Creating Backgrounds...?

[atruger]

I apologize if this has been asked before, but here goes....

Is there a way to create and save our own backgrounds and add them to our shared backgrounds folder?:confused:

I currently use both a Mac OS X and a PC.

[paulellis]

Hi,

Get an ordinary image onto your flipchart page.
Open the resource library and go to My Backgrounds or Shared Backgrounds
If you want, select a subfolder of My Backgrounds or Shared Backgrounds
Drag the image off the page and onto the resource library where you would normally view the background thumbnails.
When you now drag the image from the resource library back onto the page it will be created as a background. You can set its properties from the page properties window.
Hope this helps.
Paul

[atruger]

Thank you so much![clap] Now I am trying to figure out how to have a solid color background and then adding one image. I don't want the background to tile. Is there a way to do this?:rolleyes:

[atruger]

Does the image have to be a certain extension to be considered an image...such as GIF or JPG? Which works the best?

I am so excited to be learning more and more...thanks for your input!:)

[moree1]

double click on the page and hit the properties icon ( whitesquare and red tick) go to appearance and on 'tile fit' hit the drop down menu and then pick stretch fit This should spread it over whole page. As an extra try using an image and making it half transluant as a back ground using the properties icon again this can be very effective!!

[clap]

[Westlake]

Thank you so much![clap] Now I am trying to figure out how to have a solid color background and then adding one image. I don't want the background to tile. Is there a way to do this?:rolleyes:
Set your page background to the colour and place the image where you want it. Size the image to suit, and adjust its translucency (Image Properties...) if you don't want it full-colour.

Use the Camera to snapshot the page (use Area and select the page but not the flipchart toolstrip) > Image to current page. Now you can drag that image into your Background Library..

This is a great way to have the lesson theme as a background, a logo on every page, class photo...
Hilary

[paulellis]

Does the image have to be a certain extension to be considered an image...such as GIF or JPG? Which works the best?

When you drag an image onto a flipchart page it is automatically converted to AS2's own format. It will load most of the well known image formats such as BMP, JPG, GIF, WMF, PNG, etc. They all work quite well, animated GIFs don't animate and all images will be reduced to 256 colours so the best images to use are ones that already have fewer colours.

Paul

[atruger]

Thank you so much!!! You guys are a wealth of info and I am so glad I stumbled onto this section of the planet![clap][clap][clap]

Can I pick your brain more?

How large should a photo be in order to maintain it's sharpness when it becomes a background? Full size?

[Peter Lambert]

Photos from digital cameras are generally much bigger than an Activstudio or Activprimary page or background. Besides, most projectors cannot handle resoultions greater than 1024x768. This is the resoultion your computer screen will probably be set at anyway. It is a good idea to use an image/graphics editing program to reduce the size of your photos down to 1024x768 then they will fill the page perfectly.

Doing this will cut down on memory usage, reducing the need for lots of hard disk space for storage and of course speeding up speed of screen refresh etc.

Hope this helps

[kbogner]

If you want to same image -- maybe a logo -- to appear on all pages in a flipchart you can set this in your Preferences. Main menu::Preferences, then choose "flipchart". From here you can set a color for the background of every page or select an image that is on your computer. You are also given several choices for fit and location on the page.

Because you are setting this in preferences, remember that this will apply to every flipchart page in every flipchart you create after setting it. If you are creating a lengthy flipchart, though, this avoids browsing through the library each time you open a new page.

Kathy Bogner
Promethean TLC