Hi guys, Jo here witha small tutorial on using Word to write and upload sim stories. I keep seeing people on Boolprop ask about posting stories away from the exchange. As I answered another one today I thought why not write a tutorial? So I have, and I hope it will be of some use to people who might like to try

Word for making their stories in. I was orgianly inspired to try this by TinaG who wrote a tutorial on using Word. Because I was already somewhat familier with Word I found it to be quite easy to use. Her tutorial can be found on her forum Desirable Discourses on the tutorial board. I was a quick convert! I’ve

found this to be so much easier then uploading to Photobucket and pasting in HTML lines. Also it’s much safer as I have each upload saved on my computer as well. I can easily upload any of them to another site if I need to. I’ve also learnt heaps of neat tricks in Word since then that I thought I would put some of

those into this tutorial.

Now there are already tutorials on this around, mostly on Power Point. If you want to give Power Point a go I would advice you try pettech’s tutorial found here: http://pettech68.livejournal.com/7166.html

First things first, this is Word 2007.

If you have a different version it will

probably look different.

The first thing I do is go to Page

Layout and change it to Landscape

view. This is just personal preference

as I find this gives me more room for

my pictures, which are also in

landscape view.

Next I change the default margins to my

own custom setting. I do this as I find I

need more room then what is given for my

text to fit. Just click on Custom Margins

down at the end of the list and set it to

however you like. Or you may prefer one

of the set sizes. Fiddle around in Word

with this and other settings to discover

what you prefer. Do something you don’t

like? Doesn’t worry you can undo anything

with the back arrow near the top.

I like using some of the effects in Word, one

being changing the page colour. The one

shown here is Olive Green. Simply hover

your mouse over a colour to see what it

looks like.

Try fiddling around with different effects and

settings. If you click on something such as

this Olive green and decide you don’t like it

or do something else you don’t like, you can

easily remove it with the handy undo arrow

near the top of the page.

The undo

arrow is your

friend.

Next I click on fill effects and Texture and I get this window

with a number of background choices. I normally put on a pale

texture as my background. You may prefer to use one of the

colours shown on the previous page or just skip this step

altogether and leave your document white. It’s all up to you.

Now I am ready to start inserting my

pictures and writing the text.

To find your pictures click on Insert

and then Picture.

Then you will need to navigate to

where your pictures are stored.

Here we have a bunch of simselves

having fun. These I found under

Documents/EA Games/The Sims

2/Neighbourhoods/N004/

Storytelling.

You will need to go to the TS2

neighbourhood that you took your

pictures in.

If you want TS3 pictures they are

found under Electronic Arts inside

the Screenshots folder.

Pictures done in paint can be found

under Pictures.

Once you find the picture you want

simply click on it. Or to insert a few

pictures hold down Ctrl, click on

the ones you want and click insert.

To make my TS2 pictures easier to

find I delete all the thumbnails so I

am only looking through

snapshots. I also move the

snapshots into sub folders on my

desktop after each scene or

rotation.

I clicked on the picture

of the simselves on the

bubble blower.

This came up fairly small

as it is simply taken with

the normal game

camera. If you use a

screenshot program or

some other camera you

may get much larger

pictures.

Word now gives us

some options. Mine

comes up highlighted on

Format and sometimes I

choose to do something

to the picture style. You

can add a border or add

some kind of picture

effects. Fiddle with

picture shape, border

and effects and you will

lots of neat things you

can do.

The most useful tool

here I find is Crop. That

allows you to take slices

off any side of the

picture.

When you click on crop is puts these black angle pieces

on each corner. You just grab and drag them where

you want them to be. As you drag you will see a line

appear, once you let go that is where it will crop your

picture. Very useful if you took too much background

or someone’s elbow was in the way.

Now that this picture has been cropped

it looks rather small. You can change the

size of your pictures by right clicking on

the picture and selecting Size from the

drop down menu. If you do make a small

picture larger it will look grainier. I

usually only make my pictures this small

if I want more than one on a page.

Most of the time I only change the height and click

close to resize. When I use Fraps Screenshots the

pictures insert much larger and I have to make the

pictures smaller. Here you can see I made this

small picture 19 cm and it looks very grainy.

If you click Reset your picture will convert to how

it was when you first inserted it into your

document.

Once you have your picture you can add your text. Well you could add text first and sometimes I do, but most times I add my pictures first and then if I feel

they are not quite right I will swap it for another. Your text can be typed in below here, or it can be inserted into a text box or a speech bubble.

Given my comedy leanings I rather like adding the occasional speech bubble.

Did you get that? Don’t make me come over there!

To add a speech bubble or a simple text box click on Insert

Shapes. The text box I circled in red. There is also a range of

text boxes across to the right as well but I find this one to be

good enough for most things. This is the text box I used here.

If you click on format under picture tools you can take away the

outline, make the box invisible or make it a pretty colour like I

have done here.

You can also change the size and type of your text. If you click on insert and go across to the right there is Word Art

which gives you even more text options.

Once you are happy with your document it’s easy to upload at a site such as Scribd or Slideshare.

Hover over Save as and choose PDF file. Then click publish when the window opens.

Upload to Scribd by clicking

upload and navigate to where

your saved PDF document is and

click open. It’s similar for

SlideShare.

It may take awhile.

Once your document has

finished uploading click on

Share & Embed.

This window will open. For

Live Journal untick the

auto box and put 600 for

the width. Otherwise your

embedded upload will be

show up very small.

Make sure it also says

Slideshow.

You then copy the

embedded text and go

over to your Live Journal.

Simply click post and HTML and

paste the embedded text into

the posting area. I never bother

with any other buttons for this.

Down on the Tags line you may

want to put the name of your

story or some other word to

help people find your uploads

as you do more.

Switch to Rich text to check it is

there at the proper size and

click post.

Go check your page and you

should now have a lovely click

over story.

But if Scribd is being a pita upload to Slideshare!

I hope this made sense and was easy to follow. I know I wouldn’t go back to posting any other way. When Scribd works I prefer it as it has the option to copy

and paste text straight from the upload as well as be a click over or scroll down entry. I always upload to both places as some people can see one better than

the other. Now go and be a slave of the exchange no more!