Create Flowcharts, Floor Plans, and Other Diagrams. Rarely have I seen such an impact with the deployment of software to end users. Adoption was immediate and increased the overall quality of our communications, process development and planning. Productivity was also improved as end users finally had a tool that put compelling, professional- quality visuals at their fingertups. Not only is the product terrific, but from consulting, enterprise installation and training to end user support, the team at Smart. ![]() Draw has been exceptional. I highly recommend Smart. Draw. It has everything and is very user- friendly. Smart. Draw lowers our costs, increases productivity and really frees up IT resources. I'm a business owner and it's so simple to use, and easy to create what are normally considered to be complex documents and designs. Microsoft Encarta was a digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft Corporation from 1993 to 2009. Originally available for sale on 2 to 4 CD-ROMs or a DVD. ![]() How To Make Your Own Free Book Cover In MS Word. OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! But although I personally believe in paying professionals, I'm also aware that some people want to have a go themselves, or need to because of budget restraints. This post is for the avid DIY- ers! This is a long post, so you should bookmark it. You can also download a PDF version of these instructions and the source files of the cover we’re building so you can follow along; click here to get those. Ready? Let’s begin. Finding and choosing the right pictures. The quality of your book cover will mostly depend on what pictures or art you use, and how well they fit together, so in this section I’m going to teach you what kind of art works the best, where you can find royalty free images, and where you can get cheap Photoshop work done (if you need it). The RULES for picking photos: 1) Simple is better. Needs to cause immediate emotional reaction. Not too busy or too many colors.
Don’t use a GREAT picture: use the overlooked one. Blend and match colors. You can use a color wheel to find complimentary colors (opposites/across from each other). Blockbuster movie posters usually use orange and teal (a lot of my book covers do also). Green and purple can work also. Unfortunately, Christmas ruined red and green, but red still goes well with black or white. Too many colors can be distracting, so try to go for one or two main colors (if the whole background is blue, you could use yellow text to stand out? What’s the setting? See if you can find something that refers to this. That will be your background. Then find something for the foreground – faces or bodies can work well here. Models from stock photography sites are good, but the better the model, the more chance someone else will use them for their covers. You can avoid showing their face by just showing some of their body or posture. You could also post something on Craigslist and see if you can hire someone local to pose for an hour or two. I’m sure you have a friend with a camera. I would pay $5. 0~$1. Take the pictures against a white, or black background (depending on whether your cover’s background will be mostly light or dark.)If that sounds like too much work, find a model on a stock photography site, but keep in mind: the better the photo, the more likely other people are already using it on their book covers. That’s why you don’t want to find a beautiful, breathtaking photo that’s just perfect. You could also put some unique objects, symbols or elements in the foreground. Something that also works well is to place the models large on top, and add a scene/landscape on the bottom half of the cover. Make a list of your character’s physical descriptions, and any other relevant places, scenes, rooms, objects or symbols, and start searching. Where to find stock photography“Stock photography” means images you can buy the rights to and use in your book cover. More expensive sites will ask you for more details like how many copies you plan to print, but there are a lot of cheap options. I use these sites, where photos usually cost less than $1. Extended License” if you are using it for your book cover). Each site has different rules and fees. For now, just download samples of everything you like so you can play around with them. Once you’re sure what you want, you can go back and buy them. What size do I need? I make book covers at 6”X9”, which is 1. That’s already a good size for print, and for Kindle and other ebook sites. If you want a taller, narrower book cover, use 5”x. Amazon (which most publishers ignore, because the covers are too tall and look strange on most devices). On most stock photography sites, a medium or large size will work, just check the pixel ratio. Keep in mind, if you choose two horizontal photos, they don’t need to be as long as the full cover. Here are the sites I use most often: There are others though – even some free options, like Stock Exchange photos. They reel you in, showing you nice photos from i. Stock, which usually cost between $2. Other options. The disadvantage to stock photography, as I’ve mentioned, is you’ll see it on other covers, so here are some ways to find something unique. Find a professional photo from a photographer’s website. Photographers often charge at least $1. Something I’ve negotiated in the past, is paying around $2. This is pretty fair to you both – if you