I don’t think a lot of people who use Mac computers realize that they can create some pretty cool things without needing any fancy imaging software like Photoshop. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE me some Photoshop (of the Elements variety, of course) and I use it almost every day (sad, I know), but the standard ‘Preview’ program on Macs has some of the same basic functions….you can create just about anything with it too.
Chalkboard posters are all the rage right now, and they are deceptively simple to make. Here I’ll give you a step-by-step tutorial on how to create your very own chalkboard poster, whether it be for your little one’s first birthday, some holiday decor, or just a favorite quote….and I’ll share a free printable with you as well! Let’s get to it!
Steps to Make Your Own Chalkboard Poster on a Mac
These are the basic steps, and I’ll give more detail below:
- Download a chalkboard background and open it in Preview.
- If desired, download some fancy new fonts as well.
- Either select the ‘Text Tools’ option in your menu bar or select ‘Tools’ –> ‘Annotate’ –> ‘Text’ and type in your desired text. You can also change the font, size, and/or color with the menu bar.
- If desired, embellish with the rectangle, oval, or line tools, or add elements with dingbat fonts.
- Save image by selecting ‘File’ –> ‘Export’.
Download a Chalkboard Background
The first thing you need when creating a chalkboard poster is of course a…..chalkboard! There are tons of free ones available online in all sorts of colors and levels of chalkiness…..black, gray, green, brown, etc. and they have varying degrees of chalk residue/eraser strokes on them.
It’s all personal preference on what look you’re going for, so find one that suits your tastes. (Also, if you want, there are of course chalkboards available for purchase online, but I’m all about free so it’s Google to the rescue!)
The easiest way to find a free one is to do a simple Google image search. Just go to Google and search for “free chalkboard background” and then filter the results by clicking on the “Images” menu option at the top. You’ll want a large file size, especially if you’re looking to print out your creation, so filter the results further by selecting “High Resolution” images (you could also save yourself a couple steps and just search for “free high resolution chalkboard background” from the get-go….but you may not need a large size depending on your project….it’s whatev).
Once your results are filtered, hover over the images with your cursor to see their respective resolution sizes. Resolution size refers to the image’s dimensions in terms of pixels….when printing, bigger is better. You can always make an image smaller if needed, but if you try to increase a small file, you’ll get a pixelated, boxy, fuzzy image…not good.
Here is a handy resource for determining the minimum resolution size you need for various print sizes.
For this tutorial, I’m looking to make an 8″ x 10″ print, so I need a chalkboard that is at least 800 x 1000 pixels. This second file shown below is 2400 x 3000 pixels, so that is more than enough.
When you click on the image, it will pop up in the center of your screen with a menu on the right. Select “View Image” to open up the image file by itself.
Your image will open up in your browser and will be resized to fit your screen. To open it up to its full size, simple hover your cursor over it until you see a small magnifying glass with a “+” and click on it (my cursor disappeared when taking the screen shot, but just imagine a magnifying glass for me).
Bam! Your chalkboard is now at its full size, so just right-click on it and save that puppy.
Open Up Chalkboard Background in ‘Preview’
I saved my chalkboard to my desktop to easily find it….and just look at how cute The Cub is here at four-months-old. Ahhh, I could just eat him up!
Anyway…..once your file is saved, just double-click it to open it up in ‘Preview.’
The Menu Options
Once your chalkboard is open, you can go to “View” –> “Show Edit Toolbar” to open up your options. This adds all your tools to your window. There are a bunch of them, but I’ve labeled the main ones for our purposes here:
- Rectangle: adds a box; can be filled/unfilled and can change the line thickness or make it dashed (Tip: to make a perfect square, hold down shift).
- Oval: adds a circle; can be filled/unfilled and can change the line thickness or make it dashed (Tip: to make a perfect circle, hold down shift).
- Line: adds a line; can change the line thickness or make it dashed (Tip: to make a perfect vertical or horizontal line, hold down shift).
- Text Tools: adds a Text box, Text Outline box, Speech Bubble, or Thought Bubble.
