How to Make a Slide

Start by opening a new Draw document. You can make a Slide Show in Paint, Word Processing, Database, and Spreadsheet as well, but you will find that Draw makes the process of editing easier.

Under the "File" menu select "Page Setup."

Click on the "Landscape" orientation of the paper, then click "OK." Because the monitor you will probably be showing your slide show on is oriented horizontally, you will want to make your "slides" horizontal as well. By the way, the two paper orientations, "Portrait" and "Landscape," are probably not shown with those words. You will see a picture that shows how the picture will look on your page.

Under the "Format" menu select "Document." Then select the number of pages or "slides" you want in your show. Also, set all four margins to zero. After making these changes, click on "OK."

Under the "View" menu select "Page View." This will break your document's pages up so that you can see the page breaks on the screen.

Now, hold down the mouse on the number 100 at the bottom left corner of the screen and drag up to 50%. This will shrink the page down so that you can see the whole slide at one time on your monitor. When you play your slide show it will cover your entire monitor.

Now you are ready to create your "slides."

Create your background.

Since you probably want the consistency of having the same background on every slide, you should go to the "Options" menu and select "Edit Master Page." This will allow you to only have to make the background once. Remember that everything you put in the "Master Page" will show up on every slide. Therefore, you probably don't want to put text there. ClarisWorks will remind you that you are working on the "Master Page" by displaying the words "Master Page" at the bottom of the window. Once you are there, continue on with these directions.

* Click on the rectangle tool just under the paint brush.

* Move the mouse to the upper left corner of the document as far is it will go before it turns back into an arrow. At that point hold down the mouse button and drag it all the way to the bottom right corner. Before you select anything else, you will notice that the rectangle you just made has dark boxes at the corners. these are handles that you can use to resize an object in a drawing program. If you can see them, that means that the document is selected.

* While the rectangle is selected, go to the gradient pop-up menu and drag through and past it to the right. You will see that an outline of the menu goes with the mouse. Drag it all the way to the right side of your screen so that you can use it again without making it pop up. (NOTE: Now that you have the gradients "torn off" you can have some fun editing them. Try double-clicking on one of them and changing the colors and orientations.) Click on the gradient that you want to use and, if your rectangle is still selected, it will be filled with your gradient.

* Go to the "Options" menu and deselect "Edit Master Page" by dragging down to it.

Take note that you are working with layers of items. The more recent the item is to the drawing, the closer its layer will be to the top...that is unless you move layers around. You can do that by using the commands at the top of the "Arrange" menu. NOTE: You will not, however be able