Yay! I got my banner to work!

Whoo! I finally just got one made, myself. Yours is very cool! I love the background image. :)

I'm completely jealous! I've been trying to get my banner to work and am having no luck! If you wouldn't mind posting very specific directions for the computer illiterate I would appreciate it!

Thanks,
Katherine

I've never done a banner, but I can link you to the NaNo thread where they talk about this: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3296642

Hope this helps! If it doesn't, you can try the other threads in NaNo Artisans. Also, the allowable HTML tags are listed at the bottom of the forums pages. Good luck!

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Cheri in Peoria
2004-2008 winner

It's actually pretty easy :) The site that I found to make banners that is COMPLETELY awesome, is www.BannerFans.com

It's free and really easy to use, but I will step you through it so that you can have a cool banner too :)

First, you should probably find an image that you want. Google images is a good place for that, or you can use one that you have taken yourself or resides somewhere on your computer.

Once you've got your image picked out, on the main screen, the first tab is Layout. If you want to use an uploaded image (which most likely you will, otherwise it's just gradients and color that you can work with) then select the "I want to upload my own image" radio button under "Select a background mode"

Once you do that it will give you a place to upload your photo. This is pretty easy if you have every uploaded photo's anywhere on the web before, but just in case I'll tell you how to do that too :) You just click on browse and then choose the photo you want to upload. Then click "Update my Banner" button (bottom center of the screen) and it will update what you have so far on top.

You can choose the size of the banner as well on this screen.

Then click the tab "Texts and Fonts" to choose what text and fonts you want on your banner. You can also drag around the text anywhere on the banner that you want it to be.

I didn't really mess around much with the Shadows and Effects tab, so I can't really help you there.

Then there is the Border and Format tabs. The border one is pretty self explanatory and the format just asks you what type of image file you want. It defaults to .jpg and that is probably fine.

When you are done and think you have it how you want it, then click the button "Get The Codes"

Another page will come up with a BUNCH of different codes, but the one that I found that works with the forums here is at the very top on the right (Code for webpages/blogs/myspace just the banner) When you click on the code it will automatically copy it to your clipboard.

Then....(final step I promise) you paste it into your signature (where you edit your user info on the nano site) and voila you have a banner!!!

Hope this helps, let me know if you need any more info!

EDIT: And one more thing...you can also click the "Download it" button and it will save the image to your hard drive.

~Nicole~

Nano2008 - Empty Eyes (68 K)
Nano2009 - Loss is a Four Letter Word

O.M.G. Did I have so much trouble getting my banner uploaded. I had no trouble making it, just getting to the signature.

TY Juniper34 for suggesting which code to use! *whew*

Now that THAT'S over, I can concentrate on writing! LOL

Yeah...I had to mess around with that quite a bit myself...I just kept trying different ones till I got the correct one!

Definitely glad to see that my post has helped! I was extremely envious of everybody's cool banners last year, and am really glad that I was able to make one for 09!

~Nicole~

Nano2008 - Empty Eyes (68 K)
Nano2009 - Loss is a Four Letter Word

Thanks for all the suggestions, I also had no trouble making the banner, just trying to figure out how to add the code to put it on my signature. Let's see if it worked this time. I used flickr and copied the "link" then added < and> at the ends of the code. Hope this works!
Katherine

still didn't work
darn
K

This was where my hangup was Kathrin. I was choosing the wrong code. But like Juniper suggested, the top upper right worked for me. Right click, "copy", and paste into your signature. Then just refresh a page that is diplaying your posts. It will throw it in automatically without needing to repost something.

Hope this helps.

oh my gosh,
my son finally figured out how to upload the right code. And how cool is it that it went back on every post! Thank goodness for 16 year old sons!
katherine

ps. the pic is of my very beautiful sister - in - law

Woot! Looks great!

I'm still feeling a little bit like gooey brown matter under somebody's shoe, so I might kill some time today by reclining and making my own banner! =)

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Cheri in Peoria
2004-2008 winner

You should Cheri! It really is fun...and kind of addicting once you get started. I changed mine a bunch of times before getting the one I have now. I really like the pic, though, it's really haunting. If you go into my novel info, I took the bigger version of the photo and used it as my Book Cover.

Congrats Kat for getting it to work! And yay for 16 year olds too :)

~Nicole~

Nano2008 - Empty Eyes (68 K)
Nano2009 - Loss is a Four Letter Word

Nicole,
I did the same thing for my book cover, I wish it covered the whole page area though, perhaps I should try to resize it. I used the picture portion of my banner and layered words over it. Wow, definitely chomping at the bit to work, otherwise would never have had the time to play with photoshop! I'm going to look at yours right now.
Katherine

Lovina