Valentine’s Day is around the corner and anyone who is on a budget can express their love with a free romantic e-Card. Skip paying for any of the online greeting e-Cards which never quite says the right thing and learn to design your own e-Card. These steps will make it easier to create that lovely e-Card to warm your special someone’s heart, one made with love and a greeting they’d cherish this V-day.
To Get Started:
Since e-Cards are basically short, digital, mini-movies. In this example, we will be creating our romantic e-Card with Microsoft PowerPoint. Feel free to experiment and have fun with it!
1. Decide on the Details
Making a romantic e-Card in PowerPoint would be that much easier if you know what you want it to look like. You should answer questions like:
- Do you want an e-Card with moving photos or still photos? A single background image or a couple of images spread across a plain background? For a Valentine’s Day e-Card with a more personal touch, your favorite photos from special events or moments shared can make all the difference.
- As for text greetings, inside jokes or a song lyric you both love make it that much more meaningful. Even tweaked wedding vows can kick make your free e-Card kick any expensive but generic Valentine’s Day greeting card’s butt!
- Decide if you want a talking card and choose the playback music or create a voice-over, which could be you singing a croaky love song you know they’ll appreciate or saying a few sweet words!
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2. Select or Create Images
You can simply can add your personal photos and love icons to create a unique e-Card or you can choose online images. Remember to consider that if you plan not to email the e-Card to your loved one directly but to post it online, say on YouTube… you have to credit anyone for photos or music used that is copyrighted.
3. Begin Your Project
To start your e-Card in a PowerPoint presentation you would need to create a background by:
- Choosing a pre-set background available in PowerPoint. These backgrounds are available in the “Design” tab, simply browse and click the design you like and it will appear on slide
- Format the background by changing the colors, using solid or gradient colors to create a design you like.
- Now you can insert your selected photos and icons to beautify your e-Card using the “Insert” tab.
4. Insert Text and Add Slides
- Choose a text font and decide where you want your texts to go, then begin placing your texts on the card using text boxes which are found on the “Insert” tab.
- Add new slides to create a multiple slide effect for your e-Card. Or stick to on slide, you can make a fun and romantic e-Card with either option.
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5. Make Your Card Move
Animating your e-Card should be the most fun part of this project, where you can use the effects to bring live to your greeting card. If you would rather an e-card that looks like an electronic postcard, then save your single slide as a photo using the File men and change the file format to a .jpg or .jpeg then email it.
A moving e-Card is what most people love about these and if you want to take advantage of that, then you can set animation figures by choosing objects including text or images to animate and clicking on the “Animations” tab. The entrance, emphasis and exit effects that will show you how they affect different objects when you swipe over or click them. You can also create animation path for the different animated items.
6. Make it Sing or Talk
Adding music to your e-Card through the Insert Audio feature in the Insert tab is as simple as choosing a file from your exciting music collection, browsing the web or recording audio directly from PowerPoint that would like to play across the slides of your e-Card.
You can trim the audio using the “Audio Format” tab, you can also select the “Loop Until Stopped” option from the Audio Options menu to repeat music in a loop for short recorded audio.
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7. Finalize and Send Project
Now you have your personalized card, you can check to confirm that the timings for the transitions and your music clip match before you save the project. Playback the e-Card and revise the timings using the options in the “Slideshow” tab. When satisfied with everything save your file and send as a .WMV or .PPS file depending on how you want it to open from email.
Just remember to have fun with it, and if all else fails know that you can always turn to sites like 123greetings and PetZooba and use their free e-Card templates in a pinch. Good luck!
