Skip to content

Office 365 ‘Save as Picture’ is nothing new

A ‘new’ Office 365 feature is ‘Save As Picture’ to save Office objects like shapes, icons, images and charts as a picture.  It also comes with a mystery because this ‘new’ feature isn’t new at all in Office 365 and Office 2019.

It’s a useful little trick, right-click on any Word, Excel or PowerPoint object and there’s a ‘Save as Picture’ option.

From PowerPoint 365 for Windows version 1912.

That’s useful though there have been other ways to do the same thing for many years.

Insiders only?  Not!

The mystery is why this feature is being promoted as a ‘new’ feature for Office Insiders only?  According to the Office Insiders (fast) log this is a ‘new’ feature only available from version 2001 build 12430.20000.

Source: Office Insiders (fast) log

Already in Office 365 and Office 2019

We fired up a recent public release (Office 365 version 1912) and ‘Save As Picture’ already there!

Not only that, it’s available in PowerPoint as well as Word and Excel.

And the same option is in Office 2019 too.

Maybe there’s something new but it’s not obvious.  The picture formats haven’t changed. PNG is the default with other bitmap options available; JPEG, GIF, TIF and BMP.

From Word 365 version 1912

‘Save As Picture’ for images in Office documents has possible since Office 2010.  It’s especially useful for saving images arriving in Outlook emails.

The change in Office 365/2019 was saving images from other Office objects like shapes, icons and charts.

What’s going on?

Go ahead and use ‘Save As Picture’ in Office 365 or Office 2019 but not under the impression it’s anything new.

It’s possible there’s something changed in ‘Save As Picture’ which isn’t obvious.  Or a changed feature didn’t make it to the released build (which doesn’t explain the listing). Or someone at Microsoft is trying to pass off an existing feature as something new (childish and foolish but not unprecedented).

We’ve asked Microsoft to explain and, in the unlikely event they respond, we’ll let you know.

Save images or slides to SVG format

Outlook 2010 – Save As Picture

About this author

Office-Watch.com

Office Watch is the independent source of Microsoft Office news, tips and help since 1996. Don't miss our famous free newsletter.