Adding a Picture Background


As an alternative to a background color (which you learned to add in Chapter 19, "Choosing a Title, Text Colors, and Other Page Basics"), you can apply as a background a tiled image , an image file (GIF or JPEG) repeated across the entire background.

graphics/lightbulb_icon.gif

An image background automatically supercedes a background color. If you create an image background, any selection you may have made for the background color is irrelevant.

When this image has been designed carefully to match up perfectly with its mates at all four corners, the tiling creates a seamless "texture" effect, as if one enormous image covered the background (see Figure 25.15). Fortunately, the effect is created from only one small image; accessing an image file large enough to cover a page would choke most Internet connections.

Figure 25.15. A tiled background texture.

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You can choose, as an alternative to a background texture, to tile an image that doesn't match up perfectly with its copies at the edges. Using this technique, you can create some fun background effects, as shown in Figure 25.16.

Figure 25.16. A fun background made of a tiled image.

graphics/25fig16.jpg

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Be careful with backgrounds. If you don't choose carefully, you can wind up making your text illegible, or at least hard on the eyes.

Use custom text colors (see Chapter 19) to contrast the text with the background. Use light colors to stand out against dark backgrounds, and dark colors to stand out against light backgrounds.

Even with those precautions , a tiled-image background is usually too much when seen behind a page with lots of text on it. A way around this problem is to use a snazzy tile background behind your logo or brief text on a top page and then switch to a solid color or no background on text-heavy pages to which the top page links.

Finally, you can use as a background a single, large image file that covers the entire page background (and thus requires no tiling). Be careful when using this technique to use an image with a low resolution and few colors to keep the image size small and the page's appearance fast.

Many "full page" background images do not actually cover the full background; rather, they often take the form over very tall, narrow bars. Because the bar is so tall, the browser does not tile it and left-aligns it on the page. The file itself is reasonably small, yet it lends a graphical flair to the whole page without obscuring text.

graphics/lightbulb_icon.gif

Tiled background images automatically supercede a background color because they cover the whole background.

But if you use a nontiled image and the image does not happen to fill the background, you might use a background color along with it. The background color affects only the portion of the background not covered by the image.

Here's how to add a picture background:

  1. Store the GIF or JPEG image you want for a background in the same folder as the page in which you want to use it.

  2. In Composer, open the page to which you want to add a background and click Format, Page Colors and Properties.

  3. In the Background Image box on the Colors and Background tab, type the filename of the image you want to use (or click Choose File to navigate to it) and click OK (see Figure 25.17).

    Figure 25.17. Step 3: Type the filename of the background image.

    graphics/25fig17.gif



Sams Teach Yourself Internet and Web Basics All in One
Sams Teach Yourself Internet and Web Basics All in One
ISBN: 0672325330
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 350
Authors: Ned Snell

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