In comics, cartoons and other 2D drawings, characters come to life through speaking, but since they can't actually be heard, their words usually take up residence in speech bubbles, small balloon-like shapes appearing near their heads. Speech bubbles can give anything from a photograph to a line drawing a livelier look. Use Microsoft Paint, the Windows operating system's included graphics program, to make your own speech bubbles and get talking.

Open Paint. To add speech bubbles to an existing image, click the "Paint" button in the top-left corner of the screen. Click "Open," browse to the image and double-click it.

  • In comics, cartoons and other 2D drawings, characters come to life through speaking, but since they can't actually be heard, their words usually take up residence in speech bubbles, small balloon-like shapes appearing near their heads.
  • To add speech bubbles to an existing image, click the "Paint" button in the top-left corner of the screen.

Click one of the coloured squares in the "Colors" section of the ribbon to serve as the outline colour for the speech bubble or leave black as the default.

Click one of the speech bubble options in the "Shapes" section of the ribbon. The speech bubbles are in the third row.

  • Click one of the speech bubble options in the "Shapes" section of the ribbon.
  • The speech bubbles are in the third row.

Position the cursor on the picture or work area, click and hold down the left mouse button and drag the cursor to form the speech bubble. Release the mouse.

Click the "Text" tool, which looks like an "A" on the ribbon. Click inside the speech bubble. Choose a font and text size. Type the speech bubble words.

Click the "Paint" button. Click "Save As," type a name for the new version of the image and click "Save."