Creating slide styles?

[lynnlamie]

Hi all

Hope everyone's New Year is off to a great start. I downloaded Version 4 and love it so far. But I was wondering if anyone could tell me the procedure for creating my own slide styles? I have a few slides that I have created that I use a lot in my shows - right now I have to open a seperate show (I named it "my templates") to use them. It would be nice if I could just have them there in the slide styles, rather than have multiple shows open.

Side note - how do I make that wonderful gray part in the middle of a frame? Right now I just drop my picture in and manipulate the layers until the picture is behind the frame but in front of every other layer. But there must be an easier way!

Thank you to everyone!

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi,

(1) To your 1st question - Creating Slide Styles

First you must understand that a Style holds a single slide only.If your old templates are made of more than one slide, they are not "suitable" to become Styles in ver. 4. They must remain "Templates"

Supposing that your old template is just one slide, this is the way to create a Style in Producer 4.0:

Go to: Slide Options > Slide Styles > Create
Make sure that you give a meaningful name so that you will be able to tell the difference between all the styles.
You will immediately notice that your new style has joined the list of your styles.
This option will save all the motions and definitions, but no pictures.

If you have a slide which has some pictures that you want to preserve in the Style (for example: a nice background, some nice frames, or other decorations), you need to follow a different procedure:

First you must go into Layers > Layer Settings
In the lower left part of the screen, notice the settings "Replaceable image". For every layer that you want to preserve in the Style, unmark the setting "Replaceable image"
This will ensure that all your nice additions are preserved with the Slide Style.

Afterwards, proceed to create the style as I described in the beginning:
Slide Options > Slide Styles > Create

(2) To your 2nd question regarding the nice gray in frames
I'm not sure I understand the question. Do you mean the transparent "hole" in a picture that makes it into a frame?
Or, do you mean a mask (that can actually be any color) that hides parts of an image in Producer?
I think that the Forum Book can provide the explanations you need. Download the pdf file from the section "Member Created Files" and read about "Masks".

Hope this helps.

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

how do I make that wonderful gray part in the middle of a frame?

Or do you mean the placeholder that's seen in templates and styles? If that's what you mean, then it's automatically created wherever there's a replaceable image.

Barbara

[jdgouk Profile Private message]

Hi,
Jennifer from Choice Backgrounds has two neat video tutorials on YouTube demonstrating how to use PSP 4 to use, create and manage slide styles.

Part 1.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zGuNbKcnO ... re=related

Part 2.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aWqiTvCw_ ... re=related

Regards
Jason

[lynnlamie]

Thanks to everyone who answered my question - you all are so wonderful.

Yes, I was talking about the "placeholder" that gets a picture dropped into it.

[HunnyB Profile Private message]

After reading this thread I took a closer look at my 4.0 --- and I have gone crazy adding my own slide styles.
I am on cloud 9. I love this feature. It is so easy.

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

I am on cloud 9. I love this feature. It is so easy.

Ditto.

Barbara

[jams]

Is there a way to link layers from one style to another? Or, if not, how can I link layers together over a number of slides in a template?

Marcia

[kaylef Profile Private message]

I'm thanking everyone who supplied info on making your own slide styles ...I just read this and it was soo very helpful!

Kay

[BethS]

I am on cloud 9. I love this feature. It is so easy.

Ditto.

Barbara

Ditto ditto. Just got 4.0 yesterday and have extracted a cool style I created for a one-image show about Hobbes, my dog. Now if I can only figure out how to make it available for others to use.

Beth

[trulytango Profile Private message]

Hi Beth - welcome back!

It's easy to share slide styles - PSP 4 has an Export feature, accessed from within the Slide Styles section... just click Manage Styles, highlight the slide style you want to share and then click Export. Choose a location and away you go. Slide Styles are self contained - unlike templates that require the new user to go hunting for any missing files/graphics used etc., everything is contained within the slide style file itself. Once you export a slide style, just zip it up and attach it to an e-mail or upload it to a service such as *MediaFire and provide others with the link. Then at the new user end, the Import button does all the work in getting the style into another's system so it's available to use.

TTFN
Iris

*Edit - if you are sharing slide styles with other Forum members only, then the best thing to do is to send them to Mike Gregg and he'll put them into the Member Created Files section