With Microsoft Lync Online communications software you can change the picture that other people see of you in their Contacts list and in IM conversations. You can choose whether to display your default picture from the corporate directory or another one that you choose.
Note: To change your picture you must have a personal picture on a public picture site, such as the Windows Live network of Internet services, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Flickr.
What do you want to do?
Determine the size of your picture
To determine the size of any picture, do the following steps.
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Go to the website that has the pictures you want to use.
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You can determine the size of most pictures by right-clicking the picture, and then clicking Properties.
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If there is no Properties selection when you do Step 2, click Save as Local, and then right-click Properties on the picture that is now saved on your computer.
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By default, the maximum size of a picture in Lync Online is 30 KB. Depending on the size of your picture, do one of the following:
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If the picture is more than 30 KB, you have to resize and snip it down to size before proceeding. See the following section about how to change the picture size.
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If the picture less than 30 KB, you can upload it to Lync Online. See the section about how to upload the picture, later in this topic.
Change the picture size if it is too large
If you don’t have a personalized picture that is less than 30 KB, you can create one using these steps.
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Go to the website that has the picture that you want to use, and right-click Save As. Or, open the picture from your hard disk.
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The picture must have an acceptable working area, which is approximately 1 to 1.5 inches square. To achieve this, open the picture. Click Open with, select a program (Windows Photo Viewer is good), and then drag the corners until you have the required size (that is, 1 to 1.5 inches square for the area you want to use, typically only your face).
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Now you need to snip out only the area of the picture you want. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, and then click Snipping Tool.
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In the Snipping Tool, click New, and then click Rectangular Snip.
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Using the Snipping Tool, select the area that you want to include in the picture (typically only your face), click File, and then click Save As. Make sure to select JPG as the file type.
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Save the file to a location on your computer, such as My Pictures.
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Check the size of the newly saved picture to make sure that it’s less than 30 KB. If it is larger than 30 KB, either be sure that your picture on screen is smaller or snip a smaller portion of the picture.
Upload the picture
When you have a picture that is the correct size, either by doing the preceding procedure, or you already have an existing picture within the size limits, upload it by doing the following.
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Go to your existing picture site, such as Windows Live, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Flickr.
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Create a new album (an area where you have a collection of pictures and which you get to by clicking Photos on the site).
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Make sure that the album is publicly available by selecting Everyone, Public, or the equivalent on the site you are using.
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Upload the picture from your computer into this album.
Get the address to paste into Lync Online
You now need to get the address of the online picture location, so that you can paste it into the My Pictures option in Lync Online.
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Go to your existing picture site, and navigate to the web album where the picture you want to use is located. (If it’s not there yet, see the previous section about uploading a picture.) Do not use the address at the top of the page because it will be incorrect. It will give you the actual site page that you are on, and not the picture itself. On some sites, you must click the picture until you get to a page that displays only the one image. For example, with Windows Live, you must continue clicking the picture until the image is isolated.
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Right-click the picture and then click Properties.
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In the Properties dialog box, right-click the Address (URL) text box, and select the entire address. Be sure to capture the entire address because only the first two lines are shown in the text box. You must select until you see the file extension .jpg and the end of the address.
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Right-click the selected text, click Copy, and then click OK.
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Open Lync Online and click the picture next to your name.
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Click Show a picture from a web address. Right-click the text box, and then click Paste to paste in the address that you copied.
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Click the Connect to Picture button. If you see Connected to picture successfully, click OK.