do sell so well, the photographer deserves to get paid his normal wage. Find something on Etsy. Etsy is a site for craftspeople and artists, but they often have some very pleasing photography of their wares. There’s also some unique paintings and art. Most artists won’t mind if you use their photos, especially if you buy the relevant product they’re selling. Just make sure to ask. Find something on Flickr. A lot of Flickr users post photos in the Creative Commons area, which means you can use their photo as long as you put attribution (on the back cover, and on the title page). No harm searching this area. The photos may not look great at first, but you can adjust them in Word. Look on Deviant. Art for photography. Deviant. Art is a community for artists and graphic designers. They have a resources section of stock photography, that you can use as long as you attribute the source (different artists have different rules of use, and can be quite cautious how their work is used, so you should read their rules and maybe send them a message). The stock photography on Deviant is usually very raw – it’s for graphic designers to use in their designs. If you see a photo that could work, maybe see about finding someone to make it awesome for you (read 5 and 6). Hire an artist from Deviant. Art. Browse Deviant. Art for the subjects on your list and you may find some beautiful art and photography. Especially for a children’s book or fantasy novel, if you need a really specific scene, you may need to hire an artist. A lot of artists on Deviant. Art are young or just starting out (or in other countries where the minimum wage is much lower). I would offer $1. Some artists will work for less, some will demand more – but I think those are good starting offers. Pay someone on Fivver. I’m going to teach you how to style and blend photos in MS Word, but if you need something prettier, or are getting frustrated trying to do it yourself, search on Fivver. Photoshop expert. Many providers will strip out background, combine images, or add a dramatic style for $5. It’ll save some time and probably look better. Especially for YA, fantasy, science fiction, thriller? Almost all old paintings should be free to use if they’re older than 7. Check out this site, it has tons of high resolution painting and art pictures: http: //www. Got your pictures? Let’s start! I’m going to walk you through making a book cover in MS Word from scratch. Step One. Open up MS Word. Go to “File> > New> > ” and then hit “Create” on the right side. You should have a blank document. You’ll want to adjust the size to 6”x. Page Layout” and hit “Size.” Scroll down to “More Paper Sizes” and type in 6” and then 9” in the relevant input boxes. We also don’t need the margins so big, so click again on “Page Layout”, select “Margins” and then set them to “Narrow” or . Step Two. Now we’re going to add our pictures. I’ll take my scenery or background picture and drag/drop it into my template. I could also use “insert> > picture” and then select the image I want to use. When the picture gets dropped in, it will automatically stretch to the margins, but you can’t move it where you want. Double click on the picture, go up to “Wrap Text” and choose “Behind Text.”This will let you scale, resize and move the picture around. I’m going to move it down to fill up the bottom of my book cover. Quick Tip: if you need to get a better handle on things, you can either zoom in or zoom out under “View” and then “Zoom.”Now I’m going to take another picture, drag and drop it in, select “Behind Text,” and put it in the top half. The picture is too big, so I lose half of it under the other one (we’ll fix that later). Now that I have two layers, I’ll want to click on “Page Layout” and open up the “Selection Pane.”This will show all my layers, and make it easier to keep track of them. If I want to hide one for a while, I can click on that “eye” button, and show it again when I’m ready. Sometimes it can get tricky to select the right layer when I have a bunch of them. If it’s hard to select the image you want, try double- clicking right on the border of the picture, rather than the middle. Just for fun, double click on the picture of the couple again, and hit the “Remove Background” button on the top left. It doesn’t work so well with this picture, because the background is too similar to the portraits in color, so we’d have to use “Mark areas to keep” and “Mark areas to remove” until we got it right. Then we could add something else behind it, like a nice starry night sky. It’s OK if it’s not perfect, you can resize it and move it around. I’m going to double click on the rectangle to select it, go up to “Shape Outline” and hit “No Outline.”I’ll do that again, go up to “Shape Fill” this time, and select the color black. Step Four. Now I can add some text. I go back to “Insert” and hit “Text Box,” and choose “Draw Text Box” from near the bottom of the choices. At first my text box has a solid white background. So I’ll double click on it, go up to “Shape Fill” and choose “No Fill.” The box also has a border I want to get rid of, so I double click on it again, go up to “Shape Outline” and pick “No Outline.”But now if I type my title, I can’t see the black text. For now I’ll just pick white, then make the text a little bigger. Rules for using fonts: Using the right font for your book’s genre is important.
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