If preconditions are met, let’s go to work! The first step is to create an image to replace EPA logo. To do that, you must use a graphic application, like Photoshop, Photostyler, Paint Shop Pro, Photo Paint, etc. Inside application, create an image with following characteristics: 136 pixels wide, 126 pixels high, 72 dpi and black and white mode (this mode is also called by other names, depending on the program, like B&W, 2 colors or 1 bit quality). Define black for the background color and white for pen drawing color. Feel free to create your image, recalling that initially you’ll create a black-and-white image. Below we’ll tell you how to color it.

After editing your logo, you must save it in bmp format (1 bit bitmap). The file must not be larger than 2,582 bytes. In Figure 2 you can verify the file sample we created, and that we’ll record in BIOS.

Figure 2: Example of a customized logo we used on our PC.

After having created the bmp file containing your logo, you’ll need to convert it to the format used by BIOS. This format is called EPA. To perform this conversion, you’ll need a program called Bioslogo, that can be downloaded from download section. Besides doing the conversion, this program will enable you to color your logo (see Figure 3). Don’t be so surprised as the program is written in Turkish; change language to English in order to understand its mode of operation.

click to enlarge
Figure 3: Creating your EPA file with Bioslogo.

Using Bioslogo is rather simple. Click on "Load BMP" to load your personalized image. Click on "BMP > EPA" button. If an error occurs, it's because you didn't save the file using the required specs (1-bit bitmap) and you should save again the image using the correct specs we posted on the top of this page. After converting to EPA, you can go ahead and color your logo, by choosing a color from the color palette available and clicking on the places you want that color. In our example, we colored our own logo in blue and yellow (check Figure 3). The next step is just to click on "Save EPA" and you are done. If you need to edit your logo again, just click on "Load EPA" to load your EPA file.