You can kind of soften the edges with the gradient fills and transparency sliders.
Some images look okay, complex bitmaps with many colors don't do so well.
Experiment with the transparent option in the fill menu for your shape. (Publisher
2002-03).
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Mary Sauer MS MVP
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"LRange" wrote in message
>I would love to be able to fade out the edges of photos in Publisher. I
> would also love to create a shape on top of a photo (like a transparent place
> to add text) and have that shape fade naturally into the rest of the photo,
> rather than having a hard line that defines the shape.