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Graphical signatures are commonly used by online forumers at the end of their posts in online discussion forums. Most signatures are static picture signatures that usually carry their nicknames and their websites or blogs and such. There are also animated signatures which come in gif format or swf format if allowed in the forum. This tutorial will provide a way to create a simple animated signature with moving texts and pictures. There is only one type of software used in this tutorial, which is Swish Max 2. The trial version of the software can be downloaded from this site:

Swish Max 2 Download

After installing the Swish Max 2 software, open the software and the following window will appear:

This is the default window setting of the software. The layout panel shows the common size used to create a flash (swf) presentation. However, this size is not suitable for creating an animated forum signature. Therefore, the layout panel has to be resized to suitable dimensions. the first step is to edit the movie properties as shown below:
The yellow rectangles show where to click and what to edit. The height and width of the movie need to be the same with the background picture used for the signature. For this tutorial, the following background picture will be used:

The dimensions (height and width) of the background picture is shown in the yellow box. Use the dimensions to edit the movie properties of the signature.

After modifying the width and height of the movie according to the dimension of the picture, click on OK and the layout panel will be resized to the appropriate dimension as shown below:

The following step is to insert the image into the movie.

Click on the Insert Image button as highlighted in the yellow rectangle. The insert image window will appear. The left side of the window shows the default installation folder of SwishMax 2, while the right side shows the place for previewing the image.

Browse to the folder where the picture is saved. In this example, the My Documents folder is used. Select the picture and it will be previewed on the right side of the window. Then click on Open.


The background image will be displayed in the layout panel. The next step is to insert texts and animations in the signature.