Crystal Morris-Stromberg

Erin Friess
Tecm 4280
June 17 2015

Creating Infographics
With Piktochart
What is Piktochart?
Piktochart is a user-friendly, online service for creating infographics and
marketing materials. Piktochart offers a variety of free options and templates
that help users create visual displays of information. For this tutorial, you will
only use the free features. These instructions will describe how to create and
size an infographic canvas, how to apply a background, how to add text, and
how to manipulate images on the infographic. Before you begin the tutorial,
you need to register for your own free account.

Basic Piktochart Concepts

Creating and Sizing a Canvas

Piktochart offers several free templates, but creating your own canvas will
ensure that your consumers havent seen the same template before and will
make your company appear more professional. For this tutorial I suggest a
letter-sized document, but Piktochart also allows you to make much larger
infographics.
1. Scroll down to the Themes section.
2. Click on the Create Your Own Infographic
option that appears as the first theme.
3. Select the File option from the banner along
the top of the page.
4. Select Create New and click on New Blank
Canvas (See Figure 1).

Figure 1

A dialogue box will appear so that you can name your graphic.

5. Rename your graphic Practice and click OK.

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6. Click the settings icon that appears as a gear in the column
on the left side of the canvas (See Figure 2).
7. Change Canvas Width to 612 pixels.
8. Change Block Height to 792 pixels.
612x792 pixels is approximately the same as a letter-sized document.

9. Click the SAVE button that appears on the ribbon at the

top of the page to save your sizing changes.

Figure 2

Setting a Background

Piktochart provides several background textures; in addition to the textures,

you may use color to tint the background. In this section, I will describe how to
set a background texture and adjust the intensity of the color tint.
1. Select the Back-Ground icon that appears as a checkered monitor on
the vertical ribbon on the left side of the page.
2. Choose a background texture from the variety of tiles displayed under
Background Image.
You may select No Image if you want a solid color background.

3. Select a color from the Color box with the paint
bucket icon.
4. Change the intensity of the color by sliding the point
Figure 3
along the scale labeled Opacity (See Figure 3).

5. Click the SAVE button that appears on the ribbon at the top of the
page to save your sizing changes.

Adding Text

Piktochart gives a few different options for adding text to your infographic.
You can add a simple text box, or use one of the styled text frames. In this
section, I will describe how to add text with a Piktochart text frame and how to
adjust the color and size.
1. Click the icon labeled Text that appears on the horizontal ribbon on
the left side of the screen.
2. Choose any of the styled text frames in the box labeled Text Frame.
3. Double-click on the text that appears in your chosen text frame so that
you may add your own text.
4. Highlight the text by double-clicking the text box.

5. Change the font color, size, alignment, and typeface

by using the appropriate boxes located on the
horizontal ribbon at the top of the screen (See
Figure 4).
Figure 4
6. Use the squares, which appear on the corners of the
text frame, to manipulate the size and orientation of the text frame.

Uploading an Image
Piktochart also offers the ability to use your own images in your infographic.
Though you cannot alter the color of uploaded pictures, you can change the
size, opacity, and orientation.
1. Click on the cloud icon labeled Uploads
(See Figure 5).
2. Click Select Image From Computer.
Figure 5
3. Select the image you would like to use.
The image will appear in the box labeled Uploaded Images.

4. Double-click the uploaded image to apply it to your document.

5. Click the checkered Opacity box (located on the horizontal ribbon at
the top of the page) to make the picture fade or heighten in intensity.
6. Click and drag the boxes on the corners of the image to resize the
picture.
7. Use the circle above the image to tilt or turn the picture.

Putting Everything Together

Piktochart is an extremely useful marketing tool. Now

that you know how to create a canvas, set a
background, add text, and upload images, the
possibilities are endless. These basic skills will help you
create simple infographics to start and lead to learning
other Piktochart skills for more complex infographics.