Slides

Overview

Google Slides is an online slide show program that allows users to create presentations effortlessly in minutes and which is integrated with the Google Drive app as the central storage system. Like all Google applications, the easiest way to open the App is through the Google home page (www.google.com). In the top right hand corner, there will be an icon that I refer to as the Google waffle because it has three rows of three cubes resembling a waffle. This is a quick way to access any native Google app. It does not work for apps that are not created by Google.

Opening Google Slides

Clicking on the Google waffle, opens up a list of Google Apps that are available on your user account. If the app that you are looking for does not show up, it is possible that it is on a secondary page. Click on More at the bottom of the selection. Additional apps will display.

It is possible to rearrange the order of the Apps in a fashion that is more convenient for your usage. Simply drag the icon (click and hold on it with your mouse/trackpad) and move it to the desired spot. It is possible to move apps from the lower section to the upper section.

Open Google Slides by clicking on the icon. Another way to navigate to Google Slides is by typing the website in directly (slides.google.com). It is also possible to bookmark the Slides homepage as a shortcut.

Google Slides Start Screen

The Docs start screen will resemble the photo above (Google has modified this visually recently). On the left hand corner, there are three horizontal bars. Clicking this will allow you to quickly navigate to other Google Apps such as sheets, slides and forms. Next to that is the Docs search bar which allows you to quickly find a previously created document simply by typing in the name or a keyword that might be contained in the document. On the right hand side of the screen is the Google Waffle similar to the Google home page. Two icons over from that is your Google Account avatar identifying the account that is being used. Below that are a variety of templates that can be used to create documents for various purposes. Clicking on the up and down arrows next to Template Gallery opens up additional templates. To create a blank document from scratch, click on the Blank document that has the '+' symbol on it. Below this section are a list of recent documents that have been opened (not shown). This list can be further filtered by owner or by action last performed and files can be portrayed in a list or a grid view.

Start by opening a new document.

Slides Tool Bar

The Google Slides app features both a menu bar as well as a toolbar. Below is a description of the various tools in the toolbar. The items in the menu bar will be covered in a later section. The tool bar is meant to allow access to frequently used tools whereas the menu bar is meant for more complex tasks.

To find out what a particular tool does, you can always hover the mouse cursor over the icon - after a short period of time, a ToolTip will appear with the name of the tool.

From left to right, the tools are: add new slide (with a pull down menu for selecting a specific slide layout), undo, redo, print, paint format, zoom, select, text box, image, (with pull down menu to select source), shape and line (pull down menus to select type), add comment, change keyboard type, change background, layout (pull down to select type), theme, and transition.

Above the tool bar is the Chat button. This only appears if the document is being accessed by someone else. In this example, the avatar of the user that is online is shown. Clicking the Chat button opens up a Chat Box in which participants can type notes to each other. These notes do not affect the slide presentation but serve as a way to communicate to one another. Next to the chat button is the Present button to start the presentation. Clicking the pull down menu allows you to select presentation options: present with notes, present from the beginning or present on another screen. Next to that are two important features of all Google apps - the Comments button and the Share button. The comments button is typically used as a collaborative tool when there are multiple authors of a document. It allows a user to communicate an idea to other collaborators located in a different location when they are not online at the same time. The share button is an easy way to invite others to collaborate on a document. Go to the Share section to learn more about how to use this feature that is common to all Google apps.

Slides Menu Bar

The menu bar sits above the tool bar and consists of ten different menus that when clicked will open up further actions. An 11th item is the help menu which allows users to find solutions to different issues or to quickly search for a feature. Instead of needing to know which menu bar contains the feature, simply type in the name of the feature in the menu search bar (under help). The ten menus are File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Slide, Arrange, Tools, Table and Add-Ons. A more thorough description of each menu is listed below.

File Menu

The first item in the Menu Bar is the File menu. All of the items in this section relate to document access through the Google Drive. Google has recently revamped their file menu and the tools and their order are for the most part harmonized between the various Google Suite tools (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms).

