subject: Create A Christmas Card With Powerpoint [print this page]

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Christmas is here and there is cheerful atmosphere everywhere. Some of you may have been setting about cards of Christmas greetings for friends and family afar. Fed up with commercial Christmas paper and flash cards flooded over the Internet and in traditional stores? Look for a refreshing alternative to the stale Xmas card routine? You can try to DIY a multimedia greeting card with MS PowerPoint. The sturdy authoring tool can not only help you create compelling presentations, but inspire you to make a special Christmas card that will surprise your recipient.

As to creation of a Christmas multimedia card, PowerPoint enables you to personalize its colors and design, include your own music and videos and photos of your family or friend, compose a matching message for the recipient, and get fun in showing your computer genius.

Another advantage of PowerPoint Christmas card is that you can reuse your work by saving it as a template. The Christmas card template youve created can be used a million of times to base up new holiday cards.

In this article, I will show you an example of the procedure of Christmas card slideshow using PowerPoint 2003 and 2010. Later, you can take it as reference to your own Christmas card production.


How to create a Christmas card with PowerPoint?

Seven simple steps will guarantee you a Christmas card slideshow and template.

Step 1: Set up slide layout of your Christmas card

a. Create a new PowerPoint presentation for the Christmas card and rename it as you wish. On the File menu, click Page Setup to adjust the page size. Change the Width and Height to 7.5, and click OK.

b. On the Format menu, click Slide Layout, and choose the Blank layout from the Content Layouts list.

c. On the Slide Show menu, click Slide Transition. In the Slide Transition pane, click a transition. In the Advance slide section, click the Automatically after box. Change the delay time to 00:03, and close the Slide Transition pane.

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, click the Design ribbon to reach the Page Setup option. Under Home, click the dropdown list icon (the black del) of New Slide to choose the slide layout as Blank. Go directly to the Transition ribbon to choose a transition for your Christmas card. In the Timing grid, check the box before Automatically after. Adjust the time to 00:03:00.

Step 2: Create the Christmas card cover with clip art or related background picture

On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and click Clip Art. In the Clip Art task pane, in the Search text box, type a subject like: Christmas.

Click Search. Double-click any Christmas image. The image appears on the blank slide. If you fail to find a right clip art image, you can import another picture from your local drive. On the Format menu, click Picture. In the Format Picture dialog box, select the Size tab, change Height to 5, and click OK. Drag the image to center the tree on the slide.

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, shift to the Insert ribbon, in the Images tab, click Clip Art or Picture to repeat the above procedures. If you want use Free Christmas PowerPoint Backgrounds for the Christmas card, click here

Step 3: Insert a new slide for the Christmas card

On the Insert menu, click New Slide. On the Format menu, click Slide Layout, and choose the Blank layout from the Content Layouts list.

On the Slide Show menu, point to Slide Transition. In the Slide Transition pane, click a transition.

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, go to Home -> Slides -> New Slide to add another blank theme. Repeat the Transition settings in Step 1.

Step 4: Add in a movie/video to enhance your Christmas card

Click Insert -> Movies and Sounds -> Movie from File to input a video from your local computer. The movie appears on the blank slide.

On the Format menu, click Picture. In the Format Picture dialog box, select the Size tab, change Height to 2.5, and click OK. Position the movie on the slide.

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, select Insert -> Media -> Video -> Video from File to choose a video that you want to use for the Christmas card. If you use a 2007 version, click here to see How to insert a video into PowerPoint 2007?

Step 5: Type in your text message for the Christmas card

On the Insert menu, click Text Box. Click and drag the text box to below the movie. In the text box, type your Christmas greeting, for example: Merry Christmas to Bill Clinton! Drag the text box by the resize handles to resize the greeting. Center and format the text.

Repeat the Insert procedure above to draw a sub text box below the first. This time, type some individual messages like: Wish you a warm and joy filled Christmas and a promising New Year! Drag the text box to resize the message. Format the text.

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, follow Insert -> Text -> Text Box to draw a Horizontal or Vertical text box where you can enter your Christmas greetings for the recipient.

Step 6: Add in Mood Music for your Christmas card

Go to Insert -> Insert Movies and Sounds -> Sound from File to select a song or sound track for the Christmas card. Select to play the sound automatically across the greeting card. The sound icon, a speaker, appears on the slide. Adjust the sound icon to minimum.

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, it goes this way: click Insert -> Media -> Audio -> Audio from File. To play the music across all slides of the Christmas card, explore in How to play a sound throungh the whole PowerPoint presentation

Step 7: Save the Christmas card as a template for reuse

On the File menu, click Save As. On the Save as type drop-down list at the bottom of the Save As dialog box, select Design Template (*.pot).

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, select File -> Save As and save it as PowerPoint Template (*.potx).

Step 8: Send the Christmas multimedia card to your family or friend


Now a peppy PowerPoint Christmas card is done, you can zip it and email to friends and family.

Note: If the recipient of the Christmas card has an older version of PowerPoint, some of the cards features, such as animation, will be lost. Also, if he/she uses a different OS like Mac, or even does not have PowerPoint installed, he/she will not be able to view the Christmas card.

To avoid that problem and make a smoother distribution of your Christmas card, you can convert it from PowerPoint to video using conversion apps like Moyea PPT to Video Converter. Then, you can get web-friendly video Christmas card in a few minutes. Upload it to YouTube, Facebook, and send the embed code to your family and friend in distance.

by: Paulazhang

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