- Adjust Color: Lots of options for editing the color of your image (i.e. Exposure, Contrast, Saturation, Sharpness, etc); described more below.
- Color: changes the color of your added rectangles, ovals, lines, and/or text boxes.
- Font Family: Lists (but does not preview) all the fonts you have loaded on your Mac.
- Font Size: changes the size of your text box(es). Only goes up to size 288 but you can click on the number and type in your own to customize the size.
Adjusting The Chalkboard’s Color (If Desired)
By clicking on #5 above, you’ll open up the ‘Adjust Color’ menu box. This allows you to change a lot of the features of your image. For a chalkboard poster, you could play with the exposure or contrast to change the amount of chalkiness, or you could play with the temperature, tint, or sepia options to change the color. So if you found a black chalkboard that you absolutely loved….it has the perfect resolution and just the right amount of chalk and eraser strokes you’re looking for….you can easily change it to a green or brown chalkboard.
Horray for not needing to download completely new chalkboard files!
Previewing & Selecting Your Fonts
Now this next step isn’t necessary, but it definitely helps me out with my projects. I like to be able to preview what my fonts look like, and one of the negatives about using ‘Preview’ compared to Photoshop is that (despite its name) it doesn’t actually preview your fonts…it just lists them in the drop down menu and won’t allow you to down arrow through the list and easily change your font selection.
This bugs me and slows down my creative process, so I like to use one of two methods to actually see what my fonts look like as opposed to seeing just their names.
Font Book: The first method is opening up my Font Book. Just go to the ‘Finder’ icon in your dock –> search for “fontbook” (if I search for its actual name as “Font Book” it doesn’t show up in the results….weird) –> double-click on the “Font Book” icon. Or just go to Applications on the left then select Font Book.
This will open up a new window and will list all the fonts you have loaded on your computer on the left, and then if you select a font, it will be previewed on the right in both lowercase and uppercase A-Z as well as all the number characters.
wordmark.it: The other method I use to preview my fonts (and it’s my preferred method) is going to a website called wordmark.it. I wrote a whole post about why wordmark.it is so great as well as how to use it.
The reason I like this website so much is because you can type in a word or phrase and see what it will look like in each of the fonts that you have loaded on your computer….it’s not just an A-Z preview like you get in Font Book.
You can see in the example below what the phrase “Where The Smiles Have Been” looks like in a variety of my fonts. It’s now so easy to find a specific font to go with my project, and quickly too. If I want something boxy and bold, it’s easily identifiable. Maybe I’m looking for a cutesy, curvy script font….I can easily find one of those too.
Downloading Fonts
Your Mac obviously comes loaded with a bunch of fonts, but they’re pretty basic, and quite frankly, boring. There are tons and tons of sites online that you can download fonts for free, and I would suggest checking some free sites out if you plan on creating your own poster. One site that I frequently use is dafont.com. You can get all different kinds of fonts: hand-writing, boxy, futuristic, horror, holiday, kiddie, foreign, cartoon, dingbat (which I’ll discuss below)….just about anything you can think of is available, and they can really spice up your design.
I’ve put together a list of my favorite fonts to use on chalkboards, and then a second list with 50 MORE fabulous and free chalkboard fonts! Oh, and I’ve also got a list of awesome dingbat fonts to use with chalkboards, too (more info on these below), as well as a collection of the best free fonts for birthday chalkboard posters. Check them out for great inspiration!
And if you want, you can even turn your own handwriting into a font for FREE!
I’ve also compiled a list of my favorite sites that offer awesome FREE digital resources! High-quality fonts, SVGs, backgrounds, digital scrapbooking, Photoshop fun….it’s all covered here! And most include commercial rights too!
Making Your Design
Ok, so now that we’re able to preview our fonts, it’s time to start adding our text. To do this, just click on the ‘Text Tools’ option and select ‘Text’, or you can go to ‘Tools’ –> ‘Annotate’ –> ‘Text’. This will add a text box and you can type in whatever you want and then also change its size and color.
