Don't make me store my pictures in My Pictures
Problem
PowerPoint insists on taking you to My Pictures whenever you choose Insert, Picture, From File.
If you don't have a My Pictures folder ... like if you got REALLY annoyed and deleted the folder ... PPT first re-creates the folder. THEN takes you there.
Pushy of it, don't you think?
And it insists on showing you previews of your images, so you get to wait while it generates them. And doesn't let you turn the preview feature off until AFTER it's made at least the first one. That can take a very long time if the first image it finds is a large one.
In a perfect world, the person who designed this would be eaten by orcas. Alas, this world doesn't sit quite right on its hinges, so we're left with Plans A, B and C, to wit:
Plan B
Use shortcuts to cut down on the number of clicks from My Pictures to where your images are:
In the My Pictures folder, create shortcuts to the folders where you really do want to store your images. Now importing them is only one additional click away.
Put a really tiny little image file in My Pictures and give it a name like @LastNoMoreWaiting.GIF
The @ makes it pop to the top of the alphabetical list, and since it's small, it takes no time to generate a preview image. You can then turn previews OFF before proceeding to where you really wanted to go today.
Plan C
Teach PowerPoint to home in on a different folder instead of My Pictures:
If you're comfortable editing the Windows Registry, face India and say "Thanks" to MVP Shyam Pillai, then do this:
Start RegEdit
Traverse to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
\Software
\Microsoft
\Windows
\CurrentVersion
\Explorer
\User Shell Folders
Create a new string value called "My Pictures"
Set its value to "c:\Images"
(assuming "c:\Images" is the path to the folder that contains your images)
Close RegEdit
Hey! What happened to Plan A?
We saved the best for last.
We've added a handy feature to the PPTools Starter Set Plus upgrade: An Insert Picture command that uses the standard Windows file dialog box instead of PowerPoint's slow, annoying one.
- It remembers where you last imported pictures from and keeps going back there automatically. YOUR pictures, not My Pictures.
- It has no preview feature, so you never have to turn previews off.
- It remembers the last image type you chose and makes that the default.
Visit the PPTools site for more info about this and the other handy features you get with Starter Set Plus, or hop directly to the PPTools Download/Purchase page to download the free Starter Set and register for the $19.95 upgrade to Starter Set Plus.