Presenting...Zoho Show

This chapter is from the book 

Editing a Presentation

Whether you're adding content to a shiny new presentation or editing an existing one, you work in the presentation editor, as shown in Figure 3.6. The presentation editor has three main areas: a pane on the left that shows thumbnails of your presentation's slides, a center area where you can edit individual slides, and a pane on the right that lets you do the following things:

• Add shapes or clip art to a slide.
• Change a presentation's theme.
• View the presentation's history (that is, the different versions you've saved).
• View or work with a presentation's tags. (See the upcoming section on working with tags.)
• Get information about your presentation.

Adding Slides

When you first create a new presentation, Zoho helps you out by inserting a blank title slide at the start. (As Figure 3.6 shows, this slide has placeholders for a title and subtitle.) But a presentation consisting of just one slide is not very useful. To add a new slide, click the New Slide button on the left end of the Formatting toolbar. Show opens the dialog box shown in Figure 3.7.

The Create New Slide – Select Slide Type dialog box offers these formats for blank slides:

• Blank Slide—No predetermined formatting here, so you can go to town adding content wherever you want.
• Title Slide—This format has text boxes already inserted and formatted for a title and subtitle.
• Title with Text—There's a slot for a title at the top of the slide and a text box for normalsized text below it.
• Title with Points—This is just like the Title with Text format, except that the lower text box is preformatted as a bulleted list.
• Two Text Blocks—Below the titles are two text boxes, side by side. Use this kind of slide when you want the slide's text to appear in columns.

Click a slide type to select it; then click Create Slide to insert a blank slide with that format into your presentation.

Working with Text

When you create a new slide, such as the title slide shown in Figure 3.6, that slide already has preformatted text boxes placed on it. (The exception, of course, is when you create a blank slide, which has no text boxes already inserted.) These text boxes help you put content on the slide without having to worry about font, color, size, or placement. However, you can change any of these as you like, as this section explains.

Adding Text to a Slide

When you've added a slide that has some text boxes (you'll know because the slide has placeholders such as Title or [Insert your text here]), click the placeholder text. The placeholder changes to a text box like the one in Figure 3.8, so you can start typing. At the same time, Show activates the formatting buttons above the slide editor.

You're not limited to Show's placeholders for putting text on a slide. If you want to add text to a blank slide, or if you want to add a new text box to a preformatted slide, click the downward-point arrow on the Text Box button (see Figure 3.8) or right-click the slide and select Add Text. This brings up a menu of choices for the kind of text box to add: Title Box 1, Sub Title Box, Title Box 2, Text Box, or Bullet Box (for creating a bulleted list).

Whichever kind of text box you choose, Show inserts it into the current slide. Click the placeholder to turn it into a text box and then start typing. Show pays no attention to existing content when inserting the new text box, so the new text box might overlap other text boxes or graphics. You can move or resize the text boxes to eliminate this problem, as the next section explains.

Resizing or Moving a Text Box

You're not stuck with Show's standard positioning of text; you can move text around on the slide. You can also make a text box larger or smaller to get your text looking just the way you want—maybe you want it to stretch all the way across the screen or be limited to a narrow column.

To move a text box, click the text it holds to make the text box visible, as in Figure 3.8. Position your cursor on the border of the text box so the cursor becomes a four-way arrow. When the cursor changes, click and drag the text box to its new location. Let up on the mouse button when you've got the text where you want it.

To resize a text box, click the text you want so the borders of the text box appear. The border has eight small squares, called handles, at its corners and its lines' halfway points. Click any handle and drag it to make the text box smaller or larger. As you drag, the text inside the box repositions itself, so you can see how it looks on the slide. When the text looks good, let up on the mouse button to apply the new text box size.

Formatting Text

To format text, click the text to reveal the text box and activate the formatting buttons above the slide editor. Then select the text you want to format. (Press Ctrl+A or Cmd-A to select all the text in the box.)

If you've worked in Writer, the text buttons will be familiar. (Chapter 1 has a list of formatting buttons and what they do.) You can change the font style, size, or color; add a background color to the text box; align text; change the indent; create lists; and more.

Creating Hyperlinks

When you give a slideshow, you can insert a link that opens a web page when you click it. First, make sure you know the correct URL (web address) of the web page you want to link to—the easiest way to do this is to open the web page and copy what's in your browser's address bar.

Back in Show, select the text that will hold the link and then click the Insert Hyperlink button on the right side of the toolbar. (Or press Ctrl+K for a keyboard shortcut.) The Insert Link dialog box opens. Paste or type in the URL of the page you're linking to and then click Insert. The text is now linked to the web page.

Working with Shapes

A slideshow with nothing but text might make your points, but visually it's kinda boring. To add a little pizzazz to your slides, try adding some shapes. You can create a flow chart, emphasize important points with stars or lightning bolts, add a speech or thought bubble, and more. Show even comes preloaded with ready-to-use clip art in more than a dozen different categories.