Then click anywhere on your chalkboard and type out your word. If you want different words to be in different fonts/colors, you’ll need to add a new text box for each one.
Keep adding new text boxes for all your words, and play around with different fonts, sizes, and even colors. You can also use the rectangle, oval, and line tools to add some extra elements as well.
My Design, Three Ways!
I’ll be designing a printable with one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes (which also happens to serve as the naming inspiration behind this blog):
Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.
I wanted this printable to be very graphical with even edges and have some words in a handwritten script font and others in a basic Sans Serif font. I wasn’t too concerned with having fonts that looked like actual chalk writing on a chalkboard, but there are certainly lots of those available to download for free if that’s what you’re after. Once again, it’s all personal preference and what type of image you hope to create.
You can see below how I added my text (each line of text is a new text box), then jazzed up the design with a box and then some color.
FREE PRINTABLE!: Do you like this quote and image? If so, you can download it (all three versions!) for FREE by going here.
Jazz Things Up with Dingbats!
If you’re looking to jazz things up a bit more than by just using the basic Preview options and adding a rectangle, oval, or line, you can use dingbats! Dingbats are a type of font that use images in place of letter, number, and punctuation characters.
For example, in the image below, the top left swirly corner is actually made by using a free dingbat font called Nymphette and typing a “u”…..that’s what is assigned to the “u” character. The top right swirly corner is made by typing a “v”. You just add a text box like you normally do, select the dingbat font, then type in whatever letter/number/character you need….this is where being able to preview the fonts comes in handy big time!
There are dingbat fonts available for just about anything you can imagine, and most are available to download for free for personal use….frames, ribbons, embellishments, people, places, animals, objects, paint splatters, bar codes, actual words…you name it, it’s probably out there. They are a great way to easily add decorative elements to a project, especially a chalkboard poster.
Aligning Elements
When using Preview, you may see yellow vertical and/or horizontal lines flash on your image as you’re moving your text boxes around. These will pop up as guides for aligning your elements. You can see below that as I was moving the bottom right dingbat, the yellow lines flashed on to help me line it up with the bottom left and top right dingbats. These guides can come in quite handy.
Changing The Image’s Size
If you want to change the size of your image (either its dimensions, resolution, or both), just click on the ‘Adjust Size’ menu option.
Saving (aka Exporting) Your Design
Once your design is complete, you can save it by going to ‘File’ –> ‘Export’ and then selecting your desired format. DO NOT CLICK ‘SAVE’. If you click ‘Save’ it will save your design overtop your original downloaded chalkboard file….this may be just fine, but if you ever want to use that chalkboard again for a new project, it will no longer be blank.
Also, anything you added to your image (text boxes, rectangles, ovals, etc.) will be merged with your chalkboard background and your image will be saved as a flattened image….in other words, each element is not saved as an independent editable layer as is the case with Photoshop PSD files.
Therefore, once you save it, you will no longer be able to edit the text in any way…that means that moving the text boxes or changing the fonts, sizes, colors, etc. is a thing of the past, so you better be in love with your image or you’ll be starting over from scratch (don’t worry, we’ve all been there).
Preview -vs- Photoshop
Photoshop Elements is obviously much more powerful than Preview and gives you a lot more options. Here are some of the bigger limitations to using Preview, at least when it comes to simple digital designs:
- No option to bold or italicize fonts.
- Some fonts with very tall letters or decorative swirls get cut off.
- Cannot change colors of individual letters in a single text box (whole word remains same color).
- Words can only be horizontal or vertical (no text warping abilities).
- No special effects options (such as drop shadows, outlines, bevels, etc.) or filters.
- Cannot create animated GIFs.
- Only saves files as flattened images (cannot go back in and edit individual elements).
That being said, Preview has one big bonus over Photoshop….it’s FREE! Yep, Preview comes standard on all Macs (as far as I’m aware at least).
Photoshop Elements is worth every. single. penny. Depending on your needs, however, Preview may be more than enough.
How to Make a Birthday Chalkboard Poster
If you’re interested, I’ve also put together a full tutorial for how to make a birthday chalkboard poster (this is in Photoshop). Find out all the juicy details and learn how to make your own!
