How to Make Flash Cards in Powerpoint
Microsoft Powerpoint, with its individual slide format and simple click and type interface, is perfect for creating flash cards. Each flash card will fit nicely on one slide, and the slideshow view will allow a student to step through the cards at their own pace without distracting menus or buttons. The PowerPoint animation commands can be used to bring an answer to the slide with a click or keystroke.
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Instructions
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Enter the Problems and Answers
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1
Open Powerpoint and enter a title and subtitle (if desired) for the flash card series by clicking in the template boxes and typing.
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2
Click the Slide Themes button at the top of the screen to customize the look of your cards before you begin creating them.
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3
Click the "New Slide" button in the toolbar at the top of the screen and click the Slide Layout button below the toolbar.
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4
Choose a slide layout style that fits the type of flash card you want to create. A slide with one large text box is a good choice.
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5
Click and drag the text boxes on the slide to new positions if needed. The cursor must be a cross-hairs icon, and you need to click on the outline of the object to select and drag it.
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6
Click to enter the flash card text into the slide text box, and if the "Formatting Palette" is not already showing, select it from the "View" menu. Use this palette to change the font, size, color and alignment of the text you entered.
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7
Enter the answer to the flash card in a separate text box from the question with the "Insert-->Text Box" command. This will enable you to animate the answer if you wish.
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8
Repeat steps 3 through 7 to create the rest of the flash cards. For a shortcut, use the "Insert-->Duplicate Slide" command if most of the slide formats will be identical.
Animate the Answers
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Place the answer text box object on the slide where you want it to end up after the animation takes place.
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10
Click the edge of the answer object to select it and choose "Custom Animation" from the "Slideshow" or "View" menu (or "Animations" tab-->Custom Animation in Powerpoint 2007).
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11
Click the "Add Entrance Effect" icon at the top of the Animation palette and choose how you want the answer to appear on the flash card. The example shown here is a "Slow Crawl" effect, from the right.
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12
Make sure the "Start" option is set for "On Click." This will enable the flash card viewer to decide when to let the answer appear. To make it clear to the users, you might want to add a little text at the bottom of the card (or maybe on the title card) that instructs them to click the mouse (or press the arrow key) to check their answer.
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13
Place multiple animations on the same page by inserting additional text boxes for questions and answers and repeating the animation steps 2 through 4. The animations will play in sequence, with a click of the mouse or key press required to activate each one.
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14
Test the animations by clicking the "Play" button (blue or black triangle) in the Custom Animation palette.
View and Test the Flash Cards
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15
Click the "Slide Show View" button located at the bottom left of the Powerpoint screen to try out your flash cards. The slides will fill the screen so there are no distractions while viewing.
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16
Use the arrow keys or click the mouse to move between cards and activate the animated answers.
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17
Press the escape (ESC) key to exit at any time during the slideshow. After the last slide, the display will automatically return to normal Powerpoint view.
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18
Save your Powerpoint file with the "File" menu-->"Save" command or" Office" menu -->"Save" in Powerpoint 2007.
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Tips & Warnings
Save your Powerpoint file as a Powerpoint Show (.ppsx, for PP 2007 and 2008) or Powerpoint 97-2004 Show (.pps) file and it will open as a slide show when launched.
Pressing the space bar will also move between slides and activate animations.
If you save a Powerpoint file as a movie, the animations will not play.
Resources
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Comments
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Chris Johnson
Dec 04, 2010
If you have Power-Point then I am to also assume that you have MS-Word as well. To make this a faster process do the following. Open Word and type in your questions and answers, one question on each line and one answer on each line. Separate by pressing "Enter" after each Question before typing in the Answer. Do this for as many as you have. Save this document, as you normally would and close out word. Open Power Point and select "Open File". Go to your folder, where you saved to Word file, and make sure you change the type of file format you are looking for, change it to "ALL FORMATS". Select the word document you saved and open it in Power Point. There you go. I made a 250 slide PP Presentation for flashcards in under 10min. Good Luck. Play with the themes and select all the slides to arrange the format for center viewing. This saves so much time when you need to study and you...
