Start a new Sway
To get started with Microsoft Sway, go to the Office 365 homepage and select Sway (or select it from the app launcher). Once you sign in, you'll see the Sway dashboard.
You can also go to www.sway.com and login with your Office 365 credentials. From here, you can start a new Sway in a few different ways:
- Create new - build your Sway from scratch
- Start from a topic - Sway will add content for you based on the topic you choose (you'll only see this option if you access Sway from www.sway.com)
- Start from a document - upload content from a Word document or PowerPoint presentation
Select on Create New to get started with your own Sway. Sway uses cards to build content for the digital story. Cards can contain text, images, embedded videos or tweets, and sound recordings. Images and videos can be found online or uploaded from a computer or mobile device. Cards can also be rearranged into any order. New cards can be added by selecting the green plus sign below any existing card.
The first card in a Sway is usually the heading card. A heading card is text with an optional background image. It's a good card for providing sections and structure to the digital story. To add text, click in the card and type in the text. To add an image, select the background icon on the heading card.
Sway will help the creator find an image in a few ways:
- Suggested searches - Sway suggests an image search based on the text in the heading card
- My device - upload images from the device used to create the Sway
- OneDrive - insert images stored on OneDrive
Users can also select the Suggested menu to pick other sources (Bing, Flickr, or Pickit image search). After the first heading card, continue adding other heading cards to give the digital story an outline. Heading cards can have a background, or it can be left off. And don't worry about saving your work; Sway saves as you go.
Tip: As you build and adjust your Sway, it's always good to view the Sway to see what the audience will experience. Select the Design tab to view the Sway as it will appear or select Play to view the Sway in full screen. To return to editing from the play view, select the Edit button at the top of the screen.
Professional journal
Go ahead and start making your own digital story with Sway. You're going to create a Sway that is all about you. Create a new Sway and change the first heading card (or title) to "Who am I?"
Add three more heading cards and use the following text in them: Where do I live? What do I love? What have I learned?
You can add a background image to each one if you want, or you can leave them blank for now. Select the Play button to see how your Sway is looking so far.