Tuesday Tech Tidbit

Students often ask us in the media center how to print slide show presentations.  Often we discover that the slides have been formatted in a way that makes them look wonky when printing full page.  This is easy to fix ... if the presentation is formatted correctly at the very beginning.   By default, Google presentations are formatted to play in a widescreen format (16:9 ratio).  This size does not correspond to the size of a piece of paper.  Printing a widescreen presentation will squash the slides and will not fill the page.  If you want to make your presentation print-friendly, you must change the page margins before designing your slide show.  Here's how: Changing slide size on desktop computer: Select File > Page setup . Change the page size from widescreen to Custom . Type 11" x 8.5" Changing slide size on iPad: Open Safari. Type the address slides.google.com Start a new presentation. Select  File  >  Page setup . Cha...

Happy Tuesday! After recovering from spine surgery, I'm back with another tech tidbit. Google Workspace recently added a feature to Google Docs that allows users to add drop-down menus to their documents. Drop-down menus are a useful way to keep track of lists.  Let's say, for example, that you are keeping track of your students' progress on a class project.  In a Google Doc, you can generate a list of students.  Next to each name you can insert a drop-down menu that includes a status (progressing, complete, etc.).  As your students progress through the project, you can update the status next to their name on the document. Google includes a couple of pre-selectable drop-down menus.  But of course you can customize your own menus as well.  You can find the drop-down function under the Insert menu.  Or you can prompt one by typing @dropdown in your document.  Drop-down menus only work on the full browser version of Google Docs.  If you try to u...