improving quality of my posts

[ilya]

Can anyone help me learn how to scan in a paper drawing, and attach it to my posts here, using windows xp? I don't want to waste people's time with explanations that are clear only to me. Perhaps a private message reply is appropriate, unless others want to know, too. Thanks!

[Doherty Plumbing]

Can anyone help me learn how to scan in a paper drawing, and attach it to my posts here, using windows xp? I don't want to waste people's time with explanations that are clear only to me. Perhaps a private message reply is appropriate, unless others want to know, too. Thanks!

Google........

[wallygater]

All you need to do that is a scanner.
scan the diagram and save it to your desktop
Then,
attach it to your post just like you would attach a picture

[frenchie]

Can anyone help me learn how to scan in a paper drawing, and attach it to my posts here, using windows xp? I don't want to waste people's time with explanations that are clear only to me. Perhaps a private message reply is appropriate, unless others want to know, too. Thanks!

The scanning part, I'm going to have to trust you already know how to do - there's too many different scanners & softwares out there, for me to be able to walk you through your particular setup. I can help you with the posting part, though.


First thing, is to make sure the file is small enough to upload. For most kinds of pictures, that's 97.7 KB. If the picture file is too big, you can shrink it, or adjust the resolution, using any of a number of free image-management softwares.

I'm partial to GIMP, it's a full-featured editing program... but it's not exactly user-friendly. If all you need to do is resize, I really like Pixresizer; it's a small file that doesn't clutter up your system memory, and it's super=easy to understand.

If you don't know how to check the size of your picture file, right-click on it & select "properties", the info will be in the pop-up window.



...

Okay, got the picture down to less than 97 KB?

When you're starting a thread, or replying, the window should something like this:


Click on the "Manage Attachments" button, that I circled in red.

You should get a pop-up, looks like this:


Click on "browse"



You'll get another pop-up window, showing all the folders on your computer:





(Okay, pause. Apparently I have too many pictures in my post, so I have to split it up. TO BE CONTINUED...)

[frenchie]

(CONTINUED... Except apparently I have to wait 30 seconds between posts... )




Okay, got that 2nd pop-up? This one works the same as any explorer browse window. Dig through there, find the picture file you want to post, double-click on it.

That pop-up will disappear, and the file name / location should appear in the little text box of the first pop-up:



Click on "upload":



You'll get a message telling you it's uploading, then (within a few seconds) the file will appear under "current attachments":



That's it. You're done. Click on "Close this window" to get rid of the pop-up.

[ilya]

Frenchie-it's abundantly clear that you took a fair amount of time creating your answer. It really qualifies as a tutorial! Thank you VERY much. Thanks to all others who replied as well. I'd read some other recent thread about sketchup and haven't been able to download it, although my machine meets the system requirements, so if I can draw half decent diagrams this is the wave of the future...

[frenchie]

No worries - I was bored - and it's hard to just explain, without pictures. Also playing with a few different editors, learning...

And now I never have to try to explain it ever again; just link to this thread.