Posting charts and images in forum posts

[Steve]

Its fine to post charts or images in your posts here.  

1)  First, they need to be somewhere on the web - Photobucket.com or Flickr.com are good places to put them, but they can be anyplace on the web.  Flickr and Photobucket let you easily resize images.  (Steps to resize follow...)

2)  Images on this forum work best when they are smaller than the size of the forum window.   The maximum window width is 750 pixels - the maximum height 650 pixels. Resize images proportionally, meaning, pick either 750 wide or 650 high, not both - let the other dimension fill itself in using the proportions of the original image.

3)  To resize on either Flickr or Photobucket:  upload the image.  Click on the image to see it full size.  Then click on EditImages and pick Resize.  Select one of the dimensions, make sure "Keep proportions" is checked.   If the other dimension exceeds its maximum height or width, then set that dimension to the forum maximum and let the other dimension auto-resize.

Then "copy" the URL for the image that Flickr/Photobucket shows you.  

4)  If you have your own place on the web to store images, you can also use this site to resize an image http://www.picresize.com/

Inserting an image when creating a post on this forum:  Write your post.  Put the cursor at the point where you want the image inserted.  On the second row of buttons, the second button from the left is the Insert Image button.  When you click it, you will see two img tags like this

Code:

[img][/img]

appear in the post.  paste the URL of the image in between those two tags like this:

Code:

[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/85/25779221_04fb7d9d.jpg[/img]

Then continue writing your post.   When you click Preview or Post, if you did this correctly, you will see the image appear.  

[Steve]

To properly size a chart so it exactly fits the available space in a post on this forum, displaying right in the post instead of as an attachment, here are directions on how to do that:

1) Open a free Photobucket account at http://photobucket.com. 

2) Create the chart image on your computer. Log into the Photobucket account.  Once in, click the green "Upload Now" link

3) Upload should be set to "Upload from: my computer"

4) Click Select Photos and Videos

5) In the little window that opens locate the image on your computer and click open

6) Back in Photobucket, click "Save and continue to my album"

7) Click the thumbnail of the new image to get it to open up larger.

8) If there is unneeded space in your image, like a wide area between the name on the left and the image on the right, you can crop out the unnecessary parts.  Click "Edit" and then "Crop"

8A (crop instructions, if you need to crop)  Click with mouse in upper left corner of part of image you want to keep - hold down button and drag the whole area you want to keep, pointing to lower right corner - it will turn white as you drag.  When you have the whole area you want saved as white, release the mouse.  If you released the mouse too soon, use the black highlighted points to expand or shrink the highlighted white area.  When you have the whole area you want to KEEP highlighted in white, right click and select "Crop Selected Area". Then beneath the image click either "Save a Copy" or "Replace Original".

9)  Resize the image to 750 wide ( or less) - click Resize and then More Options

9A (resize instructions) ) Makes sure that "Keep Proportions" is checked.  Set "New Size" to 750 in the left dimensions box.  Beneath that, click "Save a Copy" or "Replace Original".

10) Go back to your album and click the image you want to post a few times until you see a "Share" or "Share This Photo" box.

11) One of the Share options is "IMG Code".  That is what we want for posting on this forum.  Click the IMG Code line one time and the URL of the image will be copied into your copy buffer.  All you need to do is paste that line into your post on this message board.  You don't need to attach the image - this method directly inserts the image right into the post when you paste that line of IMG code into the post.  The width of 750 is exactly what's needed to fill the post area without creating scrollbars.

Example of a line of IMG code pasted from Photobucket:

Code:

[IMG]http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gr72/joesmith/joe_birthchart.jpg[/IMG]

If you want to print these instructions, here is a PDF version of this post