2. Hi guys, Jo here witha small tutorial on using Word to write and upload sim stories. I keep seeing people on Boolprop ask about posting stories away from
the exchange. As I answered another one today I thought why not write a tutorial? So I have, and I hope it will be of some use to people who might like to try
Word for making their stories in. I was orgianly inspired to try this by TinaG who wrote a tutorial on using Word. Because I was already somewhat familier
with Word I found it to be quite easy to use. Her tutorial can be found on her forum Desirable Discourses on the tutorial board. I was a quick convert! I’ve
found this to be so much easier then uploading to Photobucket and pasting in HTML lines. Also it’s much safer as I have each upload saved on my computer
as well. I can easily upload any of them to another site if I need to. I’ve also learnt heaps of neat tricks in Word since then that I thought I would put some of
those into this tutorial.
Now there are already tutorials on this around, mostly on Power Point. If you want to give Power Point a go I would advice you try pettech’s tutorial found
here: http://pettech68.livejournal.com/7166.html

3. First things first, this is Word 2007.
If you have a different version it will
probably look different.
The first thing I do is go to Page
Layout and change it to Landscape
view. This is just personal preference
as I find this gives me more room for
my pictures, which are also in
landscape view.

4. Next I change the default margins to my
own custom setting. I do this as I find I
need more room then what is given for my
text to fit. Just click on Custom Margins
down at the end of the list and set it to
however you like. Or you may prefer one
of the set sizes. Fiddle around in Word
with this and other settings to discover
what you prefer. Do something you don’t
like? Doesn’t worry you can undo anything
with the back arrow near the top.

5. The undo
arrow is your
friend. 
I like using some of the effects in Word, one
being changing the page colour. The one
shown here is Olive Green. Simply hover
your mouse over a colour to see what it
looks like.
Try fiddling around with different effects and
settings. If you click on something such as
this Olive green and decide you don’t like it
or do something else you don’t like, you can
easily remove it with the handy undo arrow
near the top of the page.

6. Next I click on fill effects and Texture and I get this window
with a number of background choices. I normally put on a pale
texture as my background. You may prefer to use one of the
colours shown on the previous page or just skip this step
altogether and leave your document white. It’s all up to you.

7. Now I am ready to start inserting my
pictures and writing the text.
To find your pictures click on Insert
and then Picture.

8. Then you will need to navigate to
where your pictures are stored.
Here we have a bunch of simselves
having fun. These I found under
Documents/EA Games/The Sims
2/Neighbourhoods/N004/
Storytelling.
You will need to go to the TS2
neighbourhood that you took your
pictures in.
If you want TS3 pictures they are
found under Electronic Arts inside
the Screenshots folder.
Pictures done in paint can be found
under Pictures.
Once you find the picture you want
simply click on it. Or to insert a few
pictures hold down Ctrl, click on
the ones you want and click insert.
To make my TS2 pictures easier to
find I delete all the thumbnails so I
am only looking through
snapshots. I also move the
snapshots into sub folders on my
desktop after each scene or
rotation.

9. I clicked on the picture
of the simselves on the
bubble blower.
This came up fairly small
as it is simply taken with
the normal game
camera. If you use a
screenshot program or
some other camera you
may get much larger
pictures.
Word now gives us
some options. Mine
comes up highlighted on
Format and sometimes I
choose to do something
to the picture style. You
can add a border or add
some kind of picture
effects. Fiddle with
picture shape, border
and effects and you will
lots of neat things you
can do.
The most useful tool
here I find is Crop. That
allows you to take slices
off any side of the
picture.

10. When you click on crop is puts these black angle pieces
on each corner. You just grab and drag them where
you want them to be. As you drag you will see a line
appear, once you let go that is where it will crop your
picture. Very useful if you took too much background
or someone’s elbow was in the way.

11. Now that this picture has been cropped
it looks rather small. You can change the
size of your pictures by right clicking on
the picture and selecting Size from the
drop down menu. If you do make a small
picture larger it will look grainier. I
usually only make my pictures this small
if I want more than one on a page.

12. Most of the time I only change the height and click
close to resize. When I use Fraps Screenshots the
pictures insert much larger and I have to make the
pictures smaller. Here you can see I made this
small picture 19 cm and it looks very grainy.
If you click Reset your picture will convert to how
it was when you first inserted it into your
document.

13. Did you get
that? Don’t
make me come
over there!
Once you have your picture you can add your text. Well you could add text first and sometimes I do, but most times I add my pictures first and then if I feel
they are not quite right I will swap it for another. Your text can be typed in below here, or it can be inserted into a text box or a speech bubble.
Given my comedy leanings I rather like adding the occasional speech bubble.

14. To add a speech bubble or a simple text box click on Insert
Shapes. The text box I circled in red. There is also a range of
text boxes across to the right as well but I find this one to be
good enough for most things. This is the text box I used here.
If you click on format under picture tools you can take away the
outline, make the box invisible or make it a pretty colour like I
have done here.

15. You can also change the size and type of your text. If you
click on insert and go across to the right there is Word Art
which gives you even more text options.
Once you are happy with your document it’s easy to upload
at a site such as Scribd or Slideshare.
Hover over Save as and choose PDF file. Then click publish
when the window opens.

16. Upload to Scribd by clicking
upload and navigate to where
your saved PDF document is and
click open. It’s similar for
SlideShare.
It may take awhile.

17. Once your document has
finished uploading click on
Share & Embed.
This window will open. For
Live Journal untick the
auto box and put 600 for
the width. Otherwise your
embedded upload will be
show up very small.
Make sure it also says
Slideshow.
You then copy the
embedded text and go
over to your Live Journal.

18. Simply click post and HTML and
paste the embedded text into
the posting area. I never bother
with any other buttons for this.
Down on the Tags line you may
want to put the name of your
story or some other word to
help people find your uploads
as you do more.
Switch to Rich text to check it is
there at the proper size and
click post.
Go check your page and you
should now have a lovely click
over story. 

19. But if Scribd is being a pita upload to Slideshare!
I hope this made sense and was easy to follow. I know I wouldn’t go back to posting any other way. When Scribd works I prefer it as it has the option to copy
and paste text straight from the upload as well as be a click over or scroll down entry. I always upload to both places as some people can see one better than
the other. Now go and be a slave of the exchange no more!