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Update 7/26/15 – This has been a popular request! If you have trouble with any of the steps below, please email me! I am happy to walk you through it! If you just don’t want to mess with it, I now offer banner creation services! Check it out!
Update #2 6/3/16 – I have discovered a few helpful tricks to cut out some steps!!! YAY! Updated below!
Update #3 8/1/16 – I have found an even BETTER way to do it! Check out the second tutorial here!
Updated #4 7/1/2017 – Photobucket is NOT an option for hosting anymore! See bottom of post for new options!
Updated #5 6/15/2018 – Bitly is not an option for link shortening! It is marking image links as spam!
This is a tutorial on how to put an image in the space between your logo and your free download.
Note: This is not for the faint of heart. It is time-consuming and if you miss a step, extremely frustrating. I had a horrible, gigantic banner in my store for a bit before I worked it out. I still feel bad for the two followers who started following me during that period! 🙂
When you are done with this tutorial, link up your store at the bottom! I want to see your hard work!
You really need to make a photo with the dimensions of 150 pixels by 450 pixels; PowerPoint and Keynote will not go this small so I doubled the ratio and will resize later.
There is not a limit to what you can put on here, though remember your buyers aren’t in your store to watch a slide show. 🙂 I have about 6 or so running in each store. As I have time, I hope to replace them seasonally.
If you want the images to “blend” with the grey header space on TpT, then you need to set the background color to #F1F1F1. You can format the background of your slide (directions below) or insert a rectangle shape and recolor the shape (put it behind all your other content).
Powerpoint:
1. Format -> Slide Background.
2. Click Color.
3. Click more colors.
3. Click on the slider Picture and then select “RGB Sliders”
4. Type in 241, 241, 241 in the settings or F1F1F1 in the Hex code.
5. Hit Apply.
(Same process in Keynote, just use the format, slide background).
Export your images in your desired format. Both Keynote and PowerPoint will export images. In PowerPoint, it is File -> Save as Pictures. In Keynote it is File -> Export to -> Images. If you want your images to be clearer, you can increase the size of the slides.
The next step is to upload your gif to the third-party hosting of your choice. Third-party hosting just means that you will use a link on TpT to point to an image somewhere else on the internet.
Alternatively, if your gif is below 5MB in size, you can upload it directly to TpT!
Do NOT use Photobucket.com anymore (this used to be the #1 option). Photobucket now charges $400 a year for this service.
I will cover five options: Pinterest, WordPress, Blogger, Dropbox, and Weebly. I am hosting many of my smaller ones on Weebly now and larger on Dropbox.
You can use a secret board or a public board for this. Though I have not done it for my store, others have very successfully. Note: Your gif file cannot be over 10mb. I do not use Pinterest because many of my banners are pretty big.
1. Upload a pin as you normally would. If you are on a secret board, do not worry about where it points to or what the description is. No one is pinning it! But if you want to display it on TpT, then why not actually pin it too?
2. Go to that pin. Right-click and click Copy Image Address. This is the link you will paste into a link shortener in the next step. Note: Some people are reporting that Pinterest is not working right. But if you want to try to use Pinterest, go for it!
f your blog is hosted on WordPress, you can upload your gif to your media section. You do not have to put it in a blog post.
I used an old blogger blog I use for testing when I am coding for clients. I created a draft post (you don’t ever have to post it!). Note: I am getting some reports of blogger having issues! Use with caution!
4. Save your draft (you do NOT have to publish, but do save it!)
Note: I am having issues where Blogger is showing a triangle with ! for really large gifs. You will need to choose another option if you face this.
You can upload your gif to Dropbox. Get the link and then change the end to 1. So if you have
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5y7c4bc467k05nl/Linda%20Gif%20GenEd.gif?dl=0
Change it to
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5y7c4bc467k05nl/Linda%20Gif%20GenEd.gif?dl=1
You must shorten the url because of the TpT restrictions on how many characters in your quote area.
NOTE: DO NOT USE Bit.ly! Bitly has started marking these images as SPAM and will not show it in your TpT store! Try one of these two things:
1. Tiny Url. Just paste your link and then copy the new one! A new link might look like this now:
https://tinyurl.com/123adfd5Repeat this process for both the destination link and image link.
2. Pretty Links. If you are on WordPress, install the plugin Pretty Links and you can shorten your links using your custom domain.
<a href=”DestinationLink”><img src=”ImageLink” /></a>*DestinationLink – Replace the word DestinationLink with whatever web address you want buyers to go to if they click your picture. TpT has now asked that we only link to links on TpT.
Note: You CANNOT put more than one link. I would love to link to each product, but we are limited to one link.
*PICTURE – Replace the word ImageLink with the link to your Gif.
