Showing Your Personality With Display Images
| Selecting Your Display Image | Working With Your Avatar | Sharing Your Display Image | Changing the Display Image Size |
Selecting Your Display Image
Have you noticed the image that appears to the right of the input box in the IM window? That’s your display image (if you’re sharing your image). A display image is a picture that represents you in some way and that you share with your contacts during instant messaging. It can be any picture that has a file extension of .bmp, .jpg, .png, or .gif. It can also be an avatar, which is a character that you create and personalize to convey your own unique personality. You decide what you want your display image to be.
Tip: You can’t share display images with Windows Live™ Messenger contacts.
Here’s How
In the Messenger window, select My Display Image from the Messenger menu.
The Default Display Image window opens.
In the Default Display Image window, select a picture or avatar.
To select a picture:
Click Select a picture in the Share my picture section.
The My Pictures window opens.
Select a picture from the list, or browse for a photo on your computer.
After you specify the picture you want to use, click the OK button.
Your selected picture displays in the Default Display Image window where you can choose to share it at any time.
To create and select an avatar:
Click Create your own avatar in the Share my Avatar section of the Default Display Image window.
The Avatars web page appears.
Select a gender, then click the Create my Avatar button.
This creates a generic avatar of the selected gender and displays the next web page in the process.
Follow the online instructions to customize your avatar by changing its clothes, hair, skin color, background, and more.
Save your changes before closing the browser window.
Your avatar displays in the Default Display Image window, where you can choose to share it at any time.
What’s Next
Your currently selected display image is stored on the Yahoo! Messenger server and is available to anyone you share your image with. If you sign in on another computer, your current display image appears there as well.
If you select an avatar as your display image, you can customize it, share it, and show it.
Words to Know
- Contact: a person with whom you interact; someone to whom you might want to send an email or instant message.
- IM: the acronym for instant message.
- Instant messaging: the ability to exchange messages in real time with other people over the Internet.
- Windows Live™ Messenger: Microsoft® Windows’ free instant messaging application.