Also, here are a couple versions of a chalkboard poster that I created for The Cub’s first birthday using Photoshop:
And here’s one I made for my niece’s first birthday, this time a Classic Alice in Wonderland version!
Phew, that was a doozy! I hope this tutorial was of help to you and that you learned something new, or at least got a flash of inspiration for a new project. I’d love to see what you’re able to create, so please do share!
Did I miss anything though? I am by no means a frequent user of Preview’s editing tools (like I said, I’m in a long-term relationship with Photoshop), so are there other cool things Preview can do that I don’t know about? If so, please share below! And don’t forget to grab your free printable(s) either!
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Nina Lewis says
Found this on Pinterest! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! This is a fabulous thing for we Mac users. I’ve used preview for other things but not for making chalkboard posters. And, I’m thrilled with wordmark.it! That’s an amazing site.
I’m spending lots of time on your site. And will be back often. Thank you for all you do and share! You’re wonderful!!
Vivian says
What do you print the final product on? I see that you are writing on it like a real chalkboard, so I’m confused…
Jo says
Hi, is there a downloadable version of the one you made?
Lorraine says
Just stumbled on site while trying to make a poster for my brother in laws birthday and checking out your posts has set me back a few hours! Love your stuff! Question.. i made chalkboard poster then stupidly (didn’t read your full instructions!) saved it and then went back to try and finish it and well..you know the rest! Im a little puzzled how to do it so that i can add/move/change it later. I tried exporting a minimally restarted one just to see if it would work, but i still couldn’t edit when i went back into it. Am i being a total dummy?! Know this is old post so not sure if you still answer but thought it worth a try!
Sana Dandia says
I would be interested in this too!! i actually didn’t save the working chalkboard, but did the export step… but still the next morning, the original chalkboard had somehow turned into a jpeg. some naughty elves were at it i guess… or just the apple elves?
But, honestly, amazing post and tutorial. I am not even very creative and even i could do it! Thanks so much Christine!!
Janette says
I’m trying to make a first birthday sign for my daughter…how do you add text on top of text? For example in your sons sign, you wrote My first birthday on a dingbat..how>?
Jenna says
Ok, I found your tutorial SUPER helpful!! I made a monthly milestone board as a baby gift. I do have a few questions, if I save the file can I come back to it and add more to it? Or do I have to completely design everything all at once? Also can we import images into preview? Like clipart? I do not know how to use Photoshop, so that is a no go for me! Thanks for your tutorial!
LeChelle says
Hello! I love you website and all the valuable information which you share!!! Would I be able to create the chalkboard background without a MAC? And just use Photoshop Elements on my HP PC instead? Thank you ;-)
Melisa says
Hello and Thank You so much for this tutorial!
I am just wondering how you turn lettering vertically? so that all of your wording is not just going Horizontally.
Pili says
This is an excellent tutorial for those who don’t use Photoshop!! I use PS all the time and I’m in love with it, but I have to agree with you that Preview can make fancy signs as well
Christine says
Thanks, Pili! Preview really is a great alternative to Photoshop. Not as powerful, but still pretty amazing….and you can’t beat free! :)
Nikki says
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!
Christine says
You’re so welcome, Nikki! I’m glad you found this helpful! :)
Vicki says
Bravo Christine! This is amazing! You are so talented and detail oriented, I Love It!
Silly question..one of many…but where can I find the tooth dingbat? I downloaded the one but it has letters inside the tooth. I want a plain tooth like you have above on Elena’s. Or even Rowan’s with a number in it.
Thanks! You rock!
Christine says
Thanks Vicki! If you check out the font’s character map from the download page it’ll show what every keystroke results in. I’m pretty sure the blank tooth is the period key. Hope this helps!
