Microsoft Wants Your Words To Have
Some Sway
Introduction to Microsoft Sway, Pt. 3
Although you can certainly make a perfectly fine Sway webpage (Swage?) with MS Word and MS Sway, once you have made a couple of pages you might want to explore what might be possible with the Sway app.
The Sway website at https://sway.office.com/ offers some easy ways to enhance Sway Page. You will want to be logged into your Microsoft account. Click the Green Get started button to enter https://sway[.]office[.]com/my. But that is MY SWAY PAGE. You will have to get your own Sway Page.
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| It is
https://sway.office.com/my where Your Sways
are stored. To edit the existing Sways that are already made click My Sways. You see the title of Your Sways and the date each Sway was created. |
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| The Sway selected will open first into
the "Storyline" mode. Here you can make changes to the actual text, and changes to Text Formatting. |
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| The first option available in
Storyline mode is to add a background image to the banner title
page. Click Suggested to see all the locations from where a background image can be added. I chose My Device to use one of my standard background images on my computer. |
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| You can adjust whether the entire
image or just a portion is used for the background. The positioning of the background image can also be made here. |
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| This
points out one of the limitations of Sway, as opposed to
traditional HTML. In HTML, you can "tile" a background. So the background is many copies of these images placed tight together, looking like one image. My single image just got blurred. So I hit the "undo" button to reverse that change. |
| Each paragraph is listed as "Text Card." Each text card as its own text formatting tools. |
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| Storyline offers a tool to add captions to your images. |
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| Once you have formatted the text of
your Sway, then you can focus on the visual elements of your
Sway. Click the "Design" control up open up the design menus. |
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| Click Styles to open
up the Styles Menu. ✓ The Remix button applies your changes. ✓ Familiarize yourself with the common Windows Undo and Redo buttons. In case, the changes you make don't look right. |
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| The first Design setting controls the
layout of how text and images are arranged. I always choose the default, which is Horizontal. Each element is stacked on top of one another. Also, the default setting is for images to first fly onto the page. You can turn that Animation off. |
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| The styles button opens up a menu of
different template styles. Each will complete redesign the Sway Page. I sampled the circuit looking template. Ugh! |
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| Below is the reformatted Design Page based on the template. Hit Undo! |
| Assuming the canned templates aren't
your thing, then hit the Green Customize button The Customize Menu offers more granular changes. |
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| Color palettes offers up a number of
global changes to the Sway page color scheme. I choose the Red background with White text palette. |
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| Just in Time for the Holidays, huh?
Remember Remix activates your changes Undo puts everything back the ways the way they were. |
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| Scroll down to the Font List.
Click into the Font list, and choose a new Font style. Never heard of "Quire Sans" font before. So I'll bite. |
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| Here is the same page, but with the "Quire Sans" font. That's a pleasant clean font. I will keep it. |
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The holidays are coming. People have parties; dinner partiers; gatherings of all types. The exchange of newsletters announcing holiday activities of all kinds are so common this time of year. Also coming is Year's End. Business and groups have their own needs. Moreover, I am sure anyone reading this can think of their own subjects that will need to be communicated electronically as the calendar moves forward.
All of these coming communications will most likely be transmitted, or simply announced, via email. My point is this: "Why be boring in these communications?" The tools are already at your fingertips to make your various communications dazzling that will give some needed attention to those missives that they otherwise would not get. And make yourself The Topic of Conversation at The Holiday Party.
There is a learning curve here. But once anyone with a modicum of knowledge of Office and Windows becomes familiar with Sway, Consumers will find that learning curve isn't all that steep of a curve.
Although it is possible to make a Sway page from scratch, there is little intuitive about the process. I won't waste time on things that won't work for most Consumers.
Most users of Office are very familiar with Microsoft Word. I suggest you create your web layout using Word, and then Transform that Word doc into a Sway Page.
When
marimba rhythms start to play
Dance with me, make me sway
Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore
Hold me close, sway me more
— Sway, Michael Bublé
Gerald Reiff