As of Friday, 05/10/2013 there are 40,740 unique images, most in multiple formats, yielding a total of 148,140 images to download here at wpclipart. (Plus any you generate using the online image editor :)

Browse

View the thumbnail pages of images from the "index" page in each folder. There are 48 top-level folders, and they contain thumbnail images and usually several subfolders.

Image search is inter-site, and as such is safe and fast. I have written and implimented an algorithm that outputs thumbnail image links of to up to 24 images as the main search results, along with thumbnail links to directories of images to the right. I limit the results to simplify the search, and the listing of directories easily leads searchers to more results. Also, submitting the same search words repeatedly can yield different results, as I have somewhat randomized what portion of the total results are shown.

You can also add WPClipart as a seach provider to your browser. The small image below shows what it looks like if you were to use it to search for "cat cartoon". Enables you to open your browser and search wpclipart, without even visiting the site!

Click below to add wpclipart search to Internet Explorer or Firefox.

 WPClipart is a fast, clean and safe site for children and others to find good-quality, printable images that have no copyright restrictions. All the images are in the Public Domain. Ads on pages are minimal (one per page, also one on "related" section of display pages) to eliminate confusion and to make the site as fast as possible.

While there are literally thousands of "fun" images -- I take great pains to find, edit and retouch images of historical and/or general educational value. Browse though American History, flags, geography (maps) and other sections to see what I mean...

While I realize folks trying to be courteous will generally want to ask first, I get several requests a day and responding to each becomes time consuming. I would feel badly if I were to ignore someone's email... so please, feel free to use the images with my unwritten blessing : ) The only REQUEST I make is that you do not use large numbers of the images in another ONLINE gallery or application -- therefore competing with wpclipart in image searches. If you have any questions you are welcome to email me. But please take a peek at the legal and/or the legal FAQ pages first... one of them may have the answer to your question.

Easy to use wpclipart with Google Docs, see the example I Published to a web page that shows how to insert images without even downloading them.
"Google Docs and WPClipart"

PNG was chosen as the default format because it is lossless but compressed -- meaning it retains a higher image quality than JPG, makes a much smaller file size than a .tiff, is better supported and versatile than an SVG (especially to convert to/from), and finally, GIF images simply have too limited a color palette.

Despite false information spread by some overzelous SVG supporters, PNG is lossless. From the PNG site at: libpng.org, "Since PNG's compression is fully lossless... restoring and re-saving an image will not degrade its quality..."

WebP emerging file format from Google, meant to speed up the web via smaller file size while retaining quality.

JPG versions of all images are now also available. These are especially useful for use with photographic images and keeping file size reasonable, but also if you link/post to websites, jpg is sometimes allowed while PNG is not.

Transparent images are not used by default because this can cause printing problems with some word processors (AbiWord in particular.) Also, printers do not print white (the usual transparent color) -- so transparency in that case would not make any difference when printed.

However, because folks often want to use these images on the Web (sometimes over backgrounds and colors), and also sometimes combine images, one image over part of another -- then preserving portions of the image that need to stay white (as opposed to transparent) becomes important. Because of this I very often have to selectively make portions of images transparent, which can be a bit time consuming. I have been working (un)steadily at it for some time now. Transparent PNG versions are becoming available for most all (non-photographic) images.

And last but not least, SVG versions of images are now also included when appropriate.

There are loads of "fun" images at WPClipart, but a big part of what is being attempted here has to do with historical/research value. Maps, geography, flags, historical figures, American History, rocks and minerals, religion, mythology -- these are not popular or fashionable image groups, but they can be quite useful in documentation, school papers and, ultimately, to enable people to get a more visceral feel for who and what the images represent.

Toward this end I have done a lot of retouching of images, at times taking some "artistic license" by manipulating the originals. I can attest that in the case of historical photos, this is never done with an eye to change any impression put forward by the original -- editing is done first and foremost to ensure that if a visitor needs to reprint the image, usually scaled down and on a modest inkjet printer, then the details of the image will still be visible.

For a few examples of historical figures see the retouched examples page

All the photographs I take are presently done with an Olympus E-500 I bought in 2006 along with a macro lens. Photos appear in "plants/Pauls_Garden", "plants/Tennessee_Flora", quite a few animal pix, some computer parts, my daughters eye closeup and probably more I don't remember...

I also use a macro lens to digitize images from out-of-copyright books. Many of the images in fictional characters, American History, world history and images from several other sections were digitized using my Olympus.

WPClipart
Does NOT use cookies or any registration or login or attempt to gather any information on any visitor whatsoever. Apache logs are kept to track/prevent any malicious activity on-site, but are checked and dumped daily (deleted permanently, without backup).

Advertising
WPClipart uses advertising from Google. They run ads that I believe are appropriate for this site's audience. I have yet to see an ad be crude or overly intrusive. The ad layout onsite is never meant to confuse ads with content. There is only one ad per page (and one in the "related" framed page that appears below the image display pages.)

That said, Google is a contexual advertiser, and as such they use anonymous cookies on the user's machine to track web visiting habits. (In order to serve targeted ads.) However, since Google is part of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) you have the ability to OPT OUT of the use of their tracking cookies. Ads are still served, just no cookie is used, and no tracking information is collected as you visit. To see the NAI opt-out list:
the NAI opt-out page

The privacy policy concerning Google advertising (with the opt-out option) is:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/ads/

By opting out, your preference not to be tracked will be honored by these agencies wherever you go, not just here at WPClipart. (See below)

"The NAI has adopted a policy that all NAI member companies set a minimum lifespan of five years for their opt out cookies." Click here for more information.

Help support WPClipart!

This site makes money with advertising, but not the kind of money to pay my monthly bills. I do PC repair and I take on as much work as I need (and can get, usually) to make ends meet. The more I make from the site, the more time I can devote to the site -- both with my time creating and editing, as well as how well I run/maintiain the server. I rent a high-end Xeon machine with auto-backups, pay for a remote DNS service and created customized software I compiled right on the server specifically tailored to the website. It's built for speed. This is an image-serving site that manages to be faster than about 85% of the web.

The images are vetted for public domain status more rigourously than any user-submitted site, I tweak/improve clips I don't create myself, especially conscious of printability. The images will always be OK for your kids to view. And if you have a question or problem -- you can email me, and I will usually be helpful :-)

That's what I offer, and my dream is to work on the site full time. So if you'd like to donate a couple bucks through PayPal, much appreciated!