6 years ago / Admin

How to Create Slides for Free in Zoho Show With Free Images

These days it has become the norm for people to sit for hours on end in front of their screens, struggling to make beautiful, eye-catching presentations that can attract attention. They use so much of their time fiddling with controls on PowerPoint and other tools in an effort to design slides that can convey their intended message. The problem is that it takes a lot of time to do this!

If you’re one of these people and you’ve had it with spending so much time, this is sure to be an insightful read for you.

There are very few presentation making softwares out there that are truly user friendly and can produce high quality content. Most of the available softwares take too long to learn how to use and even when you do learn how to use them, creating a simple slide can be a hassle. At times, they also become too clunky and cumbersome to use and this is a huge inconvenience.

Some of the slides you see nowadays from PowerPoint, Keynote and other tools have become too generic. Often the template styles are dull and repetitive. While some of these popular modern-day softwares may work for some people, they are usually quite pricey. This can be a bummer especially if all you want to do is create a simple presentation.

You need not worry about all these anymore! What if I told you there was a simpler, much more convenient option?

Introducing Zoho Show. It is a cloud-based presentation software which allows users to customize their slides with texts, images, graphics, tables, charts, and videos. Elements can also be animated for a more enhanced interactivity. It is free and allows users to create enticing visuals that can capture an audience’s attention. It provides a clean and clutter-free interface design, which lets users’ stories take the center stage. With this tool a user can concentrate on creating compelling content for your presentations with zero distractions.

Zoho Show is easy to use and extremely user friendly. It doesn’t take you much time to get accustomed to using this software. What’s even better is that it doesn’t cost you a dime!

 

Features

  1. Collaboration - Zoho Show has a real-time collaboration feature which allows you to work on slides with your team in real-time collaborators can view, edit and comment on slides and the edits that they make reflect on slides instantly.
  2. Templates - It has a number of customizable templates which you can edit to your liking to create your content.
  3. Search/Filter - This allows you to find other features to customize your content.
  4. Screen sharing - This allows you to share the contents of your slides/screen with another device or multiple devices.
  5. Texts, Images, Icons, Shapes - fundamental elements
  6. Animations and transitions - Components to style graphics
  7. Audio and Video Content - Ability to have rich content

 

Reviews

Pros:

  • Easy to use
  • It doesn’t take a lot of time to learn how to use
  • It has good samples of templates and also very good typographies and color combinations.
  • It allows you to create high quality content
  • User friendly interface
  • It has safe sharing and publishing options

 

Cons:

  • If the internet connection fails, the software crashes
  • Customer support can be sluggish at times
  • Although there are templates, they aren’t many
  • Type of text styles is either limited or is almost similar to each other

 

So how exactly do you create slides in Zoho Show using free images?

Step 1: Sign up

Go to https://www.zoho.com/show/. Once there click on the Get Started Now button.

 

This will open up a dialog box where you enter your email to sign up. Alternatively you can sign up with your Google, Facebook or LinkedIn account. After doing this launch Zoho show.

 

 

Step 2: Begin designing your presentation

Click on New Presentation in the page that appears to begin designing your slides.

 

Step 3: Choose a template and size

Choose an appropriate template and size in the page that appears and then click on it.

You can also choose a Font scheme and color scheme after which you can click on Apply.

 

Step 4: Add slide

Click on the + Slide icon on the top left of your screen to add a new slide.

 

Step 5: Add background

On the right side of your screen is the Background option. Click on the drop down arrow next to Fill and proceed to pick an appropriate color.

 

Step 6: Add image and edit

Go to imagesload.net and search for an appropriate image. Copy the URL of the image and go back to Zoho. In Zoho click on the Image icon. Paste the URL of your image and once the image appears add it onto your slide.

 

After adding your image a bunch of controls will appear on the right side of your screen which you can use to customize your image.

 

Here’s how mine looked like

(https://imagesload.net/view/vegetables-in-a-bowl-transparent-background-png-/AeXDA)

 

Step 7: Add text and edit

Click on the Text option just above your slide. Choose an appropriate format from the ones that appear.

 

After adding the text use the options that appear on the right side of your screen to customize it.

 

 

Step 8: Add other elements

You can proceed to add other elements to your slide such as shapes, tables and charts. All the commands for these are easy to spot.

 

After doing all this you’re basically done creating your slide. You can click on the Play button to preview your presentation. You can also edit the name of your presentation. All these commands are easy to spot owing to how user friendly Zoho is.

 

Click on the File button and choose an option to either Download, Share or Publish your presentation.

 

 

You can download as:

 

And voila! You are done making a slide. Here’s mine:

 

Conclusion

Creating a slide with Zoho Show is extremely easy! It took me under 5 minutes to make just one slide and I did it with no hiccups. Just take your time to play around with the controls so you get accustomed to them before diving in to make your presentations.

