Adding an Image

Any interactive publication you make is going to contain some sort of graphical image. Images perform both a functional and artistic role in any publication and Opus allows you to insert a wide variety of image file formats into your publication. Images are an important part of your publication and should be considered carefully when designing your publication.

Note:
An Image is also known as a raster file. This simply means that the picture is made up individual pixels on the screen as opposed to vectors that are made up lines drawn calculated mathematically by the computer. Examples of images (i.e. rasters) include any of the following file formats: BMP, PNG, JPG and GIF files. For example, a photograph is made up of pixels and is therefore an Image (raster).

To add an Image object to a page:

  1. Select the Image tool image\Icon_Object_Image.jpg from the Tools toolbar.

  2. Click and drag the cursor over the page to create a box in which the image will be placed – the object’s Properties dialog will automatically open showing the Image tab – see Image tab for more information.

  3. In the Image tab you can enter the filename of the image that you want to add to the object.

Helpful things to consider:

  1. Images can be added as separate objects on a page using the Image tool from the Tools toolbar. The Properties dialog for the Image object has an Image tab where you can change the size of the image. Other tabs in the Image object, such as the Border and Effects tabs allow you to also change the way the image is displayed.

  2. Many of the objects that you can add to a page, such as Button or Frame objects include an Image tab in their Properties dialog that allows you to add an image as a background to the bounding box of the object.

  3. Even the page and publication contain an Image tab in their Properties dialog so you can add images to them as well.

  4. Images can be used as buttons – actually any object on a page can act like a button. Simply, add a trigger and an action to an image to make it work like a button – see Working with Actions for more information.

  5. Images can appear differently when a user moves the mouse over them or presses them – these are known as Object States – see Explaining Object States for more information.