013 All-in-One For Dummies
Book image
Explore Book Buy On Amazon

Pictures can be messy. You may have a picture that you’d like to use in an Office 2013 document, but the picture has a distracting background (or even someone you’d like to forget). Fortunately, Office 2013 provides simple tools that can help you remove a background you don’t want.

On the (Picture Tools) Format tab, click the Remove Background button.

On the (Picture Tools) Format tab, click the Remove Background button.

The Background Removal tab opens and the parts of your picture that Office wants to remove turn a lurid shade of magenta.

On the Background Removal tab, indicate what you want to keep and remove.

On the Background Removal tab, indicate what you want to keep and remove.

Keep your eye on what’s magenta and what’s not as you use these techniques, and consider zooming to 200 percent or more so that you can get a good look at your picture:

Changing the size of the box: Drag the side and corner handles of the box to capture what you want to keep or remove.

Marking what you want to keep: Click the Mark Areas to Keep button. The pointer changes into a pencil. Click your picture to indicate what you want to keep. Each time you click, a keep mark (a plus sign icon) appears on your picture.

Marking what you want to remove: Click the Mark Areas to Remove button. The pointer changes to a pencil. Click your picture to indicate what you want to remove. When you click, a remove mark (a minus sign) appears.

Deleting keep and remove marks: Click the Delete Mark button and then click a keep or remove mark to remove a mark and change what is and isn’t removed from the picture.

Of course, you can click the Undo button to backtrack as you work. If you get thoroughly lost on the Background Removal tab, click the Discard All Changes button and start all over.

Click the Keep Changes button when you finish marking what you want to keep and remove.

Click the Keep Changes button when you finish marking what you want to keep and remove.

How do you like your picture now? If it needs more work, click the Remove Background button again and diddle some more on the Background Removal tab. Click the Discard All Changes button if you want your original picture without the background removed.

About This Article

This article is from the book:

About the book author:

Peter Weverka is a veteran technology author with several For Dummies titles to his credit, including multiple editions of Office All-in-One For Dummies. He's also written books on Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, Quicken, and Internet tools.

This article can be found in the category: