Real World Computing

This tip is "low tech" but something I'm often asked. How can I grab an image from the screen so that I can stick it into a Word Document. I'm sure that there's people out there nodding their heads and saying "ah, yes, the old Print Screen or Alt+PrintScreen trick" - then just paste into word". Well, yes and no. Did you know that if you do a print screen and paste it into Word, Excel, Powerpoint or even Lotus Notes, that the size of your document will grow considerably compared to saving the same image as a JPEG and then importing it? If you have a lot of graphics to insert, then this oversight can lead to serious performance issues, instability and ultimately document corruption. There is a better way. A Quick Note on The Gimp I've selected The GIMP as the package of choice here, not because it's the best but because it's the best FREE application which works across multiple platforms. How To Grab the Image If you're in a web brow...

Why the Gimp? I've used the Gimp because it's freely available and works on a number of different systems. It's not my favourite graphics program but it will do the job. Where can I get the GIMP? Download it from; http://www.gimp.org/ I'm not going to cover installation since it's mostly a matter of clicking Next a few times then finish. Avatar Size Restrictions Most forums place restrictions on the dimensions of Avatars. You should check your particular board for their rules otherwise you could make an image too small to be clear or too large to be used. For the purposes of this exercise, I'm going to make the following assumptions; Maximum width = 130 pixels Maximum width = 160 pixels Maximum file size = no more than 15.77 Kb. File Formats = JPG or GIF Procedure 1. Start the GIMP 2. On the GIMP window that has a menu, select File, then Open and choose your image. The image should display in a different window (with it's own menu). 3. Now, Back on the mai...