Thursday, July 26, 2007

Testing Google Documents with Photographs...

Today's note pertains to my frustration viewing Carol's most recent blog entries (watchmepaint.blogspot.com): I cannot see the pictures as clearly as I would like.

I know, from experience, that putting full-sized pictures onto a blog brings with it a lot of problems, so I use PicSizer to shrink mine to 320 pixels x whatever ...

Here is a small photograph of my most recent painting of Jensen's Hill:

If Google is kind to me (doubtful) and my husband is correct (usual), you should be able to click on the photograph above and open another window or tab with a more detailed view of the photo, which I've stored as a Google Document.

It turns out that, using either computer screen (laptop or monitor), 1024 pixels x 768 pixels high wide works pretty well. Comments?

Instructions for doing this

First size the pictures correctly. (I use 320 pixels wide for my blog and 1024 pixels wide for the larger photo.)

Insert the smaller photo in your blog.

Upload the larger photo to Google Documents. (Upload the photo you want to come up when someone clicks on the 'thumbnail' in your blog.)

PUBLISH the photo as a Google document. Once it is published, right click onthe URL they provide, select "Copy shortcut" and move to your blog, in EDIT mode.

Left-click on the photo in your blog, then click on the icon to the right of the Text formating icon (some chain link and a green globe). When that comes up, PASTE the URL from the Google Documents (i.e. Ctl-V or Edit / Paste) into the dialog box. Select OK.

Publish your blog. Test it.

Done.

4 comments:

Carol Douglas said...

A few questions--how long can I save the doc on Google Documents, and what is the max file size. If we are talking perpetuity, this might be an awesome idea. I'm loving it, my blog pal.

Gwendolyn said...

Carol,

As far as I can tell, you can save things indefinitely. There is a message at the bottom of my gmail saying "You are currently using 430 MB (14%) of your 2881 MB." I do not know whether this includes my Google Documents.

There are settings in Google Documents about how long you want documents to be displayed on the main page, but so far they never disappear, just get archived.

I wouldn't use Google Documents to replace local storage, but it's great for access while traveling and also you can share documents with others.

For example, we have a standard grocery list template that is shared among everyone living in the house. When Nina says, "I need plums." the proper reply is, "Put it on the list." Then, of course, it is not too hard to SMS the list to the shopper, if s/he isn't near a computer (requires editing to < 160 characters)...

Carol Douglas said...

I tried it with my own photo which I just posted on my blog. So far so good. Thanks!

Carol Douglas said...

Did it in my last post and it worked awesomely. Thanks.