*WIERD BUG – MANY people have had trouble with the correct code and the banner still not working. Turns out pasted quotes ( ” ) are having trouble rendering. So paste your code, then manually delete and retype each ” – this fixes the problem 90% of the time! (It has something to do with formatted code if you care, lol).
<a href=”http://tinyurl.com/tptquotebanner”><img src=”http://tinyurl.com/2sujZOy” /></a>
Which comes out to:
[ninja_form id=7]
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206 Responses
Hi friend,
TpT will now allow sellers to host the rotating banner on site. Whew! This sure makes adding a rotating banner easier.
Yes! Though some people still have to use the old method if the file size is too big. 🙂
Hey Shelley this worked great. I initially had a problem getting it to work when hosting my image to Dropbox but when I hosted it on my WordPress server, it was magic.
BTW I created my animation in Photoshop CC. Lots of control over the individual elements.
Thanks again for your kind comments! Glad you found a great way to make it work!
Wow. Wow. Wow. This tutorial is EXACTLY what I was looking for!!! Thank you SO VERY MUCH, Shelley!!
It’s not perfect, but I’m pretty stinkin’ proud of it, if you’d like to check it out:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Still-Small-Voice-8725
You’re the boss, applesauce!!
– Ash
Thank so much! So glad I could help! It looks great! If you need help resizing it, let me know! Otherwise it’s awesome!
This was fantastic, thank you for your help! I officially have a fancy gif banner on my store :-).
Wahoo! So glad I could help 🙂
Thank you!! I was trying to use Bit.ly and couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working. Your tip about using Tiny URL solved my problem. I am so thankful I found this post!
Yay! So glad to help!! 🙂
I did it! Thank you so much. The directions were clear and helpful. My store looks beautiful 🙂
Wonderful! I am so glad it worked! Looks great!!
Thank you so much Shelley! This tutorial was so helpful! I had always wondered how teachers were getting those images on their stores. Now I know. Thanks!
Glad to help, Jean!! 🙂
Thanks for your help. After having to take down the original photobucket banner, it looked so bland! Thanks for helping to spruce it up!
Anytime! Glad to help 🙂
Hi Shelley,
I’m having the same problem as Anna. My banner is too long. I made mine 1×3 inches like I always do and it looks way bigger than the images in my gif. Any suggestions?
Hey Amanda! Have you tried resizing your gif in one of the gif creation programs? Sometimes 1 by 3 inches exports at the wrong pixellation based on DPI (did that make sense at all?? :/ ). Anyway, if you still have problems, shoot me an email at [email protected] and I can try to help! 🙂
Thank you! After spending hours watching various tutorials that don’t work for me, this one did! At least now I can change it around and improve it…thanks!!!
Yay! So glad it worked!! =)
This is the best tutorial I’ve found! Thank you so much for sharing this info! Your step-by-step instructions worked perfectly!
Thank you so much, Corinne! Glad to help! 🙂
I did it!! I thought it would be difficult but your help was amazing! Thank you so much!
You are so very welcome!!! Cute banner!! 🙂
You saved me again! Thank you so much! 🙂
Shelly,
You’re directions were fabulous! I got it the first time I tried and couldn’t believe it! Many thanks:)
You are so very welcome!! 🙂
Wow!!! Thank you!!! I was able to get it on the first try!!! I wished I would of found your tutorial two nights ago. Your step by step directions were so easy to follow. Thank you so much!!! 🙂
Fabulous!!! So glad to help! I just peaked at your banner – super cute!!
Thank You!!! I could not make my images the proper size in PP, and this finally helped me figure out how to do it (like on the 10th attempt). By the way, Literacy by Lulu gave me your name.
Can you tell me where I would find the link to my GIF…..I have everything complete, but I’m not sure where to find that? Is it where i pinned it on Pinerest??
Hey Marissa! If you go to the pin and click on it, let it pop up, and then copy and paste the link. Then shorten it with bit.ly and go from there. if that doesn’t make sense, shoot me an email at [email protected] and I’ll do my best to help you more! 🙂
I can’t thank you enough! Needs some tweaking, but that worked! 🙂
Thank you for coming to the rescue AGAIN! I discovered this morning that my rotating banner was gone and replaced by a notice from Photobucket that they now require $400 for 3rd party hosting. Not very nice of them! An email could have been sent out which would have been a better way to approach this. At any rate, a few friends and I problem-solved through this with your help. Thanks again!! Tracy (GoldCountrySLP)
You are so welcome!!! 🙂 I was SOOOO annoyed by the Photoshop debacle. GRRRRR!!!
So glad you guys were able to work it out! Happy creating!
