How to Create & Print Birthday Signs

There is no reason to have signs professionally made for a birthday party if you have a computer, printer and word-processing software. If you have Microsoft Word, you can use the program's clip art feature to add colorful artwork. You can also add the image of the birthday boy or girl if you have a digital image of the child downloaded on your computer.

Things You'll Need

• Computer with color printer
• Microsoft Word
• Paper

Instructions

1. 

   Open a new document in Microsoft Word and set all the margins at .5, then choose landscape orientation. Do this by clicking on "File," then "Page Setup" to open the Page Setup menu window. Click OK to close the menu window.

2. 

   Center the text by clicking on the "Center" icon in the formatting toolbar at the top of the screen. If this toolbar is not visible, click on "View" and then "Toolbar," and check "Formatting," The formatting toolbar should then appear at the top of your screen.

3. 

   Type your text and choose the font style, font color and font size in the formatting toolbar. The text will need to be highlighted to change its formatting.

4. 

   Insert birthday clip art on the sign. Do this by clicking on "Insert," then "Picture," then "Clip Art." A clip art menu will appear to the right of the screen. Type in "birthday" in the "Search text" box and click "Search." Birthday clip art thumbnails will appear. Scroll down and click on the desired art. Once it is inserted on the page, you can resize the image by clicking on the corners of the image and dragging it outward or inward.

5. 

   Position the image on the page by choosing a text wrapping option. Do this by clicking on the image, and then clicking on the "Text Wrapping" in the toolbox at the top of the page. This looks like a lined box with a dog in the center. If this icon is not in view, click on "View," and then "Toolbar," and check "Picture." The picture toolbar should then appear at the top of your screen. With text wrapping you have several options, such as the text wrapping around the image, the text going over the image and the text inline with the image. Click on your desired option.

6. 

   Print the sign by clicking on "File" and then "Print." Before printing, insert paper in the printer tray.

Tips & Warnings

• For more clip art options, click the "Clips online" link at the bottom of the "Insert Clip Art" menu. You will need to be online to use this feature. To add a jpg image to the sign instead of clip art, choose "From File" instead of "Clip Art" for Step 4, and then search for the image on your computer.