Jie Alvarado says
Hello Christine,
I just want to thank you so much for this post!!!! I have spent weeks looking at posters to purchase for my daughter’s first birthday to no avail. Everything that I saw needed tweaking of some sort. & then I happened to stumble upon your blog &…… Lets just say it has one of the happiest moments of the week. :) I was able to not only create the perfect poster for my daughter’s birthday party (while learning something new) but the thoroughness of your posts (all of them) has saved me countless hours (time I was able to spend with my family). You are truly a wonderful person for taking the time to share all of this with us!!!!
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!
have i said THANK YOU!!!!!
always
Jie.
Christie Manno says
Wow!!! Amazing tutorial!!! Thank you so much!!!! You are super talented:)
Christine says
Thanks for the super kind words, Christie! I’m glad you liked this! :)
Ashley says
I love this post! It has taught me so much about my Mac. The only thing I’m struggling with is how can I expand/stretch the font horizontally to line up the text on each side.
Ashley says
Also, when I go to adjust the image’s size (I’m hoping for a 16×20), the adjust size menu isn’t highlighted so I can’t click on it at all to change the size. What can I do to get it highlighted so I can change it?
Judy says
Thank you for this tutorial! Quick question – I was able to download fonts and view them in Font Book, but when I’m in Preview, they don’t show up…do you have any idea as to how I can access those downloaded fonts? Thanks so much!
Christine says
Hey Judy! If you had Preview open while you were downloading the fonts, you’ll need to close and then restart it in order for your new fonts to load. That usually does the trick! :)
Alicia says
Hey Christine!
Thanks so much for this helpful article! :)
Quick question– I completed half my chalkboard, then had to restart to get a few fonts to import correctly into font book. Now I can add new textboxes but can’t edit any of my previous textboxes! :(
Do you know how to fix this or do I have to start all over? I’ve googled it but come up with nothing.
Christine says
Hey there, Alicia! I talk about this above in the Saving section. I’m not a Preview expert, but I’m pretty sure once you saved it, your design was flattened and therefore all of your individual layers/text boxes are merged into one image with the background and therefore can’t be edited anymore….so I think you’ll have to start over. :/ So sorry!
Rebekah says
I love this!
…but I’m having trouble centering things. Because I’m using a mac and not photoshop, I am using many text boxes and things are looking off centered. I don’t seem to have the yellow lines you had talked about either. Any advice?
Christine says
Hey Rebekah! Hmmmmm, I honestly don’t use Preview often since I’m a Photoshop gal so I’m certainly not an expert with it. Perhaps you aren’t seeing the yellow alignment lines because you have so many text boxes so it’s confused on what to align with what? (Just a guess.) I just opened up and looked around through mine and it doesn’t seem there’s an option to show a ruler either. Nuts! Sorry I can’t be of more help!
Richard Thompson says
This tutorial is very informative. I never knew that posters could be made using preview. I wonder what other kind of poster could be made using preview? Thank you for providing the links to where I can get free fonts.
Christine says
Hey Richard! I’m so glad you found this informative! Yep, you should be able to make any type of poster in Preview. I just showed how to make a chalkboard version since I seem to be obsessed with them, haha. :) Thanks so much for stopping by (and you’re welcome for the font links)!
April says
Hi there!
I am loving this tutorial! I love learning new crafty things and this is my newest project for my baby girl’s first birthday! I am excited to do this all on my own. This has been very helpful. Quick question though… how do you use one of the dingbat fonts and type inside it? Also, how do change the text so that it writes on an angle or curve, like say a half circle and not a straight line? I am using Mac, not photoshop.
Thanks so much!!
Christine says
Hey there April! So happy to hear this has been helpful to you! To answer your questions: To “type” inside a dingbat font, you need to use layers (or just separate text boxes in Preview) and move what you want inside the dingbat on top of it and into position (that way it looks like it’s inside). Also, like I mentioned above in the ‘Preview -vs- Photoshop’ section, you can’t do any text warping abilities in Preview. That means you can only type in a straight line and not a half circle, like your example. To get all fancy like that, you’ll need Photoshop or another design program. Hope this helps!
Tarah says
Hi! I love your tutorial! Although im not using a Mac i am still able to create a poster pretty simply. Although I do have a question. Where did you find the dotted lines and the tooth? And i also cant find the triangles type banner … any suggestions! ?
