Translating graphics with Paint.NET

Step 6: Inserting the file in the word processor

As the last step, we will need to insert our image (which we now have in PNG or JPEG format) into the final document.

• Microsoft Office document (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc):

  • Office 2003 or earlier: click Insert -> Picture -> From file...;
  • Office 2007 or later: click Picture from the Illustrations group on the Insert tab);

• OpenOffice document (Writer, Calc, Impress):

  Click Insert -> Picture -> From file...

Advanced Techniques

In this section, you will learn some advanced techniques for translating images using Paint.NET.

• Inserting rotated text

  Sometimes you will need to translate rotated text (e.g. vertical text rotated at 90 degrees such as Y axis labels, etc.). Follow the steps below to insert such text in your images:

  1. Insert a new layer above the existing Text layer. It must be a new layer because we will need to rotate it.
  2. Select the new layer and type the text in the middle of the image using the procedure explained in Step 3 above.
  3. Click Layers -> Rotate / Zoom...

  4. In the Rotate / Zoom dialogue, type 90 (for text which will be read from bottom to top) or -90 (for text which will be read from top to bottom) in the Angle box and click OK:

     
     Figure 13: Text rotated 90 degrees

  5. select an area around the rotated text, then select the Move Selected Pixels tool () from the Tools panel, and drag the text to its new position.

• Working with transparent images

  Sometimes when you open an image in Paint.NET or copy it from the clipboard, it will appear like this:

  
  Figure 14: Transparent image example

  The checkered background means that the image is transparent in those areas. If this is the case, follow this procedure:

  1. Insert a new layer underneath 'Background' layer. To move the layer below the Background layer, select the new layer and click Move Layer Down button () on the Layers panel until the layer is under the Background layer.

     
     Figure 15: Layers panel for a transparent image

  2. Select the new layer in the Layers panel and use the Paint Bucket tool () to fill the entire area with a White color (for details on how to do this, read the sections below). The image background will become white.