Microsoft Sway is a useful and easy-to-use tool for creating charts, reports, or even journals. Like other Office Online tools, you can keep it private or publish it publicly. Sway comes with the Microsoft Office package. However, if you want to use this tool one or twice, you can utilize Sway Online without spending a dollar. Go through this Microsoft Office Sway Online tutorial – it will help you get started with creating reports and presentations.
Microsoft Sway Online tutorial for beginners
1] Insert image from Bing & Flickr
You may need to insert some pictures while creating a report or presentation on Office Sway. Instead of downloading copyrighted images from Google or Bing, you can search for images on Bing or Flickr from the Sway Online interface. No need to download or upload images to add them to a presentation. Also, all the images will be copyright-free. Therefore, select where you need to insert the image > go to Insert tab > choose the source > type keyword and hit enter. Then, drag & drop to display a picture in your document.
2] Add authors or people to edit/view the document
If your document or presentation needs more than one author to be completed, you can invite more people to work together on a single project. That person should have a Microsoft account to edit the presentation on Sway Online. It is very easy to add more authors. First, open a document > and click on the Authors option visible in the top right section. (by default, it should show 1. That means only one person is editing the document.) After clicking on Authors, you will get a unique link. Share the link with the person who wants to edit the document.
3] Embed into a web page
Let’s assume you have created a marketing report that you need to show to everyone through a web page. Instead of sharing a read-only link to the document, you can embed it into a webpage. Although it doesn’t give any option to set a particular dimension, you can add any presentation to any HTML web page. To do so, finish the editing > click on Share button > Get embed code > copy the code and paste it into a webpage. You will get the following options as well,
- Viewers can duplicate this Sway
- Viewers can change the layout of this Sway
Remove the tick to turn them off.
4] Change background image to preset templates
Sway Online provides plenty of templates to make your work smoother, quicker, and more professional. If you have selected a preset template but want to change the background, do follow this trick. First, you need to delete the existing background image. To do so, find out the background image section > click on Details > click on the picture thumbnail > click on the “trash can” button to delete it. Now, you will get Add background option. Click on that > search for an image on Bing or Flickr > use drag and drop to select the image. That’s it!
5] Add Tweet in Sway presentation or resume
We often want to add tweets in a presentation to show something or someone’s quote or some announcement by a company. You can copy the tweet link and paste that into your document, but it won’t show the tweet visually. Therefore, select where you want to show a tweet > go to Insert tab > select Twitter from the source list > search for a tweet or company >select a tweet and use drag & drop to insert it. You can include as many tweets as you want.
For your information, you can use the same trick to include YouTube videos as well.
6] Export to PDF
Sometimes, you might want to export your project to Portable Document Format so you can print it or share it with someone easily. There are two main ways to export a Sway project to PDF. You can use the Print and Export options. Both are available in the online tool, and you can use either option without any problem. To get started, you need to finish editing the presentation first. Then, click on the three-dotted icon and select the Export option.
You can then choose the PDF option to download the storyline in PDF.
7] Change style
Let’s assume that you like to use a template, but you do not like the predefined fonts and color scheme. At such a moment, you can change the style of the storyline in one click. For that, open the editing panel first. Then, click on the Styles option visible in the top-right corner. Then, you need to choose a style and click on it.
8] Insert hyperlink
If you want to insert a hyperlink, it is possible to use any text as an anchor text. For that, you need to double-click on any text to edit it. In the editing panel, you can find an option called Link. You need to click on this option and enter the URL in the Web Link box. At last, click the OK button to save the change.
How do I learn Microsoft Sway?
There are tons of resources where you can learn to use Microsoft Sway. You can also check out the aforementioned tips and tricks to get started with Microsoft Sway. However, all you need to do is have a perspective and practice to create your first project on Microsoft Sway.
How do you use Sway to create a presentation?
It is pretty straightforward to use Sway to create a presentation online. You can get started with a template that Sway offers for every user. You can then edit the background, change text, add hyperlinks, etc. Finally, you can export it to your favorite format.
Plenty of things can be done with Office Sway’s help. I hope these Microsoft Office Sway Online tips and tricks are helpful for you.
You can use Send to Sway add-in to use OneNote to export data to Office Sway.
