Insert an image, audio, or video file into the active document

In Microsoft Expression Blend 2, you can now drag supported image, audio, or video files from outside Expression Blend, and also use the Insert feature of the Project panel. Audio and video files are added to the artboard wrapped in a MediaElement control, complete with a timeline. Image files are added to the artboard as Image objects. To use the Insert feature, the file must be one of the supported types listed in Media overview.

To insert an audio or video file into the active document

1. Do one of the following:

   • Under Files in the Projects panel, right-click an audio or video file, and then click Insert. Or, if you want to add the media file as a child element in another element in the document, double-click that element under Objects and Timeline in the Interaction panel to make it the active element, and then insert the audio or video file. Alternatively, you can double-click or drag the audio or video file instead of using the Insert command.

   • Drag an audio or video file from a folder in Microsoft Windows Explorer or your desktop onto the artboard.

   If a timeline is selected before insertion, the media will be inserted into that timeline, and the media will be scheduled to start at the current playhead location. For example, if the playhead is at time=5.0s on the OnLoaded tab when the media is inserted, the media will not start to play until 5 seconds after the document has been loaded at run time.

   If no timeline is selected, a new media timeline is created and the media is added to the new timeline at time=0s.

2. You can now configure media-specific properties, and you can modify the media element timeline just as you would modify an animation timeline. For more information, see the topics listed in Animation.

   Tip

   Media displays on the timeline as a blue bar representing the duration of playing time. You can view the blue bar by expanding the inserted audio or video in the objects view under Objects and Timeline in the Interaction panel.

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To insert an image file into the active document

• Do one of the following:

  • Under Files in the Projects panel, right-click an image file, and then click Insert. Or, if you want to add the image file as a child element in another element in the document, double-click that element under Objects and Timeline in the Interaction panel to make it the active element, and then insert the image file. Alternatively, you can double-click or drag the image file instead of using the Insert command.

  • Drag an image file from the Project panel onto the artboard.

  • Drag an image file from a folder in Windows Explorer or your desktop onto the artboard.

  The image is added to the artboard as an Image object with the Source property set to the relative path of the image file in your project.

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See also

Concepts

Convert a 2D image into 3D

Convert an image to a brush