Some IBM® Lotus® Symphony
TM features are the same, whether you use them in a document, a presentation, or a spreadsheet. With toolbars, for example, you can customize default settings to show or hide specific toolbars or buttons on toolbars. You can add sound or video, or OLE objects, to your work. There are other cool features, such as using clip art checking product updates automatically. Want to see how these features work? These demos will help you to get started.
Welcome
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Table 1. Welcome
Step | Caption |
1.1 | Some Lotus Symphony features are the same, whether you use them in a document, a presentation, or a spreadsheet. With toolbars, for example, you can customize default settings to show or hide specific toolbars or buttons on toolbars. You can add sound or video, or OLE objects, to your work. There are other cool features, such as checking product updates automatically. Want to see how these features work? These demos will help you to get started.
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2010 |
Customizing toolbars
Table 2. Customizing toolbars
Step | Caption |
2.1 | Suppose that we want to hide the Forms toolbar in Lotus Symphony Documents. First, we go to Preferences. |
2.2 | Now we select Toolbar > Categories and the right side of the window displays the Categories options. |
2.3 | Let's make sure the categories of toolbars we see are those for Symphony Documents and not for Spreadsheets or Presentations. Notice all the toolbars in Lotus Symphony Documents are selected by default. |
2.4 | Now, let's hide the Forms toolbar by clearing the check box. If you want to show the toolbar again, just select the check box. |
| 2.5 | Sometimes we might want to show or hide specific buttons in a toolbar. For example, you might always need some buttons to edit text properties, while you need other buttons less often. |
| 2.6 | We'll display the preferences for Toolbar Commands and make selections. |
| 2.7 | If we select “Context Sensitive - Text Object Bar” from the list of toolbars, we can then select the “Font Name” and “Font Size” check boxes to show those buttons, and clear the Justified check box to hide that one. |
| 2.8 | We can also change the layout of the toolbar by rearranging the dividers. |
| 2.9 | Notice you can preview the setting changes. After you've completed all the selections, don't forget to apply them. |
Inserting audio and video files
Table 3. Inserting audio and video files
You can also enrich the information in your documents by inserting audio and video clips. In this demo we'll insert a video file in our presentation.
Step | Caption |
3.1 | From the Lotus Symphony home page, we'll click Create a new Presentation. |
3.2 | We click Create > Video or Sound from the main menu. There are several types of audio and video files supported in your operating system, which you can see in the Files of type list.. |
3.3 | We'll select the video file you want to insert. We'll make sure that the Insert as a link check box is selected because this option keeps the size of your file manageable. |
3.4 | After we insert our file, the image is displayed in the middle of the window. We'll resize it a little. |
| 3.5 | Let's click the Play button on the Media Playback toolbar that displayed when you added the video. |
Using the clip art gallery
Table 4. Using the clip art gallery
The clip art gallery contains many new graphics. It sorts the graphics into several categories so that you can easily view the the ones that have a specific theme. You can also add graphics that you've stored on your computer to the gallery if you want to use them without browsing for the files each time.
We'll start with a new presentation.
Step | Caption |
4.1 | Let's open the Clip Art panel. |
4.2 | We'll add a graphic by selecting it from the corresponding category and dragging it to the slide. |
4.3 | So let's add a new folder to the gallery and rename the category. |
4.4 | Now the graphics in this folder on your computer are all added to the gallery to be used anytime! |
Inserting an OLE object
Table 5. Inserting an OLE object
A document can contain all kinds of objects: text, animations, sound, motion video, controls, and so on. In Lotus Symphony, you can use Object Linking and Embedding, or OLE, to visually display data from other programs.
In this demo, we'll insert an OLE object into a Lotus Symphony document.
We'll start with a new document.
Step | Caption |
5.1 | There are two ways of inserting an OLE object. You can either create a new object or insert an object from an existing file. |
5.2 | In our demo we'll insert an existing object by clicking Create > OLE Object. Let's select the Link to file check box so that the OLE object isn't inserted as an embedded object. |
5.3 | We can see that the file is inserted and can easily view the contents in the document. |
5.4 | Now when you update the original spreadsheet, it will also be updated in the document. |
Getting updates automatically
Table 6. Getting updates automatically
Lotus Symphony can automatically check for product version updates. By default, Lotus Symphony checks for updates once a quarter and prompts a reminder once a week if updates are available.
Let's change the settings in the Preferences window to check more frequently.
Step | Caption |
6.1 | We click File > Preference > Symphony > Updates. |
6.2 | Make sure that the Check for Lotus Symphony updates check box is selected. Then set the two options under it to Once a month. Keep the Check for plug-in updates settings unchanged. |
6.3 | The address for the server that you get your updates from is set by default. You can configure it by expanding Advanced options. |
6.4 | When we click OK, we save the settings. |
Thank you
Step: 7.1
Caption: Thank you for watching this video. For more information, please visit the Lotus Symphony wiki.
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