Inserting a Shape

At the top of Show's right pane are five tabs; the leftmost one, called Shapes, is where you choose and insert a shape into your slide. Show offers six categories of shapes; click a category to see its options:

• Basic Shapes—Includes squares, circles, diamonds, rectangles, trapezoids, and just about everything else you may remember from geometry class.
• Callouts and Stars—This is where you'll find a variety of star shapes and bubbles to indicate speech or thoughts.
• Block Arrows—Offers quite a few styles beyond the run-of-the-mill single- or double-headed arrows.
• Flow Charts—Includes all the common symbols you need to create this kind of diagram: terminators, actions, processes, decision points, and more.
• Symbols—This is Show's "miscellaneous" category, including smiley faces, hearts, flowers, scrolls, and more.
• Clip Art—This is where you can browse categories ranging from animals and people, to computers and technology, to entertainment and sports (and that's just for starters) to find cartoon-like illustrations for your slides.

Whatever kind of shape or illustration you want, click the shape to select it. Then move your cursor to the approximate place on the slide where you want the shape to appear. (Don't worry if your placement isn't exact; you can move the shape later.) From there you have two options:

• Click to make a standard-sized shape appear.
• Click and drag to size the shape you're inserting.

Voilà! You've inserted a shape, and your slide looks something like the one in Figure 3.9.

Resizing Shapes

Often, you'll want to adjust a shape's size after you've inserted it. Piece of cake. Click the shape to select it, revealing a frame around the shape (as shown in Figure 3.9). The shape's frame has five square handles; place your cursor on any of these handles so that the cursor becomes a double-headed arrow; then click and drag to change the shape's size.

Rotating a Shape

If you want a right-pointing arrow to switch around and point left, up, down, or at an angle, you can rotate that arrow to make it point exactly where you're aiming it. In fact, you can rotate any shape you insert into a slide.

When you select a shape, you see a circle connected to the top of its frame (take a look back at Figure 3.9 to see it). Put your cursor on this circle, and the cursor becomes a four-way arrow. When it does, click the mouse button and drag to make the shape rotate around its center point (which is a gray circle in the middle of the shape's frame).

Alternatively, if you'd prefer a keyboard shortcut for rotating a shape, just hold down Alt while pressing an arrow key to rotate the image.

Moving a Shape

If a shape isn't quite where you want it on the slide, you can move it to a new location. Doing so is as easy as selecting the shape (so you can see its frame) and then clicking the shape and dragging it to its new location.

Adding Images

If a picture is worth a thousand words, it's got to be worth at least a few hundred bullet points. You can insert an image from your computer or an online photo album into any slide. To do so, click the Insert Image button in the toolbar above the slide editor. This opens the Insert Image dialog box shown in Figure 3.10.

The Insert Image box gives you several choices for getting pictures onto your slide.

• To transfer a copy of an image from your computer to Show, click the Browse button, find and select the image on your computer, and click Open to put the file's name and location in the Upload an Image box. Images you upload in this way must be in one of four formats—.png, .gif, .jpg, or .jpeg—and 600KB or smaller in size.

  

  Show may give you an error message telling you that the image is 0 bytes and couldn't be uploaded. If you see that, close the Insert Image box and then open it again. Despite the error message, your image should be there.

• To insert an image you've already uploaded, find the image you want in the Insert Image box. Check the box below the image.
• To insert an image from your Flickr or Picasa Web Albums account, look in the left part of the dialog box and click the name of your service. The first time you use one of these services to transfer images to Show, you need to configure that service to work with Show. Click the Click Here to Configure Account link and log in to your Google account (for Picasa Web Albums) or your Yahoo! account (for Flickr). You have to give permission for Zoho to access these applications, just as you do when you sign in to a Zoho app through Google or Yahoo! (see this book's Introduction for more info about that). Zoho transfers your files to Show; just check the box of the one you want to insert.

  

  After you've configured Picasa Web Albums or Flickr to work with Show, any new photos you've added to those sites automatically get transferred to Show when you click Insert Image and then select the service in the left side of the Insert Image dialog box.

• To transfer an image from a web location other than Picasa Web Albums or Flickr, start by finding the image and copying its URL. Most online photo services, such as Photobucket and Snapfish, have a direct link you can copy (it begins with http). After you've copied that link, open Show's Insert Image dialog box and select My Library from its left side; then click the From URL link. The text box changes its label to "Insert Image from URL." Paste the URL you copied into the text box. (This does not add the image to your Show image library; instead, it creates a link to the image.)

Whichever method you choose, click Insert to put the image on your slide. Show inserts the image, and you can work with it as you would any other object (see the previous section on working with shapes).

Sometimes, you may insert an image and then find that it's too big for the slide; the top and bottom resizing handles, for example, may not appear when you select the image. When that happens, you can resize the image using its properties. Right-click the image and choose Properties from the context menu to open the Properties dialog box. There, select Size & Position and then adjust the image's height and width manually. For example, you might make both height and width 75 percent of the original image to shrink the image while keeping it in proportion.

