Prologue
In this prologue, you learn about Sway—the cloud-based app that helps you create and share multimedia content on the Web and mobile devices. Topics covered include the following:
• Understanding what you can create with Sway
• Exploring the types of content you can include in a Sway
• Enhancing your Sway with customizable styles
What Is Sway?
Sway (https://sway.com), introduced as a free preview from Microsoft in October 2014, is a web-based app that enables you to create multimedia presentations, called Sways, using any browser on your personal computer (PC), Mac, or tablet. Sway also offers apps for Windows 10, the iPhone, and iPad.
Microsoft refers to Sway as an interactive, web-based canvas. Using a variety of visual tools, you can place images, audio, video, and other content on a Sway storyline. When you’re finished creating, you can make your Sway public or provide a link only to selected people.
Sway does share some similarities with Microsoft PowerPoint, but it’s not just a simplified version of that presentation tool. With PowerPoint, the main focus is to create slides that supplement an in-person or web-based presentation (although its usage has expanded beyond this in recent years). A Sway, on the other hand, offers more flexible formats and is designed to be viewed on the Web without a presenter or narration.
What You Can Create with Sway
Because Sway is a flexible app, you’re in control of the content, layout, and overall appearance of each Sway you create. For example, you can create a slideshow-style Sway or create a Sway that’s a single page (similar to a one-page website). In addition to creating a Sway from scratch, you can also import an existing file. Supported file types include .docx (Word), .pptx (PowerPoint), or .pdf (Portable Document Format).
Although you can create a Sway on your own, Microsoft offers many collaborative features that make it easy to create and edit Sways with other people. For example, you could create a live, group Sway as a classroom activity, as a supplement to a conference or event, or as part of a corporate brainstorming session.
You can create Sways for business, school, or nonprofits—or just for your family and friends. Here’s a brief list of ideas for using Sway:
• Business reports, presentations, and newsletters—Design a Sway highlighting a new product or service and share with customers on your website, Facebook, and Twitter. Or, use Sway to create an internal report compiled from a variety of multimedia sources.
• Classroom projects, presentations, and activities—Working alone or in student groups, create a Sway related to a current area of study to reinforce learning. Alternatively, use Sway to publish interactive reports for parents on student activities or share content related to a school club or project.
• Multimedia content for family and friends—Share a special event, reunion, party, or vacation with a Sway filled with photos, videos, and personal messages.
• Community and nonprofit reports, presentations, and newsletters—Share your organization and its projects with the community, potential sponsors, and the public.
Need Some Sway Inspiration?
Because Sway is a new app, you might need a little inspiration to discover its full potential. Check out the sample Sways from businesses, schools, and nonprofits on the Sway website (https://sway.com). The Sway blog (blogs.office.com/product/sway), Twitter page (www.twitter.com/sway), and Facebook page (www.facebook.com/OfficeSway) also include links to interesting, creative Sways.
Content You Can Include in a Sway
Sway enables you to incorporate a variety of content into your storyline, such as images, audio, video, social media posts, maps, and more. In addition to uploading content from your computer, you can insert content from the following sources:
• OneDrive
• OneNote
• Flickr
• Bing
• PicHit.Me
• YouTube
What’s PicHit.Me?
PicHit.Me (www.pichit.me) is a site you might not be familiar with. It’s a global photo market and Microsoft partner that makes millions of photos available to Microsoft users. You can search the PicHit.Me library from within Sway to find potential pictures to add to your storyline.
On the storyline, you can design your Sway using content cards. These cards include layouts for text, headings, pictures, videos, tweets, and embedded content.
What Can I Embed?
You can embed videos, audio files, images, maps, charts, and documents in Sway. Supported sources include Channel 9, Docs.com, Flickr, GeoGebra, Giphy, Google Maps, Infogr.am, Mixcloud, Office Mix, OneDrive (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF), Sketchfab, SoundCloud, Sway, Vimeo, Vine, and YouTube.
Enhance Your Sway with Customizable Styles
Sway offers a collection of ready-made styles that include coordinated colors, typography, and textures. Optionally, you can customize any style with your own choice of fonts and color palette.
If you’re feeling adventurous, you can let Sway do the styling for you by choosing the Remix! option, which applies a random style. If the remix isn’t to your liking, click the Remix! button again to try out another style.
My Office Sway is designed to get you up and running with Sway as quickly as possible. After reading this prologue, you should have a good idea of what Sway can do and are probably eager to create your own Sways. For now, turn to Chapter 1, “Getting Started with Office Sway,” to begin your adventure with this powerful communication tool.
Sway Enhancements
Be aware that as a web-based app, the Sway features available to you might vary at any given time as Microsoft continues to roll out enhancements.
