MACS

Paint/Icon Tips:

6-18-96
INSTANT MAKEOVER
The icons your Mac uses to portray folders, files, applications, and whatever else you might have floating around on your hard drive are just small pictures stored in invisible files within your system. These pictures are a mere 32 by 32 pixels in size and are created in PICT format. Since they're in PICT format, you can easily copy and paste icons to and from the Clipboard to change their appearance.

 All you have to do is:
1. Select your clip art or drawing and copy it to the Clipboard (Copy from
the Edit menu).
2. Click on the icon you want to replace and choose Get Info from the File
menu. 
3. In the Info window, select the icon and choose Paste.
Your old icon will be replaced instantly with the new image. If you change your mind and want the default icon back, open the Info dialog box, click on the icon, and choose Cut from the Edit menu. Your Mac will remove the custom icon and once again display the original.

10-18-96
DECORATE YOUR FILE ICONS
Did you know you can easily change a desktop icon's graphic? All you have to do is paste the graphic you want to use into the document's Get Info dialog box. First, find the graphic you want to use and copy it to the Clipboard (Command+C). Now select your document's desktop icon and choose the Get Info command on the File menu. Click on the current graphic in the top-left portion of the Get Info dialog box, paste in the new graphic (Command+V), and close the dialog box. That's all there is to it.

10-21-96
SHOW YOUR ARTISTIC SIDE
On Friday, we told you how to change desktop icon graphics (paste 'em into the document's Get Info dialog box). Don't have a graphic to use? You can steal one from another document's Get Info box or use clipart. But our fave method is to draw our own. Open up any draw program (Claris Works' Paint program works fine) and draw pictures of your loved ones, pets, or whatever suits your fancy. The less talent you have, the better. Crudely drawn pictures seem to look cooler as desktop icons. Once you've created your masterpiece, select it, copy it to the Clipboard (Command+C), and paste it into your document's Get Info dialog box.

12-02-96
SEE THE WORLD IN GLORIOUS COLOR
Bored by the monotone look of your Mac's Map control panel? Then colorize it (hey, if Ted Turner can do it, so can we). Here's how:

1) Open the Map control panel. (It's listed in the Control Panels
submenu on the Apple Menu.)
2) Open the Scrapbook and scroll through the selections until you
find the color map.
3) Copy the Scrapbook image by choosing Copy from the Edit menu, then
close the Scrapbook.
4) Paste the image into the Map window by choosing Paste from the
Edit menu. A dialog box will appear asking if you really want to.
Just click the Replace button and you're set. 
*Note: The image of the color map is an entry in the standard System 7 Scrapbook. If you've modified the Scrapbook (i.e. if you cut this image out or replaced it with a new one) it may not be available.

12-09-96
CREATING INVISIBLE ICONS
Looking for an easy way to make a folder or file invisible? Just copy a small piece of white space to the Clipboard (use any paint program or even SimpleText) and paste it into the icon's place in the Get Info dialog box. To make this item really hard to find, you can even delete its name by selecting it and pressing the space bar. And if you forget where you put it, choose Select All from the edit menu, and its shadow will appear.

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