Christine says
Hey Tarah! So happy to hear you’re still able to use this, even without a Mac! Those elements you asked about are all dingbat fonts: the dotted Lines are Bergamot Ornaments, the tooth is JLR Toofy Grin, and the banner is KG Royals (there are a lot of cool banner dingbats that are KG fonts). Hope this helps! :)
Marie says
I’m so happy and overly excited that I found your page! This is so awesome and very informative! This is exactly what I need to make my little one’s first birthday poster! I do have one question… can you use the tooth dingbat (like you did on your son’s birthday poster) on Preview or is that only available on Photoshop? Thanks so much! God bless!
Christine says
Hello Marie! I’m so happy you found this information useful! The answer to your question is yes, you can use dingbat fonts in Preview, so the tooth one will show up just fine. As long as the file is a TTF or OTF font file and you install it with the rest of your fonts, you can use it. Just type the corresponding character to find your desired dingbat image and wham-o! It should appear. :) Let me know if I can help out further! Good luck!
Jenni says
Hey Christine, how many pixels should I be saving my files at for a 16×20 printable file?
Christine says
Hey there, Jenni! I’m not a tech or photography expert, but according to this handy guide, a 16 x 20 print should have a minimum pixel resolution of 2240 x 1680….but of course, the bigger the better if you’re wanting photo quality. Hope this helps! :)
Angel says
I lOVE your poster!! When you upload the background to photoshop. What size do you make yours?
Christine says
Hey there Angel! I’m so glad you like this poster! This is an 8 x 10, so I cropped the downloaded file in Photoshop to that size (or 800 x 1000 pixels). The size really just depends on what my final project will be, so you can crop it to any size you like. For example, I printed out my son’s and my niece’s first birthday chalkboard posters (both here on the blog) at different sizes using this same chalkboard background, so I just cropped them with their correct dimensions….but I usually do my cropping at the end, just because I tend to change my mind a lot. :) I usually do all my creating and editing at it’s full size then crop when I’m finished….I like the wiggle room.
Thanks for stopping by! :)
GiGi says
Just found your site and I absolutely LOVE it! Thanks so much for sharing so much information. I am 44 and new to crafting and am finding new things to love everyday.
Christine says
Awww GiGi, thank you so much for checking out my piece of the interwebs, and for your sweet comments! I’m pretty new to crafting myself. I’ve made several wreaths over the past few years, but I didn’t really branch out and start crafting regularly until I started staying home after my son was born last summer. Now it’s almost a daily gig for me! Thanks again for stopping by!
JJ says
This is an awesome tutorial! Thank you! Where did you send to print?
Christine says
Thanks JJ! I’m so glad you found this helpful! You can print a design you create on a regular home printer, or you can have it printed at a store or print shop (most places allow you to upload a file to their website, and some you can take a thumb drive into the store and have it printed that way). I printed out my son’s first birthday chalkboard poster above from Staples as an engineering print for just a couple dollars, and it turned out great!
(And I’m sorry I’ve been delayed on replying to your comment here….I was away on a family vacation until yesterday, so I’m slowly getting back to my everyday life!) :)
JJ says
Thanks so much! Excellent idea sending it to Staples. I work at a school and this will be fantastic!
Natasha says
Did you then mount the engineering print on to poster board? Thanks in advance!
Christine says
Hey Natasha! Yep, I used some spray adhesive and attached it to some foam board, then framed it up with some washi tape. I talk about it in more detail here: https://www.wherethesmileshavebeen.com/the-cubs-first-birthday-chalkboard-poster/
Hope this helps! Thanks for stopping by! :)
Natasha says
Yes it does, thank you! I am working on this now in Preview for my son’s first birthday! :)
Christine says
Glad to hear it! Good luck with your poster….momma-made creations are always the best. ;)
Natasha says
However, I just saw in your other post that you started this several months in advance and I’m experiencing the pitfall about flattened images! I’ve got two weeks!! Maybe Photoshop Elements is a better bet at this stage of the game! LOL