What is Sway
Microsoft Sway is a free app that allows you to create visually stunning documents, presentations, newsletters, and communications in a matter of minutes. You can share reports, web pages, and presentations on an interactive web-based canvas that looks great on almost any screen. Yes, sway allows you to use storyline/pictures, videos, or interactive charts to engage your audience like never before. If you are a fan of PowerPoint, you may have heard about Microsoft’s latest presentation tool, Microsoft Sway.
This is a good tool for persons who struggle with getting their PowerPoints to look exactly right, they will love the design capabilities of Sway. One of the great features of Sway is how easy it is to share your Sway creations. This tutorial will give you a basic overview as to what Sway can do.
Let’s get started
In the google search engine type www.office.com to get to the website Office.com. On the Office.com website page, click on sign-in to access the sign-in screen. You can create an account, or if you have one already type your username and password in the box to sigh-in. You can access Sway by logging into your Microsoft Office 365 account just like I did, and your screen will look the one below. After logging into Office 365, scroll down the list of apps in the left panel to locate the Sway app.
Welcome to Sway
Click on Sway to open the home page. The Sway home page offers capability options like, Create New which allows you to start with a blank Sway canvas. The next option is the Start from a topic. Clicking this option will access data from Wikipedia that can help you start creating your Sway. The final option is labeled, “Start from a document” such as a PDF, word document, or PowerPoint, once uploaded you are ready to start.
Located on the home page is a My Sways tab which allows you to look at previous sways you created. The View tab allows you to view Sways that your colleagues or co-workers have created and gave you permission to edit. I can also see analytics related to any of My Sways. Also under the deleted tab, you have some file management capabilities. You can recover deleted or you can permanently delete Sways.
Sway inspirations and templates
On the sway home page, you can start from a template or get inspired by lessons in sway.
Click the, Create New tab to open a blank canvas in Microsoft Sway. The layout of this page displays the tabs you will use to create a sway. The tabs at the top left of the page are the Storyline and Design tabs. Use the Storyline tab to insert content into your sway and organize the order you want your content to appear. The Design tab allows you to look and feel the layout of your sway. The sway page displays a content box referred to as a card.
I can add a set of cards to building out the content within My sway. First, type a title for your Sway. After naming your Sway, you can use the toolbar at the top of the Card box. Highlight the title and click Emphasize to make it the text Bold. Click Accent to italicize the text. Click Link to add a link. Click the background tab to add an image to associate the title.
To add image, click the background, and move to the top right of the page. Here, you have two options to browse content from different places. Click the suggested tab and a drop-down list appears. You can choose an image from OneDrive, Flickr, Bing images, Picket, YouTube, or you could choose to upload images from your device. Using the search sources tab gives you more relevant content and images. Click on any one of the groups beneath the suggested tab and the search sources box and scroll through the images. You can insert an image, or you can simply drag an image from your desktop.
Adjusting images for a stunning outlook
At the top right corner of the card is the Focus Points tab that allows you to position the background image you uploaded. This tab also displays how the images on different devices.
Adding Additional Card(s)
Add a card to your sway simply click the plus button at the base of the content box. Then select from the different categories of card types displayed in the box.
Apply the information to the content box to complete the card.
Click the plus button then select Group and click the automatic tab. This allows you to add several images at the same time.
What is the Design tab do?
Use the Design tab at the top right corner of the sway screen to get a view of your presentation, newsletters, or whatever you are creating.
Modifications and adjustments
Click the Design tab at the top of the sway screen then move to the far right top corner and click the Styles tab. This tab gives you the option to modify your sway vertical, horizontal, or slides. Customize your Sway with custom colors, typography, and textures.
My Sway displays on the sway home page.
Summary Review:
- How to use Sway on Office.com
- What is Microsoft Sway
- How to log into Microsoft Sway
- Steps to create Sway
- How Sway works
- How to organize your information
- Adding additional card(s)
- Sharing options for Sway
- Transforming a word document into a Web Page
