Recently, I've been trying out making Instructables with photo-only instructions (see my Rosette and Mesh Decolletage Instructables). For simple Instructables, I think it's a format that looks good, and I like the idea of wordless instructions.
If you'd like to try this yourself, here's a quick tutorial on embedding photos into your text space. It's not just button clicking; you'll be learning a little bit of basic HTML. But if you've never done any coding before, don't be afraid! It's not that hard, and you only need to learn a tiny bit to embed a photo.
And here it is: <img src="photourl.jpg"/>
Except you'll replace photourl.jpg with your photo's URL.
But what is your photo's URL? Let's take a step back.
For this Instructable, I'm going to be working with this photo of a robot t-shirt:
You should follow along in a different window and try all of the stuff I show you.
Step 1: Upload the Photo
Upload the photo to Instructables normally. You don't even have to attach it to the Instructable, just get it onto the site. (It can actually be a picture from anywhere on the internet, but I'm just going to work from inside the Instructables site.)
You should upload a pretty big photo so that you'll be able to see all of the options.
Step 2: Copy the image URL
Right click on the thumbnail of the image and select "Copy Image URL".
Step 3: Playing around with the URL
We're going to take that URL and play with it a little bit, so go ahead and paste that URL string into a new tab of your browser. Instructables has a few different versions of your photo.
Because we copied from the thumbnail, the URL string should currently end with ".THUMB.jpg". So the image is small, like this:
Now change .THUMB.jpg to .TINY.jpg to make it even smaller.
Try SQUARE, SQUARE2, and SQUARE3:
Try MEDIUM.
Try LARGE.
So you see that you have a lot of default options for the size, and even the shape, of your photo.
Step 4: Inserting into the source code
Back in your Instructable, click on the Source button. Now you're seeing the HTML that your Instructable is using. We're just going to be messing with images, so you can ignore most of it. Navigate to the place where you want to put your photo, and use that code we learned earlier: <img src="photourl.jpg"/>
But instead of photourl.jpg, put in your own photo URL. For example, this is
<img src="http://cdn.instructables.com/FWJ/14GN/H401UXBX/FWJ14GNH401UXBX.THUMB.jpg"/>
Step 5: Width and height
You don't have to be limited by the default sizes that we explored in Step 3. You can also specify a specific width or height (or both!) in the HTML. It's easy! Try:
<img src="photourl.jpg" width="200"/>
<img src="photourl.jpg" height="200"/>
<img src="photourl.jpg" width="200" height="200"/> OR <img src="photourl.jpg" height="200" width="200"/>
But when you constrain both width and height, you can distort your image.
The width of an Instructable is usually 650px. You should set your image URL to LARGE in most cases so that you have high resolution. Otherwise it might look like this:
And that's all you need to know!
To embed an image here, anyway. But if you enjoyed this small taste of power from coding, you should learn more! It comes in handy sometimes. Probably the easiest way to learn is codeacademy.org. Click the link! Try it! Just stop if you get bored.
If you'd like to try this yourself, here's a quick tutorial on embedding photos into your text space. It's not just button clicking; you'll be learning a little bit of basic HTML. But if you've never done any coding before, don't be afraid! It's not that hard, and you only need to learn a tiny bit to embed a photo.
And here it is: <img src="photourl.jpg"/>
Except you'll replace photourl.jpg with your photo's URL.
But what is your photo's URL? Let's take a step back.
For this Instructable, I'm going to be working with this photo of a robot t-shirt:
You should follow along in a different window and try all of the stuff I show you.
Step 1: Upload the Photo
Upload the photo to Instructables normally. You don't even have to attach it to the Instructable, just get it onto the site. (It can actually be a picture from anywhere on the internet, but I'm just going to work from inside the Instructables site.)
You should upload a pretty big photo so that you'll be able to see all of the options.
Step 2: Copy the image URL
Right click on the thumbnail of the image and select "Copy Image URL".
Step 3: Playing around with the URL
We're going to take that URL and play with it a little bit, so go ahead and paste that URL string into a new tab of your browser. Instructables has a few different versions of your photo.
Because we copied from the thumbnail, the URL string should currently end with ".THUMB.jpg". So the image is small, like this:
Now change .THUMB.jpg to .TINY.jpg to make it even smaller.
Try SQUARE, SQUARE2, and SQUARE3:
Try MEDIUM.
Try LARGE.
So you see that you have a lot of default options for the size, and even the shape, of your photo.
Step 4: Inserting into the source code
Back in your Instructable, click on the Source button. Now you're seeing the HTML that your Instructable is using. We're just going to be messing with images, so you can ignore most of it. Navigate to the place where you want to put your photo, and use that code we learned earlier: <img src="photourl.jpg"/>But instead of photourl.jpg, put in your own photo URL. For example, this is
<img src="http://cdn.instructables.com/FWJ/14GN/H401UXBX/FWJ14GNH401UXBX.THUMB.jpg"/>
Step 5: Width and height
You don't have to be limited by the default sizes that we explored in Step 3. You can also specify a specific width or height (or both!) in the HTML. It's easy! Try:
<img src="photourl.jpg" width="200"/>
<img src="photourl.jpg" height="200"/>
<img src="photourl.jpg" width="200" height="200"/> OR <img src="photourl.jpg" height="200" width="200"/>
But when you constrain both width and height, you can distort your image.
The width of an Instructable is usually 650px. You should set your image URL to LARGE in most cases so that you have high resolution. Otherwise it might look like this:
And that's all you need to know!
To embed an image here, anyway. But if you enjoyed this small taste of power from coding, you should learn more! It comes in handy sometimes. Probably the easiest way to learn is codeacademy.org. Click the link! Try it! Just stop if you get bored.
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one quick question though...
how would i 'centre' an inserted picture like the t-shirt picture you have used as your examples ?
what would i write in the source code to centre only one picture inserted into an instructable ??
many thanks in advance!
;-)
Just surround whatever it is you want to center with < c e n t e r >< / c e n t e r>
Like this: < c e n t e r > < i m g s r c = " p h o t o u r l . j p g " / > < / c e n t e r >
(But take away the extra spaces- trying to make the comment box not read my HTML as code)
but i really would like to change the colour of text in my instructables and was wondering if you knew how to do that ??? (if possible lol ! ! !)
< f o n t c o l o r = " b l u e " >your text here< / f o n t >
Or whatever color you want your text to be. There's a good listing of them at http://www.w3schools.com/HTML/html_colornames.asp.
Enjoy!
Your an Absolute LEGEND !!!!! !!!!! !!!!!
Thank you so very Very VERY MUCH !!!
ALL my prayers have now been answered !!! lol !
Ive been currently been working on an instructable for the last 2 months and this is exactly what my research assistant (Google!) couldn't find for me so once again thank you so very very much for this AWESOME & MOST-EXCELLENT HELP and the really easy instructable you've made so clear that a complete beginner like me can find & edit This code ! been searching for this for so very long !
Thanks a million !!!
Once again many many thanks with this extremely helpful bag of tricks !!
ive LONG-HAD a gripe with instructables.com never managing to properly sort out the problems with displaying the notes that we can scribble over and 'on-top' of images with our 'ibles we all make over the YEARS this one problem still hounds us so your extremely appreciated Guide has helped illuminate another way of actually making true step-by-step photo-instructables from now on and im currently employing most of all your tips on an 'ible im creating as we speak and its renewed my love for creating instructables !!!
So A GREAT many thanks for making this 'ible for the masses !
Rated 5-Stars everytime i use it !!!
;-)
Many many thanks! i will definitely be using this asap!
thank you so very much!!!