Ditching the wait list, Microsoft shares new Sway app with all
Microsoft yesterday reported that as of now there is no waiting list for Office’s new interactive content presentation app, Sway. A bunch of new features have also been added to the application, which was first released in preview October 1st this year. If you’re not already familiar with Sway it’s basically a tool which enables users on any device to collect videos, photos and text and put together a presentation. Imagine you want to tell your friends or classmates about the life and loves of the Marquis de Sade; using the app all relevant data should be easily aggregated, and subsequently pieced together ready for presentation.
Built-in sources from where to collect material for your presentation includes Facebook, OneDrive, YouTube, Twitter, and your own devices. Store whatever makes up your presentation in the cloud and then tap, clack, drag the material onto your canvas. The ease in which presentations can be put together has been popular so far, according to Microsoft.
“It’s been only 10 weeks since we kicked off Sway Preview, and we’ve already had over one million unique visitors to Sway.com and over 175,000 requests to join, and those numbers grow by thousands daily,” says Microsoft, adding that this is the reason why the waiting list was scrapped. Some examples of what has already been accomplished with the app are available to see, including a backpacking adventure, a trailer for an upcoming book, and a collaborative food parcel project.
Changes and new features have been made to Sway after users reported back to Microsoft using its user voice facility. Some of the new changes are:
Undo and redo: the most asked for feature!
Bullets and numbering: added to the text toolbar at the top of the Storyline.
Editing text on the canvas: ability to edit text by tapping or clicking and selecting Edit.
Reordering sections more easily: reordering sections by using touch or the mouse to grab a section where it says ‘Section’ at the top, or any part of the section border, and then dragging the whole section where you’d like to move it.
Importing a PDF into Sway: from the ‘My Sways’ page, tap or click the Import button and select PDF.
Improvements to the color picker: mores colors in palette options.
Photo credit: garlandcannon via photopin cc
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