Does the idea of building your very own screensaver using your very own text and visuals sound appealing to you? If so, then check out MPQ Builder, a program that will let you combine images and text and package them in a setup file as an installable screensaver for Windows. ‘MPQ Builder’ is free for personal use.
Imagine the possibilities: you could send a screensaver consisting of photos of your kids and the cutest things they have uttered to grandma and grandpa, create a nice little demo of your products for customers or trade show appearances, or even create your very own motivational screensaver combining your favorite images and sayings, etc.
Note before starting: if you want a screensaver engine that will interactively find images on your drive and from online sources, and display them using famous quotes or your own quotes, then check out MPQ Builder’s sister project Multi Photo Quotes (which is where the MPQ acronym came from)
Step 1: download MPQ Builder and install it
You can find the download link on this page.
Step 2: fill in informational fields
Once you launch the program, fill in the fields in the ‘Screen Saver Information’ page Most of these are self explanatory (see screenshot below). The ID name is the name that your setup file will have once the process is finished (Myfavwallpaper.exe in the case shown here)
Step 3: add images
Click ‘Image Files’ in the sidebar, then drag and drop your images onto the interface. You can drag folders as well
Step 4: add text quotes
Click ‘Text Quotes’ in the sidebar, then start typing, one line at a time — it’s time to be inspired 😉
Step 5: add credits
If you want.
Step 6: build the screensaver
Click the green ‘Build Screensaver Now’ in the bottom right corner. The setup file should be created instantly. Click on the ‘browse created screen saver setup files’ button to open the folder where your setup file is saved.
You can now install your brand new screensaver, send it to people you want to share it with, etc.
Once installed, you can go into the options/preferences screen to configure (see screenshot below). Although most options are self explanatory and I will not get into them here, I would recommend you go to ‘Image Cells’ in the sidebar and set ‘cropping vs. stretching’ in the upper right corner to ‘crop and preserve aspect’. Otherwise, the screensaver has a knack for stretching and distorting the images sometimes in an unpleasant way.
That’s it!
