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How to Copy & Edit a Chart to use as an attachment

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RichKid

RichKid

PlanYourTrade > TradeYourPlan
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Okay, some queries on this so here's my solution:

Only proven to work for CommSec Protrader (not the new Protrader2) but can be used for other charting software as well.

1) Display/Plot your chart and right click mouse when pointer is over chart
2) Choose 'Chart'->'Save As' from the resulting menu
3) Type .bmp as the file extension eg bhp.bmp (do not use .ptctm)
4) Select 'bitmap' from the dropdown menu as file type
5) Remember where you saved it (the folder is normally called 'Chart Templates' if you have Protrader)
6) Open the file via any image editing programme (eg MS Paint)
7) Edit it to your heart's content (eg add captions, resize image etc) and save in 'JPEG' format once you finish.
8) Upload to your next post on ASF (instructions for attachments is in the FAQ of this site).

OR (SIMPLEST OPTION)

1) Display/Plot your chart and right click mouse when pointer is over chart
2) Choose 'Chart'->'Copy'
3) Open a new document in your image editor (eg MS Paint) and paste the image and edit as required.
4) Remember to save in JPEG format once you finish editing.

Please post any questions or comments- I'm not tech savvy so my terminology may be wrong.

Good luck!
PS Once I've done my editing I prefer to save the image as a JPEG file rather than the original bitmap.
PPS There are plenty of great books on MS Paint for anyone who wants to use this free programme to its max. Also free editing software in computer mags and online- some have bugs.
 

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I'm not sure I'd like to see this forum filled with bitmaps - they are uncompressed and very large graphic images. If people can, it'd be preferable to save the images as gif or jpg.

There are many free tools available to convert from bitmap to jpg.
 
doctorj said:
I'm not sure I'd like to see this forum filled with bitmaps - they are uncompressed and very large graphic images. If people can, it'd be preferable to save the images as gif or jpg.

There are many free tools available to convert from bitmap to jpg.
Click to expand...

Thanks Doc! I knew there was a reason why I saved as JPEG's. I'll include it in the first post.
 
People windows xp or later versions will find they can save images in paint as jpegs. Those with older versions, including windows 2000 will find they need additional software to do this.

There are plenty of free image converters around for people to use.
 
I save as gif's and use freeware

Printkey 2000 just do a google and download it.
 
2 other tricks which could be helpful:

1. If you have a chart from your charting software and you cannot rightclick to save it (say protrader2), press PrtSc/SysRq. This will take an image of the entire screen and copy as bitmap to the clipboard. You can then start up your image editing program and 'paste' (or press Ctrl-V) to paste into ms paint or whatever, and crop the image.

2. If you don't have mspaint which can save as gif/jpeg, get the GIMP - a free (politically and beer wise) equivalent of photoshop.
 
IMO, GIF files are much better than JPEGs for stock charts. For graphics other than photographs, GIFs generally give better quality images and smaller files.

JPEG compression is lossy and really only intended for photographs.

GP
 
A few comments on doing the captures.

I use an old version of Paint Shop Pro to capture and edit charts. It beats everything else I've tried hands down. I don't know what the later versions are like though, except that they cost.

Next best thing I've found is Irfanview. It does screen captures, allows cropping to a user-selectable area, and saves in multiple formats. It's also free and light-weight. It doesn't have any drawing tools though.

Printkey is okay for the screen captures, but you still need other software to crop and edit the images.

GIMP I found extremely slow (at least on Windows) and couldn't see any screen capture function. Simply moving the cursor around over an image had the CPU time jumping up to 40%.

MS Paint is okay for drawing over images, but there's no screen capture or crop functions.

So if you don't have something like Paint Shop Pro that does everything, then the cheapest and easiest combination would probably be Irfanview for captures and cropping, and MS Paint for editing.

Cheers,
GP
 
thanks all

was just about to ask how to do this
one of the drawbacks of being a countrified hick is not being real computer literate

hey my 'puter reckins its got windows but they aint no latches?
 
GreatPig said:
MS Paint is okay for drawing over images, but there's no screen capture or crop functions.

So if you don't have something like Paint Shop Pro that does everything, then the cheapest and easiest combination would probably be Irfanview for captures and cropping, and MS Paint for editing.

Cheers,
GP
Click to expand...

Thanks GP, I find that your last suggestion is the best combination so far. I might have a look at paintshop pro too, might be able to find it free somewhere. It's a shame we can't do everything with one programme.

Markmau- thanks for the tip about copying protrader2 images- it did work very easily. Protrader2 is proving to be a real pain, some bugs to iron out, protrader1 was easier, guess I just have to get used to its chart functions. Think I'll start a new thread on Protrader2 to see how people are going with it.

Hey 'country hick', how are you going with your images? Will be nice to see your charts, use this thread to ask questions if you like. Good luck with it!
 
RichKid,

I have an old, light version of Paint Shop Pro. I remember trying the next version once and finding it too weighed down with features, and too slow, to be terribly good for what I wanted.

But that was quite a few years ago now. It's probably a number of versions ahead again, and computers are much faster.

And I have no idea of how much it costs these days.

GP
 
Hi all,

When I try to upload a GIF file, I get the following error message:


File Too Large. Limits are 800 x 800. Your file is 1250 x 829.

Any idea how to rectify?
 
You'll need to resize to the 800x800 limit so resize by 66% should get you there
Resize can be done in any good graphics program
 
Or if the image has more content than you need, you could also crop it down to just the part you want - also using some photo editing program. Then, if it's still too big, resize it as bvbfan mentioned.

One thing to watch when resizing images is the aspect ratio (ie. width relative to height). To avoid distorting the images, set only the largest value to 800 (the 1250 in your example) and check the option to maintain aspect ratio (hopefully the software would have an option like this). If you just go and set both values to 800, you'll be forcing a rectangle into a square, compressing the width and distorting the image.

Resizing can lower quality too, depending on the nature of the image. Cropping without having to resize would give better results if it's possible to do.

GP
 
Thanks GreatPig and bvbfan. Yes I did end up distorting the image a bit.

(see thread "TPI and CRT"

I am using the standard Paint software that comes with Windows XP.
 

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