More Graphics for GEOS

by Randy Hams

Once you begin to get a handle on GEOS, you begin to look for more clip art to add to your creations.
If I remember correctly, geoPublish is the only GEOS application that came with any Photo Albums of
clip art to use with GEOS. Some commercially available clip art was produced over the years, but is
hard to find these days. There are a lot of geoPaint files that can be downloaded from BBS's and
networks, but converting them to clip art is not always easy or possible.

First of all what is GEOS clip art? GEOS clip art is Photo Scraps that have been pasted into GEOS
Photo Albums. Artwork in this format can be cut, copied, and pasted into and out of GEOS
Application Data Files (e.g. geoWrite, geoPaint, geoPublish files, etc.). 

Thankfully, GEOS came out with an Application (program) called GRAPHICS GRABBER, available
on the Desk Pack Plus disk. I already wrote an article about GRAPHICS GRABBER. I won't repeat
everything in that article, but in a nutshell, it lets you convert Print Shop, Print Master, and Newsroom
graphics into GEOS clip art! While there are literally thousands of the Print Shop and Print Master
graphics available, they are very small. While that is perfectly fine for some uses, when you want to
stretch them to a larger size, they lose a lot of resolution. I find that the Newsroom clip art is an
excellent source of GEOS clip art mainly because it comes in all different sizes! There is everything from
tiny to large graphics for use as clip art. And by using GRAPHICS GRABBER, you can easily copy
each individual graphic in GEOS Photo Albums. 

What is available? First, the Newsroom Program came with an entire disk of Newsroom clip art. This
was followed by three volumes of Clip Art Collection disks, each sold separately. Thankfully, the
manual that comes with each disk provides a hard copy of each graphic. The program clip art disk and
the Volume I disk, provide 600+ graphics each in a wide variety of topics. Volume 2 contains 800+
business-related graphics.  Volume 3 contains 600+ Sports and Recreation graphics. These were
available from Software Support International. Occasionally, they may be found on the used market.

Newsroom graphics are stored in categories, much like GEOS Photo Albums.  Also, for copy
protection reasons, the graphic files are hidden on the disk.  So importing Newsroom graphics into
GEOS Photo Albums requires the GRAPHICS GRABBER. 

The bottom line? By using the GRAPHICS GRABBER to import Newsroom graphics to GEOS Photo
Albums, you will have a large library of medium to high quality graphics for use as clip art.

(From The Commodore Compendium, newsletter of Basic Bits Computer Group, Cleveland OH, 10/96, via The
Commodore Information Center web site (http://home.att.net/~rmestel/commodore.html) )