The Scratch Area in Publisher – Instructions

The Scratch Area in Publisher: Video Lesson

            This video lesson, titled “Using the Scratch Area,” shows how to use the scratch area in Publisher. This video lesson is from our complete Publisher tutorial, titled “Mastering Publisher Made Easy v.2019 and 365.”

The Scratch Area in Publisher: Overview

            The scratch area in Publisher is the space surrounding your publication. You use the scratch area in Publisher to store pictures or shapes. If you insert multiple pictures at the same time when using either the “Insert Picture” dialog box or the “Insert Pictures” window, then Publisher adds the selected pictures into a column within the scratch area to the right of your publication page.

            Click and drag the pictures from the scratch area in Publisher into your publication pages. Likewise, you can click and drag a picture off of a publication page and drop it into the scratch area. To swap pictures that appear in the scratch area in Publisher with pictures in the publication pages, select the picture and click the icon of the mountain shown within the middle of the picture in the scratch area. Then drag it onto a picture within a publication page. When the border of the picture in the page turns pink, release the mouse button. Doing this then swaps the image from the scratch area with the existing picture.

            You can also set a picture as the background of a publication page. To do this, right-click a picture within the scratch area of publication page. Then roll over the “Apply to Background” command in the popup menu that appears. Then, in the side menu that appears, choose the command that corresponds to the type of background fill you want. To fill the entire background of the page with the selected image, choose “Fill” from the side menu that appears. To tile the image across the background, click the “Tile” command, instead.

The Scratch Area in Publisher – Instructions: A picture of a user setting a picture in the scratch area in Publisher as the page background.

The Scratch Area in Publisher: Instructions

1. The scratch area in Publisher is the space surrounding your publication.
2. If you insert multiple pictures at the same time when using either the “Insert Picture” dialog box or the “Insert Pictures” window, then Publisher adds the selected pictures into a column within the scratch area to the right of your publication page.
3. To insert pictures from the scratch area into your publication, click and drag the picture onto the publication page.
4. To move a picture from your publication to the scratch area, click and drag a picture off of a publication page.
5. Then drop it into the scratch area in Publisher.
6. To swap pictures within the scratch area in Publisher with pictures in the publication pages, click the “mountain” icon shown in the middle of a picture in the scratch area in Publisher.
7. Then drag it onto a picture within a publication page.
8. When the border of the picture in the page turns pink, release the mouse button to swap the images.
9. To set a picture as the background of a publication page, right-click a picture within the scratch area of publication page.
10. Then roll over the “Apply to Background” command in the popup menu that appears.
11. To fill the entire background of the page with the selected image, choose “Fill” from the side menu that appears.
12. To tile the image across the background, click the “Tile” command.