Picture Tutorial on how to Post Pictures

[Michael Rudd]

Hi Everyone,

I did a quick search on biggerpockets and found a few posts asking how to post pictures to their forum posts. I saw a how-to guide including the WYSIWYG, but read somewhere else that the image hosting has been dumped and you need to get an online image host. So, instead of testing it for myself for 2 minutes, I of course spent half an hour making this post, go me :) But this method works, every time, in every forum.

Sometimes a picture is a thousand words, especially when you have a nice spreadsheet to show the world, and just a blank slate of a forum post to start with.

Instead of retyping it all, and figuring out how to format it, I will show you a quick and easy (relatively) way to share your ideas with pictures.

<This is a nice reminder of when I was in High School, volunteering at the local library to create curriculum for teaching computer programs at free weekly classes.>

People responded really well to picture instructions, and I feel it fitting that pictures show you how to post… pictures :)

Step 1: Get your picture

Open up your spreadsheet and find your print-screen (or “Prnt Scrn” for those keyboards that are vowel impaired like mine) button on your keyboard. On the laptop I’m writing this on, I have to hold the FN button and press the End button, your mileage may vary.

Now, go into Paint and paste it (Ctrl-V).

You will see your entire screen pasted, but what we want is only a small section, what you actually want to share. Draw a box around what you want to keep (the select box is selected by default when you paste).

Now, simply click Crop.

What you end up with, is only what you want to share. Now go into the menu and click Save (or Ctrl-S).

I recommend saving to your desktop as it's easier to find for the next step, and delete when we are done.

Step 2: Put your image online

I use postimage.org because of the simplicity, no accounts to sign on to, it just does everything. I cant speak for the websites integrity or how long the data lasts. But, if you just want to post your deal analysis quickly and painlessly, here you go. (Im using photobucket for this so I can save these tutorial pictures to my account for the future/ other forums)

Browse for your image (On desktop so easy to find), select it, then click Open. Make sure to tell the website not to resize your image.

What you get should look like this:

Next to “Direct Link” click Copy to Clipboard. We will use this link to post on the forums.

Step 3: Bring it all together.

On your forum (Biggerpockets.com in this case), there will be an “Insert Image” button somewhere. Once you click it, a prompt pops up asking you to give the URL of your image. This should still be in our clipboard from earlier, so just paste it (Ctrl-V) into the textbox.

Click insert, and we're all done!