THANK YOU for updating this post! I used your original post to begin with, but since photobucket is charging, I had to update.
Your directions were extremely easy to use. I had to delete the ” and reinsert them, then it worked like a charm!
Yay! And I know the ” problem is also annoying – took forever to figure that one out!! 🙂 Glad to help!
Shelley
Thanks so much! Your tutorial was the only one that worked (and was non-tech user friendly) to fixed my quote box after Photobucket stopped hosting it.
Yay! So glad to help out!!! 🙂
Fantastic! I may need a few edits but I DID IT! Thank You!
Wahoo! Glad to help!! 🙂
This is the best tutorial! Thank you so much!
Aww, thanks so much!!!
Thank you. I followed your instructions and got it to work on the first try! So thankful for the time you just saved me! 🙂
Hey Kristin! You are so very welcome!!! =)
Yaaaaay! I did it. Thanks to your blog post! Creating this tutorial was very generous of you and much appreciated by many.
I did start by creating the 3 x 1 inch slides in powerpoint. When I went to change the size of the slides in sumopaint, they became extremely blurry, like mentioned in some of the comments. So, I went back and changed the size of my original slides to 4.688 x 1.563 inches, like stated in one of the other comments. It worked for me as well so, I was able to skip the resizing step and go straight to creating the gif.
Thanks again for this amazing tutorial!
Yay!! You are so very welcome! 🙂 I’m glad you were able to troubleshoot the sizes 🙂 It can all be tricky! I just took a peek at your store – LOOKS GREAT!!!!! 🙂 (PS I’m in Georgia too! Hello to my fellow southerner! 🙂 )
Hi there! Thank you for your post! It was very helpful. I was so excited because I followed all steps correctly. It is when I got to the end where I found trouble. I posted this html code into my link: . But then when I click edit, it did not add and the html code then turned into when I went back to edit my profile again. Do you happen to know what I am doing wrong?
Going to email you!! We will get it straightened out 🙂
Hey there! Awesome post, thank you so much for sharing. I am confused as to why it is not working in my profile however. I followed all the steps correctly and came up with this html:
but when I hit edit it doesn’t work. Then when I got back in to fix it the section says: . My link is GONE! Do you know what I could have possibly done wrong?
Thanks for your help!
Hey Megan! I will shoot you an email, the html you posted is not listing here, but it came through in an email. I think I know what happened, but will confirm via email. We will get you straightened out! 🙂
This was sooooo incredibly helpful. Thanks for including step by step instructions + visual aids. I am IN LOVE with my store now 🙂
Yay! It looks amazing!!!
This is SO awesome! Clear, concise, and frustration-free! 🙂 Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom. This was much easier than I anticipated.
FANTASTIC! I’m so glad!!!! 🙂
It was very clear and concise and even someone like myself with my limited computer abilities was able to make a gif.
Thanks for the feedback! 🙂
That was awesome! Your directions were spot on and easy to follow. One of my pictures is kinda of blurry, but I’ll go back and play with that later! Thank you so much! ~Paige
Fantastic! I just glanced at it and it looks pretty good to me! It will never be super crystal clear mostly because of the size restrictions.
Shelley, thanks so much for this tutorial! I had so much creating my little gif:) Dinah
Hey Dinah! I just ran to your store and it looks darling!!! Great job!!! 🙂
I woke up early and saw this post on the FB Teacherpreneur Tribe page. SO GLAD you posted this as I LOVE my new gif for my store! I used Pic Monkey instead of Photoshop and Google Drive instead of Photobucket, but it all works so similarly that I had no issues. Thank you!
Yay!!! It looks AMAZING! =)
Thank you so much for your help with this. It worked, only I used picmonkey.
Wonderful! 🙂 I hear great things about picmonkey!!!
Thanks for this tutorial! I also had trouble with blurry images. What I did was change the custom size in powerpoint from 3:1 to 12:4 then resized in Sumopaint! It worked perfectly! I’m still not thrilled with my rotating GIF but now I know how to do it! Thank you!
I’m so glad you found a work around! 🙂 Yay!!!
What a wonderful post! Your directions are very clear and super helpful. Thank you!
Thanks, Linda! You are so welcome!!
This was so helpful! It took me a while to go through the steps and everything but was very well worth it! Thanks for this great tutorial!
Glad to help! And yes, I have done dozens now and it still takes me awhile! 🙂
Just made another one! You’re awesome! Thanks for teaching me how to do all this fun stuff!! 🙂
No Problem! So glad to help! 🙂
I couldn’t get my pictures to upload to the free Giff maker website. I had to use another website that leaves their website attached to my Giff. Do you think I couldn’t upload them on your website that you suggested because I am using Safari?