Fotolia is today releasing a new add-in ribbon for Microsoft Word and PowerPoint 2007 that gives users instant access to the company’s vast library of images and vectors from within the popular applications, eliminating the need to leave them.
Once the ribbon is downloaded from the Fotolia website and installed, users can search stock photos for the projects that they’re working on straight from the top menu of their applications, so they don’t need to go away from their documents to obtain appropriate stock imagery.
Before purchasing an item from the company’s library, which it says presently counts over 7-million royalty-free high-resolution files, users can hover over search results within the doc to see a preview of images. Double-click, and the item gets placed in the doc for you to see if it matches what you were trying to visualize. Users can then opt to buy images in any of the available sizes and licenses straight from Fotolia. Once the image is downloaded into the user’s document, users are free to use the Fotolia file with no limit on time, copies or geographical placements.
Fotolia has been supplying imagery to Microsoft Office Online customers for a few years now, but this really ties the knot.
It’s a great idea, and I concur with Microsoft’s Office.com Group Manager Rob Ashby, who commented that the addition of Fotolia can be a significant productivity win for customers. I guess it also makes sense for the company to endorse this and similar add-ons because they’re bound to keep users inside its software applications as much as possible, but the benefits for users are clear too. It’s also yet another sign that the line between desktop and web software is blurring.
Again, this product is quite brilliant, and I’m sure other stock photography players will be following suit soon.
It’s cool but not exactly a new idea, SlideRocket has had Fotolia integration in it’s online presentation app since last year…
Well, Jack, apart that to integrate an on-line service or millions of local desktop apps it doesn’t seem the same thing, I agree that it’s a killer idea. You may search and use the right pic from the right place.
Thanks Jack. We’re very excited for the engagement with Fotolia here. We’ve actually been engaging with stock photography providers though the Clip Art and Media experience for years. This is part of our evolution.
This is not the only type of engagement you’ll see from us. Stay tuned!
How about adding this functionality to Microsoft Live Writer?
looks great !
Slideshare has done some pretty cool things but Fotolia’s plug-in is totally different and more involved.
Slideshare can integrate products, but with Fotolia you can intergrate your entire account (which is free btw). It basically puts the entire website, along with the 7 mill images without leaving word or ppt.
Sliderockethas done some pretty cool things but Fotolia’s plug-in is totally different and more involved.
Sliderocket can integrate products, but with Fotolia you can intergrate your entire account (which is free btw). It basically puts the entire website, along with the 7 mill images without leaving word or ppt.
I thought people just browsed Flickr for CreativeCommons material to include on their presentations.
It’s cool but not exactly a new idea, SlideRocket has had Fotolia integration in it’s online presentation app since last year… nice post…..
This is totally cool – the SlideRocket integration is great but this allows you to access your account right inside Word, create galleries, and even download comps – way more powerful.
It is great news. It will help in my work…
Nice integration with the shopping cart, but Ginipic has fotolia and works with Office for almost a year now
Just a note: the article doesn’t show the URL for these plug-ins. You can find them at:
http://www.fotolia.com/ribbon
Who would want to buy pictures from inside MS Word? Has the world gone mad? It’s called the internet. Open a browser and download the pictures you want for free. It doesnt get any simpler. What are you going to be able to do next, buy porn from inside Excel?
Carlton,
Comparing free images you can find via Google Images to a base of seven million professional stock photographs doesn’t really make sense. If you want an image you can use for commercial purposes, you will have to find some that are under the Creative Commons license. Sure, Flickr for example has lots of content like that, however, Fotolia offers you high resolution images and vectors without the hassle of trudging through endless pages of results until you find what you need. With this, you will have your images in minutes.
And how might Fotolia provide, through Word, high resolution images and vectors without the hassle of trudging through endless pages of results? Is it because Word has been expressly designed over the past 20 years to retrieve, present, and traverse information resources on the world wide web? That makes perfect sense to me. Hmmm, I wonder what else Word has been expressly designed to do ? Maybe it could feed and walk my dog? Maybe it could transport me from one place to another? Maybe it could go to the Gap and pick me out an outfit? There are just so many things that Word COULD do, but maybe it would be better if we let the things that were meant to do them, actually do them. Imagine a world like that where you could actually use a web browser to find images that you could copy and paste into a Word document. Oh, holy crap, wait, I just tried doing that, and it worked! Well, now that thats cleared up, I guess there isn’t any reason for you guys to emulate a web browser inside MS Word for the purposes of buying stock photography. I guess this information would have been handy to you a year ago when you set out to develop this crapware.
Wait, what are discussing here, free images vs. stock photography or the fact that Microsoft Word (along with a bunch of other examples) has become more and more bloated with every new version? If the latter is the case, then I can only say I can see where you are coming from and I agree with you. Most people will probably see this new feature as yet another useless add-on to an already oversized piece of software, however, I’m sure there are also plenty of users out there who will find it pretty useful. Bottom line – redundant? Maybe. Useless ‘crap’? Certainly not.
Of course we’re talking about MS Word bloat. Your the one who got wrapped around the free vs stock photos. My point is that you should get stock photos (for money) on the web, vs a document authoring tool. This is what the web was designed for, a document transmission system.
The reason fotolia created this add-on is that it has another way to reinforce their brand to consumers. If its right in front of the user, they will most likely use it. So, putting fotolia directly into Word is only a marketing ploy to prey on the unaware consumer. There is nothing novel here, and certainly doesnt warrant an article on TC.
“Who would want to buy pictures from inside MS Word? Has the world gone mad? It’s called the internet. Open a browser and download the pictures you want for free. It doesnt get any simpler. What are you going to be able to do next, buy porn from inside Excel?”
This is an announcement? OMG – Fotolia didn’t get the memo? We don’t use word 2007 anymore.
So I guess there’ll be even more ribbons coming for other integrations? Great way to overwhelm users with something they already don’t like. Instead of death by powerpoint I’ll be smothered with MS ribbons.
It is definitely an interesting function, but they should expand their services in Adobes products or other similar software suites like Photoshop. I bet that most iStockphoto customer are creative studies and agencies. They use other software than Word and Powerpoint.
its really nice post thanks for sharing….Nice integration with the shopping cart, but Ginipic has fotolia and works with Office for almost a year now