How to Add Images to a Discussion thread?

A very special hello from a not so snowy New England anymore. Yippee!!

This week I wanted to spend some time on something that has always been of particular interest to me and I am sure, so many more of you out there. This is applicable to almost every single class that I have taken here at The Art Institute.

That is; How to admires to a discussion thread?  How often are we asked to please post images to the discussion post showing something we captured or in reference to a photograph that we need to discuss. It is definitely part of the first assignment W1A1 autobiography.

Well today I am going to show you a very easy way to ensure that all the photographs that you find and place into your document can be copied and pasted into your discussion post without any problems. No, we will not be copying and pasting from Word.

Here are the steps that you need to follow to make sure you have no problems going forward.

Step 1:

Make sure that you have a google account. It is very easy to get. Just go to google where you can sign-up for a new account.Once you have registered and updated your profile and security settings you are ready to get going. Once you have signed in you now have your account active, you have access to a host of different Google products.

Step 2:

To create a Google doc all you have to do is click on the grid in the top right hand corner of your web browser.

If you click the more button you can locate the Docs app. and this will take you to the Google doc application. You will also be able to create a shortcut to this application by adding it this grid button for easier access at a later stage. Here I located the Docs app and clicked on it to take me to the create a document page.

I m now ready to create my first document. On this page you can click on the + (plus) sign in the bottom right hand corner of the page to create your document. A Google document allows you to compose and write your assignments here just like any other word processor. The Microsoft Word processor is the required application so many of us start there. You can create your document in Word and copy the entire document and paste it into the Google doc area. I normally use this method because I like the spelling and Grammar checking capabilities of Word. (Why would I want to copy and paste into Google docs if I can just create it in Word, you may ask?)

Well, the downside to this using the copy and paste from Microsoft Word method and pasting it into into your discussion thread; it will not carry the images over.

By copying the assignment from Word into Google Docs. all you have to do is reconnect the locations of the images. Google will ask you to reconnect the locations of the photographs. That is easily done by clicking on the placement holder for the image located on your page and then selecting the insert menu option at the top of the document and clicking insert image option, finding the photograph located on your computer.

This will add the photograph to the document and you can continue with your work.

If you do decide to use only Google then you can add your images directly your post. The best thing about using Google Docs as your word processor is that you can now make a select all option and then copy and paste the entire document directly into your discussion post.

You will not lose any of the images and everything will be pasted there. Now you can make some style adjustments if it appears incorrect. It does not copy any heading settings, special fonts or customizations to the discussion post.

Finally, if you still need to save your document, you can do this by selecting download as option and making the appropriate selection. You can download them to your computer as Word.docx, PDF, Txt and a few other options which makes it a really great tool to use.

So, now you have no excuse for not being able to post images to your discussion posts. There are some great tools out there and they make your life so much easier. Next week I will show you how to reduce the size of your PDF files so that they are not too large, (no more 100MB files) especially when they ask you to create a slideshow from Lightroom. I can reduce a 100MB file down to approximately 3.2MB if you know which options to use and you can keep the resolution and detail to all your images.

Have a great week everyone. I am preparing to shoot a photo story later today with a new musician that I found so I am looking forward to that. 

If you have any questions or would like further information about the processes that I discussed here today then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Have a super week.

Kind regards,

Denzil