How to add a Buy button to a photo description

Here is a way to add a 'Buy Now' button to a photo description using your PayPal account (and probably can be adapted for other payment processers.)

1. Log in to your PayPal account and click on the 'Merchant Services' tab. Then click on the link for 'Buy Now Button.' On the next screen, customize your button using the options provided or just ignore the options if you want to keep it simple. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the 'Create Button' image.

2. On the next screen, you will see an image similar to the one shown here:

3. The default code shown is under the tab 'Website,' but the code you want is under the 'Email' tab. If you use the Website code, it won't work on Craftsu.com because it is a form and hence will get scrubbed. If you don't see the 'Email' tab it means you are not on the right page or it could be because you don't yet have a PayPal business account (which is free to upgrade from a personal account.)

Another reason for not getting the email tab is that when creating your button you chose the drop-down list to allow the customer to choose from different options. As of this time, it looks like the only way around using the optional drop-down list while offering different options would be to create, for example 3 separate buy buttons, 1 each for the option you offer.

4. Create a 'Buy' button image of your own design or just copy one of the PayPal 'Buy' button images. (You will need to upload this somewhere (anywhere on the net where you can get a URL for it's location) so you can include  the HTML 'img' tag in your description to the image file. [Or you don't have to use an image. You can do this with just a 'Buy' text link.]

5. Go to any of your images. Click on 'Options' and choose 'Edit'. Add your 'Buy' button image to the photo description. You will need to include the 'img' html coding (see SAMPLE CODE below) to make the 'Buy' button image a live hyperlink linking to your PayPal email URL.

SAMPLE CODE:

<p align="center"><a href="HERE IS WHERE TO ENTER THE URL FROM PAYPAL" target="_blank">
<img src="http://api.ning.com:80/files/ONecEV*0V7P1TqsFRCbNJFGzo7D2cDc2rVxrJ6ikJVn3n*KogXM748zc2m2mE8vies4909u9BlJTpi4qe*taUc-WFy2T*qtK/1buybutton.gif">
</a></p>

The sample code includes an image of a buy button I uploaded to Craftsu, You are welcome to use it or create your own and upload it somewhere online and link to it's URL.

Be sure to replace "HERE IS WHERE TO ENTER THE URL FROM PAYPAL" with the HTML code you get from PayPal (remember to leave the double quote marks around the URL.)

The above example includes code that centers the buy button image under the photo and for the PayPal page to open in a new browser window.

Credit for this tip goes to Jeff on the Ning Creators network.