| Using pictures and animations in MSN Groups | Firstly the graphics need to be saved on your computer. When you see one you like you can right click on it and select "save picture as" or, if you are using Internet Explorer 6.0, hovering the cursor over the pic will pop up a lil box with the Save icon.
Next you need to have somewhere to save them to. You might like to create a new folder and even create sub folders for different catagories of pics or use an existing folder in your system such as the My Pictures one in My Documents.
Next you need to find them. Using your Search Engine and putting "free animations", "animated gifs", "freeware animations", " free graphics" etc will find heaps of places. Maybe a good place to start is the AnimationFactory or as I said before you can collect any that you see anywhere by right clicking. One thing to be aware of is that some pics are © copyrighted to the creator and you will see that on the pic. Also some copyrighted pics are in fact free for personal use but you should be paying, for the right of use, if you are using them in a commercial way. Often sites will have a Terms of Use you can read though generally any pics you see floating around are free use and the person using them hasnt made them. They just found them like you do.
Ok you now have your computer overflowing with animations and pics and want to use them here.
When you are writing a message and want to put in a graphic ( it will insert where the cursor is ) click the lil symbol along the top like this:
Select My Computer, click Browse, path your way to where you have your pics, select the pic you want, click Open then click Add Photos. Depending on the size of your pic it may take a moment or two to appear and then you can carry on with your message, add another pic of whatever you want.
If you want to re-use a pic that you have used before rather than clicking the My Computer click the My Online Photos and click Sent Photos. All the pics you have sent will appear on the right and then you just click the one you want and Add Photo.
Now to get more confusing for you there is another way to do this. Communities have photo albums ( called Pictures in menu on the left ) and you can create an album ( if your a member ) and add things in there. Then to use them you do as previous, select My Online Photos, click the Community where they are and they will show for selection and adding. ©Guy Computing Solutions Center 2001, 2002, 2003 |