What software has anyone found that works to make these decals. I have tried Corel Draw 4 and Adobe Illustrator but can not get either one to work. I know that it is probably something that I am not doing right. I am looking for a name of some software that is more user friendly. Please Help.

Anything that will manipulate text and/or photos. MS Word, MS publisher, and similar are consumer level programs that will do what you want. Either is pretty easy provided you can put up with the usual MicroSoft bugs and whatnot.

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I have Corel Word perfect, and i am not savvy enough to figure it out either. I might have to take a computer class.

Ohio Rod Builders

Canton, Ohio

Well I would be happy to help design your decal. I can email it to you when done. Just shoot me a PM of what you want it to say and any kind of look. also give me your email address, size of logo and color scheme. Offer is on the table... For anyone of my fellow Rod Builders that need some help...

John

Brad

I use Corel Draw and started as a rank beginner. It works very well as will Illustrator.

Jimi Ellis, the gentleman who started making decals for us rod builders years ago, now owns Southern Grafix and would be happy to help with your decal work.

try Paint.net... its free.
www.getpaint.net

Regards,
-Justin

I recieved my paper, but where do I get the electrical parts, plugs & batteries. How long does a charge last?

Mr. Friend drive 80.23 Km to the east - knock on the door - ask for directions - stick your fluoro in the socket near the floor!

Mr. Friend drive 80.23 Km to the east - knock on the door - ask for directions - stick your fluoro in the socket near the floor!

I was hoping it was an all in one type kit. This is kind of like buying a toy, tool, radio & not getting any batteries. Bill, have you seen that man's "lost Notebook" in an earlier post?

I just made a label on Corel Paint Shop Pro, and it was fairly straightforward. It printed nicely on the silver media from Texascraft with the Canon printer set for glossy II paper.

I don't think there is a software that doesn't take some practice to get used to. You have to master "layers" in Paint Shop Pro to get what you want. The background, set up by opening a "new" project, setting the size you want the label to be and the background color (or transparent) as the first layer. Then you insert a picture or graphic from file for the next layer. Then you do each line of text as another layer. When you save as a .jpg, the software puts all the layers together so that the text may no longer be edited. If you save a copy as a Paint Shop Pro file, you can edit each layer independently by selecting it then editing it. This would make sense if one wanted a common theme for labels, but wanted custom text for the different blanks/owners/etc.

In Paint Shop Pro there is a "Print setup" command that allows you to position the label at the very top of the page from which you will print. This is important in that it will allow you to use up almost all the media with minimum waste. Make sure that you set the printer to "high quality" printing and the paper to what you've found works best with your media. I found the gloosy II setting to work well with the silver.

There may be easier software, and there may be a better way to use Paint Shop Pro, but above is how I worked it. My experience with MS Paint has been very unpleasant-it is hard to do anything but view on it, in my opinion.

Note that a lot of label software, like even MS Publisher and MS Word, has label templates that MAY give you a size you want. But each blank is different, and I think that setting the size of the label to fit your blank when you start the project makes the most sense.

I agree with Justin Keithly and paint.net. It's free with lots of support. Do a google on "paint.net tutorial". Another open source Photoshop compatible is GIMP, again lots of tuts.

The easiest software you can use to print text will be Excel. With just basic Excel skills, you can produce some great looking labels. You can fill the cells with the background color and then type in white. Nothing could be easier. For images, you can "merge" cells and "insert" the image and your done. I use MS Paint to fill in the background color on my logo and then put it in Excel, but this isn't even necessary if you don't need to change any colors on your logo.

For something more powerful, you can down loan Open Office from Sun. It's free and offers a suite of software similar to Microsoft Office that includes a very good graphics software. It also includes a spreadsheet software like Excel that is just as easy to use.