Developer(s) Microsoft Operating system | Development status Discontinued Type Raster graphics editor | |
 | ||
Last release 14.0.6123.5001 (SP1) / June 28, 2011; 5 years ago (2011-06-28) License Same as the host Microsoft Office (varies) | ||
Microsoft Office Picture Manager is a software program included with the Microsoft Office suite versions 2003 through 2010. It is no longer included with Office 2013 or later, but may still be obtained in products such as Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010, either 32-bit or 64-bit versions, and added to them. Picture Manager is a basic image editing and image management program. It replaced Microsoft Photo Editor, which had been included up to Microsoft Office XP since Microsoft Office 97.
Contents
The program went through several name revisions while in beta, notably starting out as Microsoft Office Picture Library 2003, then losing the 2003 designation (more reserved for the actual Office applications) in beta 2, and finally settling on the current name.
In 2012 its development was superseded by Windows Live Photo Gallery, which contains many of the same and newer features, with an updated user interface.
Features
Microsoft Office Picture Manager has the ability to crop, rotate, flip, resize, and convert images between various formats like Paint, but with comparably better picture quality, due to being able to select compression level.
It also supports several more advanced capabilities, such as batch editing/saving/renaming, fine-tuning of midtones, highlights, and shadows, and red-eye removal. It can adjust brightness, contrast, hue, and saturation, including automatic adjustments that can sometimes be quite helpful. It also has easy-to-use features such as one-click image compression, and resizing to a user's own choice. It does not however, offer any sort of actual drawing or text-editing tools.
One of its unique features is the ability to link and upload pictures to a Microsoft SharePoint picture library. Therefore, a user can easily share photos among team members over the Internet. It is also possible to easily export photos from the program to other Office programs, while allowing a user to specify custom image dimensions.
Changes from previous editions
Picture Manager lacks several features of its predecessor, Photo Editor. Microsoft has published instructions on how to reinstall Photo Editor. Historically, a similar situation occurred when Photo Editor replaced Microsoft Imager when upgrading from Office 95 to Office 97.
Picture Manager does not display GIF image animation. Users running Windows 2000 cannot print images from Picture Manager, whose printing function requires a wizard distributed with Windows XP.
Bugs
- On renaming a file to an existing filename PM replaces the original file with the renamed one without confirmation. This also occurs while using the "Rename" command from the "Edit" menubar item.
- When rotating files, PM does not clear related Exif tags. As a result, other programs which read Exif tags will not display it correctly.