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Creating presentations
You can use FirstClass to create a slide presentation. This is essentially a specialized view of a document. All slides in the presentation are part of one document, divided by page breaks.
Caution
When you are creating your presentation, be sure to do it at the lowest screen resolution that you expect it to be viewed in. If you do not do this, you may find that your content does not fit properly in the presentation slides.
To create a presentation:
1 Open the container where you want to store the presentation.
2 Choose File > New > New Presentation.
A presentation form opens in presentation display mode. It uses the default text formatting for presentations, as specified at "Presentation text" in your content edit preferences.
Note
You can also create a document using any document form and show it as a presentation. You can edit it in presentation display mode by choosing View > Content > Presentation View. This will not change your default text formatting to the presentation defaults.
3 Add and format the presentation content.
You can add a background picture as for any other document. You will find pictures designed as presentation backgrounds in FirstClass' Images folder. The background picture you add is displayed on every slide.
Insert a page break whenever you want to start a new slide. To move between slides, press Page Down or Page Up.
4 Identify your presentation.
Update the "Name" and "Subject" fields in the presentation envelope to name the presentation and give it a subject.
Your changes are saved automatically when you close the presentation.
Showing presentations
When you show a presentation, content is displayed one slide at a time, maximized to the full size of your screen. You cannot edit content at this time.
To show a presentation:
1 Open the presentation.
2 Choose View > Show Presentation.
3 Press Page Down to move from slide to slide.
To return to the previous slide, press Page Up. To return to the first slide, press Home. To go to the last slide, press End.
4 Press Esc to end the presentation.
The presentation reverts to the display mode in which it started.
Note
You can also navigate and end the presentation using the shortcut menu.
Distributing presentations
You can give users who cannot access the container where a presentation is stored a copy of the presentation. To do this, address a message to the users, or to a conference that they can access, then attach the presentation just as you would any other document.
You can also create a message and format it as a presentation. Recipients can view this presentation just as they can any other presentation.
Providing user guidance
If you chose New Presentation to create your presentation, the presentation has a special icon. If you closed the presentation in presentation view, that is the view in which it will next open. Those are the only clues to users that this is a presentation.
You may want to include the word "presentation" in the name or subject of your presentation, to imply that users should show this as a presentation.
You can also tell users in your message that they should show this as a presentation, and recommend the screen resolution at which your presentation looks best.
Tip
You can force the presentation to open immediately in show mode by saving it in presentation mode, then protecting it.
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