What is Microsoft Sway? (all you must know)

What is Microsoft Sway? (all you must know)

If you’re familiar with the products offered by Microsoft, you’ve likely heard of Microsoft Sway. However, if you’re reading this, you probably don’t know what it is, or you just want to learn more about the program.

If this sounds like you, you’ve come to the right place! Read on to learn more about Microsoft Sway, including how to use it, who can use it, and other facts.

What is Microsoft Sway in 2022?

Microsoft Sway is a presentation program that lets you build slideshows, newsletters, resumes, blogs, and more, and helps you make your work look professional in 2022. Sway has a variety of templates to choose from to start your project, but you’re not limited to these. You can also share your MS Sway projects online with friends or colleagues.

If you want to learn more about Microsoft Sway, keep reading, like what it’s used for, why you might want to use it, and more!

What exactly is Microsoft Sway?

If you’re proficient with Microsoft and the programs it provides, you’re probably familiar with MS Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, and there are actually many more.

Maybe you’ve even heard of MS Sway, a presentation-making application that you can access for free at sway.office.com as long as users have a Microsoft account.

If you have a Microsoft 365 subscription, you can expect more features from the program than the free version.

PowerPoint is very similar to Sway, the main difference being that MS PowerPoint is centered around the slideshow format, while Sway is more diverse.

The program can be used to easily build professional-looking slideshows, newsletters, resumes, blogs, and more.

With Sway, if you have a specific design, you can choose to start from scratch.

Plus, you can upload pictures, documents, and YouTube videos, and Sway will automatically design something for you.

Microsoft Sway is also hosted entirely online, making it easy to access and share your finished work anywhere you have an Internet connection.

How to use Microsoft Sway?

To start your project on Microsoft Sway, you need to choose one of the 3 options included in the application, including the following:

• New – Allows you to create a Sway project from scratch.
• “Start with a Topic” – will let you search for a specific topic and create an outline for your presentation based on that topic.
• “Start with Document” – You will be prompted to upload a personal document, which MS Sway will then turn into a draft presentation for you to adjust to your liking.

Likewise, you can click on one of the made templates to get an instant outline to help you create projects more easily.

Sway’s interface has two main components, the Storyline Tab and the Design Tab.

Storylines are dashboards for organizing presentation content, while design is where you can see what your presentation actually looks like.

Simply put, you create a presentation in the Storyline tab, and people viewing it will see it in the Design tab.

Storylines break down individual paragraphs, images, and videos into “cards” so you can easily organize them and move them around at will.

Present as if the story you are trying to convey is your presentation.

The Design tab will make these changes as you move items around in the storyline. When you’re ready to share your MS Sway project, just click the Play button.

You can really play around with it and see what works best for you and what you want to do.

When you’re sure you’ve finished your masterpiece and are ready for others to see it, all you need to do is hit the “Share” button and send it to whoever you want.

Why does Microsoft need a PowerPoint replacement?

Microsoft felt the need to create an alternative to its PowerPoint program that was easier to use and offered more narrative equipment than simply showing slides within a slideshow.

This program is of course called MS Sway, which is a more lightweight pure cloud storytelling app.

Who can use Microsoft Sway?

MS Sway can be used by anyone who has signed up for a free Microsoft account or has a Microsoft 365 subscription.

Note that there are some differences between the free edition and Microsoft 365 edition.

However, these are mostly administrative features such as password protection or the ability to remove the footer, which isn’t necessary for everyone.

There are also some differences in how much content can fit in a single Sway project.

If you’re just a regular Sway user, the free version should suffice for your needs.

What can you create with Microsoft Sway?

You can use Microsoft Sway to create many different content, including reports, presentations, newsletters, personal stories, photo albums, visual travel reports, and more.

Your imagination is basically the limit when it comes to what you can do with Sway.

However, if you’re out of ideas, you can get inspired by looking at and interacting with Sways created by others.

Once logged into Sway, you will be able to browse featured content under the heading “Get inspired by featured Sways”.

Then, to start your own creation, you can choose one of the featured templates and start using the program and learn how to use it.

To learn more, you can also read our posts on Is Microsoft Teams Secure, Is Microsoft Authenticator Secure, and What Is Microsoft DirectX.

in conclusion

Microsoft Sway is a newer, friendlier alternative to Microsoft PowerPoint, a cloud-based application that brings a fresh perspective to PowerPoint.

With this program, you can easily create a newsletter, resume or presentation once you understand how the program works.