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Welcome to our Windows 12 for Dummies. Chapter 5

Gimp Tutorial

We can now make our book cover using Gimp. You will see how easy it is to use. Just Google YouTube videos by John Dolke. You will see a Gimp tutorial there.

You can read this to show you how if you want to do it quicker.

You will need an ISBN number to put on the back page which you can buy from Squaresbay.com. It comes like this usually.

ISBN number

Now because it needs a modification you can click on it and run GIMP. Ensure the background colour is white this is the two colours on the left of the screen. Then go to file then new and change the height to 600.

Go to the image then copy with Cntrl V and then on the new white image paste with Cntrl V and move the image down to the bottom, then click Image then click Flatten image.

Now with the rectangle select Copy the laser bars and then paste over the image moving it up to extend the bars then go to image and flatten image. It should now look like this.

Now make the foreground colour black and Click on the A for text put the text box over the top of the laser bars then write in the text box the ISBN Number ISBN 978-1-7393754-0-7

Then Image - Flatten image then with the rectangle select a square image then Cntrl X then shift Cntrl V.

To make the final version like this. Click Cntrl shift E at the same time to Export it to a picture folder.

Final ISBN

Now we make the back cover image. You can make a background colour first. I have selected light blue.

Then go to file then New and make select inches and then height 10 and width 8.

Select a white foreground and then with the rectangle select enter a small rectangle on the bottom right of the page. Select the brush and fill it with white. The select black as the foreground then with the A text editor enter the text box and write in the box UK £9.99. Now flatten the Image by Image- Flatten image.

Then select your ISBN Image then Image then Image Size reduce it to a width of 400 pixels then copy it to the bottom right of the page. to the left of the price. Now flatten the image with Image - Flatten image.

You can save it with Shift Cntrl E . Then select where you file your pictures then call it back cover. Then export it with two Enter clicks. It should look like this now.

Back Cover

Now start the same way for the front cover with your chosen colour. Then go to file -new and make select inches and then height 10 and width 8 inches.

Now I have chosen a Microsoft image by googling and copying. Then adding a title and author. This is what it looks like now.

Front Cover

Now I we should make a spine to connect the front and back cover. Start with the same background colour and the height of the book 10 inches the width of a 0.3 inch, according to the number of pages so I put this at 150.

Now we File New with a width of 10 inches and a height of a 0.3inch. We write the Title and author down the spine like this.

Front Cover

Now Image - Flatten image we make this vertical now. Go to Layer Transform rotate 90 degrees clockwise. It appears to disappear but clicking on the middle and copy I then add it to the front cover and back cover so this will mean we make a 16.3 inch wide and 10-inch-high cover with file New. Then copy the spine onto it which automatically centres it so then Image - Flatten image then add the front cover and the back cover, so we end up like this.

Front Cover

Hope you liked this short tutorial

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