Button Sets

Button Maker comes jammed packed with professional buttons. 10 sets of buttons are included in the built in button gallery and more added each month.

We also will make new button sets available for downloading. You can even create your own button sets and use them with the Button Maker Program. See the tutorial below to learn how to make your own button sets.

Below are samples of the buttons included with Button Maker.

Download new Button Sets here.

How to Make New Button Sets

For this tutorial I will use PhotoShop CS, but it should work pretty much the same for older version of PhotoShop and other programs.

Each Button Set contains a set of files:
description.txt - Description file, which is displayed in the Set Description window (optional)
left.png - left component picture file
center.png - center component picture file
right.png - right component picture file
fixed.png - this file is used for fixed size buttons (optional)
sample.png - sample picture file (optional)

The center image must be able to tile over and over again, unless you have a fixed size button.

STEP 1:
Open a button you want to use in Button Maker or create a new one. I will use this button for this tutorial, which I made earlier. Click here to download this button in .psd format.

STEP 2:
I prefer to drag guides before selecting the part of button I want to copy. So this step is kind of optional, I do it to keep the sides the same size, which makes the final button look better.

Drag guides to the position on your button that you want to copy. Your image should look something like the example below.

STEP 3:
Now copy each section and paste them into their own window. You should have three windows looking like the examples below.

left.png

center.png

right.png

sample.png

STEP 4:
This is the tricky part. You need to make sure you save each image in the PNG-24 bit format and with no background. So in PhotoShop make sure your images has the background layer hidden so you can save the image with transparency.

STEP 5:
OK, no that you have your images saved you're almost done and ready to use your new button set. Now you can create a new .txt file name description.txt. This file will display a small description in the Button Maker for your new button, this is optional.

STEP 6:
There are two ways you can add your new button sets to the Button Maker.
1st method:
The first and probably easiest is to simply copy and paste the folder with your new files (left.png, right.png, center.png, etc...) into the Button Maker theme directory.

For example the images you saved above should all be in one folder, name the folder My Button Set.

The path to Button Maker is probably something like this: C:\Program Files\The Button Maker\Themes

The Themes folder contains all the button sets for the Button Maker. You can add and remove button sets by add them directly into the Themes folder. You will need to restart the BUtton Maker if you add new button sets.

2nd method:
This method requires a zip program such as WinZip or StuffIt Expander. With either one of those program you need to create a zip file from your My Button Folder.

Then open Button Maker and select Themes from the top menu and then select Install. Find the zip file you create from your new Button Set and click Open. That will install the new button set. That's it!

If you have questions please Email us .