Copying and Pasting an Object

Sometimes you've got a great picture or chart on one slide that you want to revisit on a later slide. And that's when copying and pasting comes in handy. Copying and pasting is a piece of cake for any kind of object: text, a shape, an image—whatever. Just right-click the object. As Figure 3.11 shows, this brings up a context menu. Select Copy Object or Cut Object (as you prefer). Then move to the slide where you want to paste the object (just click it in the left pane), right-click there, and select Paste Object. Presto! The copied object magically appears.

Deleting an Object

There are two ways to delete an object from a slide (an object can be a text box, shape, image, and so on):

• Click the object to select it. From the toolbar above the editing pane, select Actions, Delete Object.
• Right-click the object and select Delete Object from the context menu (see Figure 3.11).

However you delete an object, Show doesn't ask for confirmation before it removes the object from the slide. If you delete an object by mistake, click the toolbar's Undo button to bring it back.

Duplicating a Slide

You can copy a slide to use it as the basis for a new slide or to emphasize a point by returning to it later in a presentation. To make an exact copy of an existing slide, you've got a couple options:

• In the left slide sorter pane (or in Sorter View), right-click the slide and choose Duplicate from the context menu. Show inserts the duplicate immediately after the original, but you can move it (see upcoming section) to wherever you want.
• Copy the slide and then paste it where you want it. Right-click the slide you want. If you click the slide in the editing pane, select Copy Slide; if you click it in the slide sorter, select Copy. Next, choose the slide that will come before the copy you're pasting in. In the toolbar above the slide editor, click Actions, Paste Slide.

Moving a Slide

Some people like to rearrange the living room furniture; others like to try out different arrangements of slides in their presentations. But you won't strain your back moving a Show slide: In the slide sort pane (or Sorter View), select the slide you want to move. Holding down the mouse button, drag the slide to its new location. Let go of the button to drop it in place. (When you do, Zoho automatically changes the slide numbers to reflect the new arrangement.)

Adding Notes

Presentation notes keep you on your toes and let you make sure you're not forgetting anything. During a presentation, the notes are visible only to the presenter, so nobody will think you're cheating.

In the slide editor's Normal view, just below the current slide, is a pane where you can type notes for your presentation. Just click inside the text box and type away.

Changing Your Presentation's Theme

When you create a new presentation, you choose a theme for it. But you're not stuck with that theme forever. You might decide, for example, that you want a lighter background color or that pink flowers don't really work with your gloomy sales report.

You change a presentation's theme using the pane on the right. Click the Themes tab (shown in Figure 3.12). From the drop-down list of themes, choose a category. Show displays all the themes in that category. Click one to apply it to the presentation. Show applies the theme and saves the presentation.

Deleting a Slide

If there's a slide that's just not working out, you can delete it from the presentation with a mere click or two. Right-click the slide. From the context menu, choose Delete Slide (if you're in the slide editor) or Delete (if you're in the Sorter View or pane). Show doesn't ask you to confirm the deletion—it just gets rid of the slide.

Saving a Presentation

Whether you're just taking a break or the presentation is finished, you want to be sure to save your work. You can save a copy right in Show, or you can export it using a range of file formats.

Saving a Copy

To save a copy, click the upper-left Save button. Then choose one of these options:

• Save—This saves a version of this presentation as it exists at this moment in time.
• Save As—Choose this option to save a duplicate version of the presentation with a new name. When you choose Save As, Show asks you to name the duplicate presentation. Give the copy a name and then click OK.

Exporting a Presentation

When you export a presentation, you save a version of it in a format that works with other programs, such as Microsoft PowerPoint or OpenOffice.org Impress. This can be helpful when you want to snazz up a presentation with some animation, or when you want to print out paper copies of your slides as a handout.

When you're ready to export a presentation, click the Export button in the top row of buttons above the slide editor. That opens a menu from which you choose the type of file you want to export:

• HTML—For display on the Web
• PPT—To open, edit, and save in Microsoft PowerPoint
• PPS—For PowerPoint or the PowerPoint Viewer (Microsoft's presentation viewer)
• ODP—To open, edit, and save in OpenOffice.org Impress
• PDF—To view or print the file using Adobe Acrobat

If you select HTML as the file type, your presentation opens in a new browser window. If you want to save it, do so using your web browser. (The process will vary, depending on your browser.)

If you select any of the other file types, your computer asks you where you want to save the file; you can open it using the appropriate program or save it to your computer's hard drive.

Deleting a Presentation

If you're done with a presentation and you know you'll never use it again, you can delete it from Show. The easiest way to do this is to open the Show home page, which lists all your presentations. Find the presentation you want to delete and click its Trash link. This moves it to the Trashed Presentations section of Show. (You can get it back if you want; click the Trashed Presentations link, find the banished presentation, and click Restore.)

To delete a presentation completely, you need to dump it from Trashed Presentations. On the Zoho Show home page, click the Trashed Presentations link, find the presentation you're getting rid of, and click its Delete Forever link. Saying farewell forever is serious stuff, so Show asks if you're sure. Click Delete to confirm, and the presentation is gone for good.