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6 years ago / Admin

How to Create an Infographic for Free Using Easil With Free Images

The main purpose of creating an infographic is to present information quickly and clearly. Infographics help improve cognition by utilizing graphics. These graphics enhance a human’s visual system to see patterns and trends. Infographics are easier to understand and grasp than normal texts.

Eye-catching infographics with captivating images go a long way in ensuring people don’t overlook your content. The problem is creating a simple infographic can at times be a hard task. This is especially true if you have no idea of exactly what you’re looking for.

True, there are a number of infographic making tools one can choose from. The issue however, is finding one that works best for you. Most of the available applications are complicated and can be quite cumbersome at times. From Adobe Photoshop to PowerPoint to Adobe InDesign, most of these tools are costly. This can be a huge deterrent especially if you are not looking to spend money to make a simple infographic. With so many applications to choose from, you are more likely to pick one that is cumbersome and clunky. They also take longer to learn using and this especially is a huge put off.

But you need not worry anymore! Introducing Easil. This is an online design making tool that enables you to create your own custom content. It has thousands of ready-made templates to inspire you so you form stunning high-quality infographics that are unique and eye catching. It is free and easy to use and doesn’t require you to have any designing skills to operate.  It doesn’t take you much time to create a simple infographic using Easil! What’s more, all its templates are social media and web compatible which makes it much easier to share your content.

Features

  1. In-built templates - Easil has lots of templates which you can edit and customize to create your content to your liking.
  2. Collaboration - This feature allows you and your team to collaborate in real time.
  3. Drag and drop - This design interface makes Easil extremely user friendly.
  4. Image editing features - touch up images
  5. Web based and web compatible - online accessible anywhere

 

Review

Pros:

  • It’s conveniently user friendly
  • It’s free and the basic plan is affordable
  • It’s easy to use and doesn’t take time to create your content
  • It doesn’t take long to learn how to use
  • It has numerous templates which you can choose from to edit and customize your content
  • It has a “My Workspace” button which allows you to store and find previous designs.

 

Cons:

  • Nimble customer support
  • It lags at times when loading images and formats
  • It’s an online tool so if there is no internet connection or the connection is slow it is troublesome
  • Although you can download your content in JPG and PNG formats, to download in PDF you have to pay.
  • You have to pay for some of the ways to customize your content and this can be a deal breaker.
  • Getting used to text function might be a bit difficult.

 

So how exactly do you create a simple Infographic with Easil using free images?

Step 1: Sign up

Go to www.easil.com. Once you’re on the page click on Start Now-Its Free.

 

 

 

This will open up a page where you should enter your details and then click on Let’s Get Started. Alternatively, you can sign up with your Facebook or Google account.

 

Once you’ve done all this Easil will give you a brief tutorial on how to use the software.

 

Step 2: Choose template size and Create design

Click on the Create Design button on the top left of your screen. Alternatively you can pick an existing template and edit it to your liking.

Once you’ve done so choose a size for your canvas.

 

After clicking on a size, several templates appear which you can choose from or you can also create a blank design.

 

Step 3: Begin designing

After completing the first steps you can now begin designing from the page that appears.

 

Step 4: Add background image

For free images, go to imageslod.net. Once there search for an appropriate photo and download it to your desktop.

Go back to Easil and click on the Images option on the right of your canvas. Click on the Upload Image option and navigate to where you saved your image from imageslod.net.

Once it is uploaded click on the + sign and choose whether to add it as a background or foreground image.

Here is how mine looked like after uploading my image from imageslod.net

(https://imagesload.net/view/man-break-dancing-transparent-background-png/KqAOa)

 

You can resize your image by just clicking on it and dragging its edges.

Step 5: Add Text and edit it

Click on the Text option. You can then upload your own fonts or simply click and drag to add text.

Once you’ve added the text box to your canvas, a bunch of commands to edit your text will appear.

You can also edit the size of your text box by dragging its edges.

 

Step 6: Add other aspects

To add foreground images, just follow step 4.

You can add other aspects to your infographic such as graphics. Click on the Graphics option. You can then proceed to search for a graphic element or choose from the options that appear just below the search bar.

 

 

I’ll start by adding borders. So click on borders and find an appropriate one. Add it to your canvas and resize it. This is how mine looked like after doing this.

 

 

Proceed to add other elements to your infographic as you like.

 

Step 7: Download

Click on the Download icon and choose the format in which you’d like to download your infographic.

Here is how mine looked like:

 

 

Conclusion

It took me less than 10 minutes to make mine. Creating infographics using Easil is easy and doesn’t take much time. The commands are easy to use to customize your content. Just take your time to get a feel of the commands and you’ll be making amazing infographics, even better ones than mine.

 

 

 

 

 

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