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Tips and Tricks

  1. Using images as desktop wallpaper
  2. Using "fussy" background images
  3. Making a background stationary (text scrolls, background stays still)
  4. Create a border using any image

1) USING IMAGES AS DESKTOP WALLPAPER
First, click on the background you like. You will see a full page preview of the background image.

If you're using Internet Explorer do the following:
Right-click on the background. From the menu that comes up, click on "Set as Wallpaper".

If you're using Netscape do the following:
Right-click on the background. From the menu that comes up, click on "Set as Wallpaper".

A more detailed way to do it is like this:

- Select a background image (example: rainbow.gif), then save it into a directory on your hard drive (example, in c:\temp). Click here for detailed instructions on downloading images.

- Click on START > SETTINGS > CONTROL PANEL > DISPLAY...

- On the "Background" Tab, click the "Browse..." button. Navigate to the directory in which you have saved the background image (c:\temp) and select the image file (rainbow.gif)

- Select the TILE option under "Picture Display"

- The image should tile over your desktop, creating your desktop wallpaper.

2) USING FUSSY BACKGROUND IMAGES
By "fussy", I mean backgrounds that have bold images or colours (like this Halloween background). Text is not very legible on these backgrounds, and if people can't read what you have to say, they're not going to stay on your site for too long!

But if you really must have that background, here's what you can do:

A good way to display text with this sort of background image, is to have the text in tables which have a plain background colour.

Example 1 - a Halloween background
Example 2 - a Christmas background

If you're not sure how to use Tables on your web page, here are some good tutorial sites:

1) HTML Goodies Table Tutorials
2) Table Tutor

3) MAKING A BACKGROUND STATIONARY (only text scrolls)
I often get asked how to make a background stay stationary - that is, when you scroll down the page the text moves, but the background remains still.

The following tag works this particular bit of magic:

<BODY BACKGROUND="yourimage.gif" BGPROPERTIES=FIXED>

However, the above tag works only with MSIE and not with Netscape or other browsers.

Alternatively, you can use the following tag:

<body style="background-image: url(background.gif); background-repeat:
repeat; background-attachment: fixed">

This method uses CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and should work on nearly every modern browser*
(*Thanks to Mark Roach for this handy additional tip!)

4) CREATE A BORDER USING ANY IMAGE
This is a cool trick using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). You can take any background image and create a border with it. Just use the code below within the <HEAD> </HEAD> section of your HTML file:

<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
<!--
BODY {background-image:url(images/line.gif); background-repeat:repeat-y}
-->
</STYLE>

The reference to the image is made within the (brackets)

repeat:repeat-y will make the background image tile down the left side of your page

Changing it to repeat:repeat-x will make the background image tile across the top of your page

See samples of how this looks:
Left Border
Top Border


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