These are a Few of My Favorite Things 2018, Part 2

In the spirit of the holiday season, here are a few more of my favorite things!

Google Slides

Google Slides are the Swiss army knife of the Google Suite in my opinion. They are so versatile. Slides are so much more than a presentation.

I have almost abandoned Google Docs. Most of my work involves directions - images with arrows and circles added. I love the tools Google Slides and Google Drawing provide. (The tools are the same in both apps.)

If you use Google Docs, you can access these same tools by clicking Insert>Drawing. You have the best of both worlds with the drawing embedded in your Doc for editing!

Page Setup:

By clicking File>Page Setup you can make Slides any size you want. This means you can use Slides for way more than just presentations! I use this feature to create slides that are:

Directions like these in 8.5 X 11" format.
Cool templates like this National Geographic template by Ryan O'Donnell.
Images for TV's in the building. The default Slides setting is the correct one for posting content on the TV!

Download a Slide or Drawing as an image:

Build your Slide or Drawing using imported images, adding shapes, until you like it. Download it as a .jpeg or .png file for use in a presentation, document, blog post, or web page.

Image Tools:

I use the image tools in Google Slides and Drawing a lot just to create the images. Here are the tools I love:

Crop tool:

I love Google Slides Crop tool! It is so easy to select the exact part of the image you want. Click on an image and click the Crop tool.

Mask Tool:

Have you ever seen an image in a shape? The classic cute puppy photo in a heart shape? Did you wonder "How did they do that? It's probably hard." Wrong! Images in a shape are just a few clicks. Select the shape, click the arrow next to the Crop tool, and select the shape you desire:

Format Tool:

As I shared a few weeks ago I have been using the Paint Format tool when creating in Slides. It is a real time saver when you add new text boxes!

I hope these favorites of mine are useful to you!

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