Dingbats are pictures that come in a font file, so instead of typing letters, you end up typing images.
They are plentiful, a lot of creators offer them free for personal use.
Originally they were decorative motifs - known as printer's ornaments or characters and were used to indicate the end of a chapter or book. They balanced the pages of text and added interest to words. They were the clipart of printers.
This article shows you how to make clipart from dingbats using ONLY what is already on your PC, so great for those without imaging or vector software.
Let's begin:
First you need to download a font. The one I downloaded is called 'AngelsBears' by Ozmee which can be freely used and distributed.
Install the font.
Open WORD. Select the AngelsBearsFont. I changed the point size to 300 so I could get a good look at the image. I chose the uppercase 'L'.
Okay, we need to get this into your Windows PAINT program, which can be found on your computer thus:
Start > All Programs > Accessories > Paint
We need a copy of it to play about with, so we need to take a screenshot and then take it into PAINT. Press ALT + PRINTSCREEN. This will make a copy of your screen to the clipboard.
Open PAINT, go to Edit > Paste
Now, this is all very well, but we do not want the WORD page showing up in our clipart. You get the whole document here so select around the pic using the rectangular marquee tool:
We need to copy the selection to a new document, so:
Edit > Copy or right click > Copy
File > New > Edit > Paste
Now we are ready to colour the image. Experiment with the tools, paintbucket, brushes and airbrush. You can always get rid of your last mistake by pressing CTRL + Z.
Once you have finished, save your work as a jpg or png file. Your file is ready to be used in your projects.
As with all things, dingbats vary in quality. Have fun trying this!
How to install a font (Windows)
Download the AngelsBears dingbat font
Article and images Copyright Mina Keenan
