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What are the general guidelines on when to embed a picture in an answer and when to link it?

F.e. If you post a pictured guide on how to solve a question, should you embed the pictures or just link to them? Another example are CWs over at SU which are collecting applications for different purposes, is it reasonable to embed the banner of the application in the answer?

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  • Check out: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9397/…
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    May 3, 2010 at 20:42
  • It depends on if waffles, bunnies, or unicorns are in the picture, in which case, always. It's like saying lol. If in doubt, say lol.... lol
    – Earlz
    May 3, 2010 at 20:45
  • @Earlz It's statements like that which make me fear that one of these days, we will no longer have periods to end our sentences and must contend with an "lol" key on our keyboards...
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    May 3, 2010 at 20:48
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    Adding pictures is kind of a pain, so I just put a post-it note on my monitor where I want the picture to go.
    – user27414
    May 3, 2010 at 20:50
  • @ccornet: I missed that one in my search, nice find! May 3, 2010 at 20:54
  • 2
    @Bobby: I can't look at your name without mentally adding "Tables" at the end. I wonder if you hear that a lot.
    – Ether
    May 3, 2010 at 21:05
  • @Ether there is a user on SO named little bobby tables
    – Earlz
    May 3, 2010 at 22:01
  • @Ether: Not as often as someone might think...though, the first time I was called that was when I answered a SQL Injection question on SO...guess I asked for it. ;) May 4, 2010 at 6:22

5 Answers 5

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Embed by default.

It's much easier to follow a question when what needs to be seen is right there, and you don't have to worry about people not bothering to look at it (either they ignore the link completely, or are afraid to click on it because it might be spam).

That being said, if you need to post a full screenshot, it's probably better to embed a thumbnail (of decent size, not overflowing the layout), and make it clickable to show the full version.

A word of caution: when doing this with images where you are not hosting them yourself, links can go stale, leaving you with nothing in your post. In these cases, I would strongly consider making a copy of the images and hosting them yourself.

Related:
Please allow image uploads directly onto the site

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Whenever text or ASCII art isn't enough.


On meta: whenever you are feeling like making red free hand circles and drop shadow effects for a visual representation of a bug.


On SO: you should almost never need pictures on your answers, except when you are explaining a theoretical concept, and you are too lazy to do ASCII graphs.

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  • If there was a question about GUI layout algorithms, a picture would almost certainly be highly appropriate as part of an answer. Layouts are typically hard to understand from just descriptions… May 3, 2010 at 22:47
  • And TeX was done by a CS hater for printing biology books Dec 17, 2010 at 6:46
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Only when they contain - argh! I can't say it... but let's just say it's a pony with horns. And the things you put on bunny's heads.

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    Pie crust? You would have pictures of pie crust? May 3, 2010 at 22:49
  • He can't say a meme! Hurry poke fun!
    – Earlz
    May 3, 2010 at 23:25
  • @Donal: No silly, not pie crust. It's the thing you cook in a waffle maker. I can't say what it is though. May 3, 2010 at 23:58
  • Waffles? XD SCNR May 4, 2010 at 6:23
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Whenever they're worth 1k words.

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    "So for today's essay, you're going to write a thousand word essay over this picture: " shows picture of instructor catching a fish
    – Earlz
    May 3, 2010 at 23:26
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Never, ever, for what ever reason, what ever.

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  • I would have sworn you'd be in the "every answer needs a picture" camp! ;-) May 3, 2010 at 23:23
  • @James Give me a whiteboard and marker, and I'll happily draw pictures illustrating my ideas all day long. But crappy bitmap manipulation tools and a mouse - no thanks. Also, the SO editing mechanisms don't really support group edits of pictures.
    – nb69307
    May 4, 2010 at 8:22

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