| ILLUSTRATED FANFICS |
Most of what I am going to put here concerns illustrating using Powerpoint, which is my medium of
choice.
For using word... coming soon!
1. INSERTING TEXT INTO POWERPOINT
If you are using powerpoint 2003 (and maybe higher?) you can use the powerpoint files I have
uploaded, "as templates". Just download those you want. They differ in the way the text appears. I've
prepped them so that slide transitions times are ready made for you, and the slides will automatically
show for longer if you have lot of text on them, or vice versa.
There's space for you to insert the author's name and the title of the fic too (you may want to add the
name of the person making the slide show, if different from the author?). Here they are:
Powerpoint "template" file, with text appearing all at once - download.
Powerpoint "template" file, with text appearing one letter at a time - download.
I am still trying to find a way around this, but at this point if you are going to convert yourslide show to
flash using ispring, note that the first of these two options may be a problem if you have long
paragraphs: each slide stays on only 5 seconds at most with this option once converted with ispring,
unless you change the transition times manually on those slides.
Two case scenarios:
1) Straight forward but long if you have a lot of text:
- Make more slides: Select a slide on the left, and hit CTRL D as many times as you want slides.
- Copy the text you want to insert (CTRL C), and paste (CTRL V) into the text-boxes.
- To change the text's appearance, see here.
2) The "automated" method. Warnings:
- you'll have to spend about 10 minutes "setting up" a few things the first time you do this.
- it will insert each paragraph on a different slides. And each line of dialog usually constitutes a
paragraph… (of course you can always fix that "by hand" afterwards.
The rest of this page concerns this method.
INSERTING THE TEXT: PRELIMINARY TASKS
Go to:
Tools > Macro > Record new macro
In the window that opens click on the keyboard and type in a simple key combination (I use Alt Q).
Click Assign, Ok and now do the following:
Go to Edit> Find and type: ^l (the funny sign before the l you get from SHIFT 6, and the l is an L
not a one)
Click the Replace tab and type: ^p
Click Replace all, Close
Go to Edit> Find and type: ^p^p (you should still have ^p in the replace tab)
Click Replace all, Close
(and a second time, for safety's sake:)
Go to Edit> Find and type: ^p^p
Click Replace all, Close
Go to Edit > Select all
Format> Styles and formatting, and on the right hand window that opens select Heading 1.
Format > Font > automatic (make sure that you have nothing at all in the space where you could
indicate regular…, clear it if necessary)
(You can apply your favorite font, like Times Newt Romans or whatever it is).
Format > Paragraph > Justified (instead of left or whatever is in the window that appears).
File > save
Click on the button that stops the macro on the small floating tool bar on your screen.
Congratulations: you have just "recorded the macro" you need!
If you make a mistake while recording the macro, go to Tools > macro >macros, select the macro you
just recorded (which may be the only one there if you've never done this before), delete it and start
again. Yeah, I know... But once you're done creating it right, you won't have to do it ever again.
INSERTING THE TEXT: WHAT YOU'LL HAVE TO DO EVERYTIME
Advice: make several copies of the template, and of the word rtf file you created, just in case, and
work with the copies.
1) Open your rtf file if it isn't and the powerpoint template.
2) Copy the text that you want to insert (from wherever it is), and paste it into your word rtf file. Now
type the key combination that you gave to the "macro" you created (in my case, that's ALT Q).
3) Go to the powerpoint file, place your cursor on the blank slide on the left window/panel (you can
open it from View > Normal) and go to: Insert > Slides from Outline, then browse for your word rtf file
and click Insert.
Yep, there is still a little bit of clean up to do. But not much. Here's how:
- Select all the slides that have the text on it. To do this, click on one in the left window/panel, type
CTRL A (that selects them all), hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard, and, in the left window/panel,
click on the first few slides on which you did not insert the text (that deselects them). Go to Format >
Slide layout, and select the slide layout that has the title only, under those called "Text layout".
- Go to Edit > Find and type a period ".", click the replace tab and type a period "." too, and click
"replace all" (if some of your paragraphs end with ? or !, you may want to do the same for those two as
well.)
At this point it should look good. If the text is not justified, click on the "outline" tab on the left of your
screen, Edit > Select All (or use the shortcut CTRL A), Format > Justify (or use the shortcut CTRL J) .
Now you probably want to change the appearance of your text. For that, see here.
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