Home >> Hobbies >> Photography

How to Print Digital Photos With a Caption

Sometimes pictures need accompanying text to explain what the picture is about. Such text is known as a caption. If you are going to use a picture as part of a text, you can import the picture into an application like Microsoft Word or Open Office Word Processor and use that program's tools to insert a caption. But if you just want to print a picture by itself and will not edit the caption later, you can make the caption part of the image itself.

Things You'll Need

Microsoft Paint
GIMP
Open Office Word Processor

Instructions

MS Paint (Windows 7)
- 1
  Click the "Start" menu. Launch Paint from the "Accessories" folder.
- 2
  Click the blue Paint button in the upper left corner of the Paint window. Click "Open" and select a picture you want to add a caption to.
- 3
  Scroll down to the bottom of the picture. You should see a row of small white boxes at the bottom edge. There are eight of these boxes around each picture you open in Paint.
- 4
  Click the middle bottom box. Drag it down as far as you would like to create space for a caption. Let go of the mouse button. The drawing canvas should now have expanded accordingly.
- 5
  Make sure the "Home" tab is in view. Click the "A" icon in the "Tools" group. Click in the caption area you just made for the picture. Select a font and font size and type the caption.
- 6
  Click the Paint button and click "Save As." Choose a file format. Enter a name for the picture and click "Save."
- 7
  Click "Print" from the Paint button menu. This will let you print the picture right from within the program. Or you can import the file into MS Word or other word processing software for printing.
MS Paint (Vista / XP)
- 8
  Open Paint from the "Accessories" folder in the Vista/XP "Start" menu. Go to the "File" menu and select a picture to open and edit.
- 9
  Scroll down to the bottom of the picture. Look for a tiny box at the bottom middle. You should see eight of these tiny boxes around the picture area. Click and drag the one in the middle downward.
- 10
  Release the mouse button. You should now see the drawing canvas extended where you pulled the sizing box.
- 11
  Click the "A" icon on the Paint toolbar. Click on the white area you just added to the picture. Adjust the size of the text area by dragging the sizing boxes around it.
- 12
  Select a font face and size from the font toolbar. Type a caption for the image.
- 13
  Click the rectangular selection tool from the toolbar. Drag a selection area around the caption. Click and drag to center it under the picture.
- 14
  Click "File" and then click "Save As." Select a name and save the picture with its caption as a new file.
- 15
  Click "File" and then click "Print" to print the picture with a caption directly in Paint. Or you can import the image into a word processing application such as MS Word or Word Perfect.
GIMP (Various Operating Systems)
- 16
  Download and install the latest version of GIMP. You can find it at the official GIMP website or a software site such as CNET.
- 17
  Go to "File" and click "Open." Select a picture to edit and click "Open."
- 18
  Click "Image" on the menu bar. Point to "Canvas Size."
- 19
  Increase the number for height under "Canvas Size." For example, add 50 pixels to a height of 250 pixels. You can change the unit size in the drop-down list on the right if you want to use percentage, inches or another unit type.
- 20
  Click "Center" under "Offset." Click the number next to "Y" and change it to zero. The picture will now appear in the top center of the drawing canvas.
- 21
  Click "Resize," keep the changes and return to the GIMP workspace.
- 22
  Click "A" in the floating "Toolbox" window on the left. Click the "Font" button to select a font face you like. Choose a size, paragraph alignment and color.
- 23
  Click in the caption area under the picture. When the text dialog box appears, type the caption in the text area. Check the box that says "Use selected font." Click "Close."
- 24
  Click and drag the text box to position it under the picture. When you are satisfied, click "Save As" in the "File" menu and save the picture.
- 25
  Click "File" and then select "Print." To see how the picture and caption will appear on paper, click "Print Preview" first and then click "Print."
Open Office (Various Operating Systems)
- 26
  Launch Open Office Word Processor from the "Open Office" folder in the "Start" menu.
- 27
  Click "Insert" on the menu bar. Point to "Picture" and select "From File." Choose a picture to import and click "Open."
- 28
  Right click the picture and click "Caption" to open a new dialog box. Type some text in the "Caption" field to describe the picture. Select a category for the caption, such as "Illustration" or "Table" and click "OK."
- 29
  Click "Save As" from the "File" menu and save the file. Click "Print" to print the picture with its caption.

Photography