5 Ways to Trick Out Your Facebook Timeline
When Facebook first rolled out its new Timeline format in 2011, it was an optional feature. By the fall of 2012, however, Facebook began switching the last holdouts to the new format whether they liked it or not. Now that you've got a Timeline, there's no point in stressing over it; it's time to make the most of your new personal page. Using its new features, you can bend the Timeline to your will and change its appearance more easily than you could change your old Wall.
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Cover Photo
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The most in-your-face feature in the Timeline is your cover photo: the large graphic that fills the top portion of the page. This is the place to add personality to your page. Unlike your profile photo, your cover doesn't have to be a picture of you, so use it to show off a hobby, offer a glimpse of your travels or set a mood. For the best results, make your image a JPEG or PNG image, exactly 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall.
With your profile photo inset over your cover, if you're creative and know your way around Photoshop, you can combine the two into an almost seamless image. If you're stuck for ideas, consider a cover photo creation app or site such as CoverCanvas, InstaCover or Designyourtimeline.com.
Highlighted Posts
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The cover photo isn't the only item that can span the width of your timeline. When you highlight a post, the post expands to fill that space. While photos are prime candidates for highlighting, you might expand an important status update or a quote you're fond of. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't allow you to "pin" posts to the top of your personal Timeline, as you can do on a Page.
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Primary Photos
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Along with the Timeline, Facebook has rolled out another new feature that presents photo albums within news feeds and Timelines as multiple images, dominated by one large primary image. Often that primary image may not be the most flattering of the bunch, or it might be awkwardly cropped to fit the display dimensions in your Timeline. To swap in another photo from that album, click the "pencil" icon, choose "Change Primary Photo" and click the photo you want to feature. To reposition the photo, click the "pencil" icon, choose "Reposition Photo," drag the primary photo until you're happy with it, and click "Save."
You can change and reposition the primary photo for any album in your Timeline, including friends' albums in which you're tagged. Making these adjustments only changes the photos' appearance on your own timeline.
Life Events
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One of Facebook's goals for the Timeline format was to offer people a way to add their life stories, not limited to the time since they joined Facebook. When you click "Life Event" in your status update box, you can add important milestones, from the date you took your first steps as a child to your wedding day to the time when you broke your arm skateboarding. Add photos and stories, tag places and people, "backdate" the event and Facebook will add it to your Timeline at the precise year, month and day it happened.
By default Life Events become highlighted posts, but you can click the "star" icon on any event to reduce it in size. Also, when you create a new Life Event, its default setting makes it visible to anyone who finds your profile. To change the privacy setting for an event, choose the privacy level you want from the drop-down menu beside the "Save" button.
Hide Posts
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Hiding individual items from your Timeline is much easier than it was on your Wall. Click the "pencil" icon on any post and choose "Hide from Timeline" to make a post vanish without deleting it completely, so that your friends will still see it in their news feeds and you can retrieve it if you want it later. To find your hidden posts and make them visible again, click the "Activity Log" button immediately under your cover photo and look for the posts with a "circle-and-slash" icon. You may also hide posts and other activities within the Activity Log by clicking their "circle" icons and choosing "Hide from Timeline."
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