The first command is Share which allows multiple users to collaborate on a document either asynchronously or synchronously. If users are synchronously editing a document, you will see their account name appear at the top of the screen in a certain colour. You may also see a coloured cursor that corresponds to their account name appear somewhere in the document and text may appear. This is because Google Slides constantly updates itself and therefore it truly is a collaborative experience even though users may not be in the same location. See Sharing section to learn more.

The next set of commands relate to working on a document and allow you to create a new file (the arrow allows the user to open up a new document, spreadsheet, presentation, form or drawing in a new browser tab), open an existing document, rename the document, import a slide from a different format such as Powerpoint, or create a copy of the document.

The next section deals with exporting options. The file can be downloaded in a variety of different file formats including a Powerpoint presentation (.pptx), an OpenDocument format (.odt), Rich Text Format (.rtf), PDF, plain text (.txt), a .jpg or .png image file or a scalable vector file (svg). The last three options only apply to the current slide that is being viewed. The file can also be emailed as an attachment in an email. As the possibility of multiple versions of a document can exist, Google has provided a tool to preview all of the different versions of the document regardless of whether they were made by you or by a collaborator. Users are able to create a Version History by naming it. This allows them to see all of the changes that have been made in the document's lifetime and possibly restore changes that were made and would otherwise have been lost.

The third section has to do with file management and includes renaming or deleting the file.

The next section relates to making the presentation available to others where it can be published to the web as a link or embedded within a site emailed to collaborators.

The final section is a collection of general document tools such as displaying basic information about the presentation, changing the language for spell checking purposes, page settings and printing the document.

Edit Menu

The next section in the Menu Bar are the Editing commands. In this section, one finds all of the basic commands used regularly in editing a document such as undo, redo, cut, copy, paste, delete, duplicate, select all, select none and find. Most users might not go into this section too often since the shortcuts are fairly universal.

View Menu

The view menu provides options relating to the display of the presentation. The first option presents the slideshow.
The second option customizes animations within the presentation.
The next section allows the user to manipulate some the way in which slides are displayed. In the default view, all of the slides are displayed in thumbnail view on the left hand pane. The current slide that is being edited is displayed on the main screen. The Master view option displays all of the master slides that are being used in the presentation as templates. The master template editor in Google Slides allows you to quickly modify the slides and slide layouts in your presentation. From there, you can edit the master slide, which will affect every slide in the presentation.
The Grid view tool switches the view of all of the slides from a list to a grid. The Zoom option enlarges the view of the current slide. There are several zoom options including Zoom to fit.
Showing rulers and grids provides reference markers for aligning objects
The Snap to option allows placement of objects easily (text, images, tables, etc) by snapping them to set guides or to a virtual grid.
Speaker notes can be toggled on or off
enter full mode where the controls are no longer visible (click esc to exit full screen mode).

Insert Menu

The Insert Menu allows users to import objects such as images, text, videos, shapes, tables, charts, diagrams, word art, or lines into the document. Some options have a submenu as indicated by an arrow that allows further customization of the option. For example, clicking the arrow next to image allows the user to select the source of the image (uploading from computer, search on the web, from Google Drive, Google photos, URL, or taking a picture using the camera).

More advanced objects such as special characters or animation can be set or configured in this menu.

Finally, links, comments, new slides (although there are many easier ways to do this other than go through the menu) or adding Slide numbers, are available in this menu.

Format Menu

The format menu is concerned with all things related to, surprise, formatting! including:

the text in the document. This includes making text bold, italicized, underlined, adding a strikethrough, superscript or subscripts.
alignment, spacing, bulleting or numbering.
tables if they exist
Borders and lines can be added or changed in this section, including line colouring, weight, type, dash or decorations.
If an image or video exists in a slide, further formatting can be made to the image or video from this menu.

The Clear formatting option removes all formatting previously applied. Of course, it is also possible to undo individual formatting by reapplying it. For example, selecting Bold for text that is already bold will remove it.

Slide Menu

The Slide menu is the menu that configures individual slides.

