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Part One: How to Create An Icon
1. First, move around the certain backgrounds, dolls, pictures, and letters to form an icon of your choice.
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2. When you have you icon all set in the middle, press the print screen key on your keyboard. (it is located to the right of the f12 key, and says "prt scrn/sysRq" on it)
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3. Next, Open up your "Paint" program on your computer. (Go to "start", then click "find", and search for "paint" if you do not know where it is on your computer. im pretty sure every computer has it!)
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4. Then, Once you are in paint, go to the top tool bar where it says "edit". Click "edit", and then when the drop down list comes click "paste". It will say "the image is too large, would you like the bitmap enlarged?" click "yes" or "ok" for this option.
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5. Now, on the paint program you should see the same exact screen that you were on when you pressed the print screen key. On this screen, along with everything else, is your icon that you made. Click the dotted line square on the left tool bar to outline JUST the icon, and bring it to the VERY top left hand corner of the program.
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6. Next, use the dot on the very bottom RIGHT hand corner of the program to drag it up and crop the single icon image.
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7. OK! now you finally have the icon singled out by itself. Now just go to "file" on the top tool bar, and click "save". Save your new icon in a folder where you will remember to find it, and save it as a name that you wont forget.
8. Alright, now if you tried to use your icon now, it wouldn't work because it is in .bmp format, and that kind of format is too big. So in order to fix this, you need to go to Jasc.com and download the 30 day trial of any version of Paint Shop Pro.
(just click HERE to go straight to the page where you download paint shop pro)
9. When it is finished downloading, have a parent help you (if you are young and don't know how) to install it.
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10. When it is all installed, open up the program. It is similar to "paint", but is a lot more high tech. Now go to the top menu and click "open". Find the icon that you saved as a .bmp file, and open it.
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11. While the icon picture is open, go to the top menu again and go to "file" and then scroll down to "save as". Keep the same file name, but you need to change the format to a .gif file. To do this, use the scroll bar menu underneith the file name to search for the selection called "CompuServe Graphics Interchange (*.gif)". Select it and hit "SAVE".
12. Now your icon's format is finally small enough to fit as a buddy icon! The next instructions will tell you how to put your icon up as your new buddy icon on aol instant messenger....
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Part Two: How To Put The Icon On AIM
1. Open up your AOL instant messenger. Look at the very bottom of the aol instant messenger program and find the picture that looks like a wrench and is titled "prefs". Click it.
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2. Once you are in "prefs", look at the left tool bar in the window and find "Buddy Icons". Click it.
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3. When the buddy icons page shows up, Make Sure that "My Buddy Icon" is selected. then, click the "browse PC" button and search in the folders to find where you saved your icon that you just made. when you find it, select it and click "ok".
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4. Now you finally have your new buddy icon, made by you!!
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Part Three: Cropping (If Necessary)
1. You may find at the end of this whole process, your icon (when you put it on AIM) will look distorted. Some icons will look this way if you adjusted the size of the backgrounds when making your icon, and it will look really bad... to fix this, just open your icon up back in Paint Shop Pro, go to the tool bar on the left and click the icon that says "CROP" when you hover it, and outline and crop the icon to a smaller size. Then save it and try it on Aim again.
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