The Commtap Symboliser for PowerPoint comes with the Mulberry communication symbol set. In practice you will need more symbols than this. You can:
- add online communication symbol sets right from the symboliser;
- download these symbol sets directly.
This page lists some of the larger communication symbol sets that are available – both free and paid-for – and how you can get them.
On this page
ARASAAC communication symbols
ARASAAC symbols are available in several European languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German. The sets are available in colour and black and white. The sets each contain over 7000 communication symbols.
These symbols are free for non commercial use.
How to get ARASAAC symbols
After downloading the symbols:
- Right click on the file (“arasaac-colour-english.zip”) and choose “Extract All…”;
- This will create a folder called “arasaac-colour-english” containing the symbols;
- Move this to somewhere on your computer where you won’t move it – preferably not your desktop. You can also put it in a networked folder.
- If you have the Commtap Symboliser for PowerPoint installed:
- Choose “Preferences” in the Commtap Symboliser group on the Home tab.
- Choose “Create Word List from Folder”.
- Browse to the arasaac-colour-english folder (“arasaac-colour-english” should be shown in the Folder name box).
- Choose “OK”.
The names of the images of the ARASAAC symbols in this download have been modified so that they work better with the Commtap Symboliser – you will be able to symbolise more words; and duplicate images have been removed.
Clarity communication symbols
The Clarity Symbol set contains over 40,000 communication symbols for English. They are produced by Liberator and are used in their range of communication devices. You can purchase these symbols here.
How to get Clarity symbols
- Purchase the Clarity symbols CD;
- Create a folder somewhere on your computer where you won’t move it – preferrably not your desktop. Name it “Liberator Clarity” for example.
- Copy everything from the CD you purchased into this folder.
- If you have the Commtap Symboliser for PowerPoint installed:
- Choose “Preferences” in the Commtap Symboliser group on the Home tab.
- Choose “Create Word List from Folder”.
- Browse to the “Liberator Clarity” folder you created (it should say “Liberator Clarity” in the Folder name box).
- Choose “OK”.
Sclera communication symbols
The Sclera symbol set contains over 11,000 high contrast symbols. They are available in English, Dutch, French, German, Spanish and Polish. They are free to use for non commercial use, and can be used commercially with permission.
How to get Sclera symbols
Download the symbols for the language of your choice from the Sclera website.
After downloading the symbols:
- Right click on the file you downloaded (for example “picto_en.zip”) and choose “Extract All…”.
- This will create a folder called “picto_en” containing the symbols.
- Move this to somewhere on your computer where you won’t move it – preferably not your desktop. You can also put it in a networked folder.
- If you have the Commtap Symboliser for PowerPoint installed:
- Choose “Preferences” in the Commtap Symboliser group on the Home tab.
- Choose “Create Word List from Folder”.
- Browse to the symbols folder – for example “picto_en” (the name of the folder should appear in the Folder name box).
- Choose “OK”.
- After the word list has been created you will see a new word list for example “picto_en” in the list of word lists in Commtap Symboliser Preferences. You can rename this to something more memorable – click on the name, change the name in the box (for example to “Sclera”) and choose “Save”.
Mulberry Symbols
This set currently has just over 3000 symbols in it. Unlike the other symbol sets on this page, you can use these symbols for any purpose, even commercially, without the need to apply for additional permissions from the creators.
How to get Mulberry symbols
The Mulberry symbols are included with the Commtap Symboliser download. You can also download them from mulberrysymbols.org.
The files in this download are in “svg” format. You can use these in Office 2016 or later. You can also use them in many other graphics and word processing programmes. The advantage of “svg” images is that they can be blown up as big as you want them without losing quality.
If you are using older versions of Office (prior to 2016) which cannot use “svg” files, you can download Mulberry Symbols in the “wmf” format from the Commtap resources website, which can be used in these programmes.
Help the Mulberry Symbols project
The Mulberry Symbols project is looking for volunteers to expand their symbol set. In particular, volunteers are required for:
- Creating symbols.
- Translating symbol names into other languages.