It adds, copies, deletes, skips or moves slides. Skipping slides is an option where it is not necessary to delete a slide but rather removes it temporarily from a presentation to make it shorter.
change the slide background: allows customization of slide background (for example, incorporating a school logo)
apply a specific slide layout: distributes elements of a slide in a pre-determined way
change transitions between slides
the master template editor allows you to quickly modify the slides and slide layouts in your presentation. From there, you can edit the master slide, which will affect every slide in the presentation. I
Change themes inserts a look to all slides based on a template

Arrange Menu

The arrange menu allows manipulation of the following categories, each of which has its own submenu as indicated by an arrow:

Order: If there are multiple objects on a slideshow that overlap, the order in which they appear must be determined. Think of Order like a sandwich. The bread goes on the bottom and is stacked with lettuce, ham, cheese and bacon. However, it is possible to reorder the sandwich so that the bacon goes more in the middle. The Order of objects is important in a presentation because if an object covers or partially covers another object, it may mask it completely. There are four options in the Order menu: send an option backwards, forwards, to the back or to the front.
alignment of multiple selected objects on a page: align the edges of the objects horizontally, vertically or centered
when three or more objects are selected, it is possible to evenly distribute the space between them.
objects can be automatically centered either vertically or horizontally
the orientation of an object can be altered with the rotate command
two or more objects can be grouped or subsequently ungrouped. Grouping objects allows them to be easily moved or enlarged altogether and retains their ratio to one another.

Tools Menu

The Tools Menu provides additional functionality to slides and often sets it apart from other presentation software.

the Spelling tool checks the document for spelling errors.
Explore is a Google tool that identifies keywords on a slide and searches for content on the web
Dictionary opens up Google Dictionary in a side pane and provides definitions of highlighted words
Q&A history: Q&A is a feature that can be activated while presenting. Using a code that is presented on the screen, participants can ask questions that will appear on the presenter's computer screen. This tool shows a list of all questions asked.
Voice type speaker notes: much like in Google Docs, voice typing allows dictation of phrases instead of manually typing them in by keyboard. Although it is possible to use voice typing in many languages, using voice commands is only possible in English. Here is a list of all of the possible commands.
Google Apps Script lets you programmatically create and modify Google Slides presentations. You can use Apps Script to add custom menus, dialogs, and sidebars to Google Slides. You can also integrate Slides with other Google serviceslike Calendar, Drive, and Gmail.
Preferences are minor adjustments or settings that can be made within the Slides App
Accessibility Settings: a new feature within Docs, this provides additional access to those who have visual impairments and allows text to speech functionality and braille support. There is also support for third party screen magnifier software (Mac and ChromeOS only).

Add-ons

Add-ons are additional tools that have been created by third party developers to make Google Slides even more functional. These tools offer functionality beyond what is provided within the app. Most add-ons are free and cover a diverse range of topics. Click on Get add-ons to search the selection. Add-ons can be removed by clicking on Manage add-ons.

Once add-ons have been loaded to Google Slides, they are listed in the menu and can be accessed by clicking on them.

Here is a list of useful Add-ons for Google Slides.

Copyright Free Images Sources

Flickr Creative Commons:

Flickr is an online photo storage service where users can upload and share their images. Many users have opted to make their work available under a creative commons license such that their work can be downloaded and used free of copyright infringement.

Pixabay:

All photos in Pixabay are available for public use and distribution (even for commercial purposes) under the creative commons designation.

Photos for Class:

This website caters to the classroom as all content meets 3 criteria: it is all age appropriate, downloaded content is automatically cited, and all photos are licensed for public use (creative commons).

Foter:

This website is a little different in that it is more of a search engine rather than a repository. It searches various websites and services for creative commons images (reportedly up to 220 million). Each photo comes with an embed code that provides the necessary creative commons attribution for citation purposes.

OpenClipart:

While there are plenty of sites that offer images, this site deals specifically with ClipArt which students love including into their presentations. All ClipArt is free to use on this site.

UnSplash:

One of the pitfalls of images on the internet is the quality of the image (artistic but also resolution). UnSplash prides itself in offering high resolution and beautifully framed photos. All images are free to use.

Google Sites

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