Christmas is here and there is cheerful atmosphere everywhere. Some of you may have been setting about cards of Christmas greetings for friends and family afar. Fed up with commercial Christmas paper and flash cards flooded over the Internet and in traditional stores? Look for a refreshing alternative to the stale Xmas card routine? You can try to DIY a multimedia greeting card with MS PowerPoint. The sturdy authoring tool can not only help you create compelling presentations, but inspire you to make a special Christmas card that will surprise your recipient.

As to creation of a Christmas multimedia card, PowerPoint enables you to personalize its colors and design, include your own music and videos and photos of your family or friend, compose a matching message for the recipient, and get fun in showing your computer genius.

Another advantage of PowerPoint Christmas card is that you can reuse your work by saving it as a template. The Christmas card template you’ve created can be used a million of times to base up new holiday cards.

In this article, I will show you an example of the procedure of Christmas card slideshow using PowerPoint 2003 and 2010. Later, you can take it as reference to your own Christmas card production.

How to create a Christmas card with PowerPoint?

Seven simple steps will guarantee you a Christmas card slideshow and template.

Step 1: Set up slide layout of your Christmas card

a. Create a new PowerPoint presentation for the Christmas card and rename it as you wish. On the File menu, click Page Setup to adjust the page size. Change the Width and Height to 7.5, and click OK. b. On the Format menu, click Slide Layout, and choose the Blank layout from the Content Layouts list. c. On the Slide Show menu, click Slide Transition. In the Slide Transition pane, click a transition. In the Advance slide section, click the Automatically after box. Change the delay time to 00:03, and close the Slide Transition pane.

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, click the Design ribbon to reach the Page Setup option. Under Home, click the dropdown list icon (the black del) of New Slide to choose the slide layout as Blank. Go directly to the Transition ribbon to choose a transition for your Christmas card. In the Timing grid, check the box before Automatically after. Adjust the time to 00:03:00.

Step 2: Create the Christmas card cover with clip art or related background picture

On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and click Clip Art. In the Clip Art task pane, in the Search text box, type a subject like: Christmas.

Click Search. Double-click any Christmas image. The image appears on the blank slide. If you fail to find a right clip art image, you can import another picture from your local drive. On the Format menu, click Picture. In the Format Picture dialog box, select the Size tab, change Height to 5, and click OK. Drag the image to center the tree on the slide.

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, shift to the Insert ribbon, in the Images tab, click Clip Art or Picture to repeat the above procedures.  

Step 3: Insert a new slide for the Christmas card

On the Insert menu, click New Slide. On the Format menu, click Slide Layout, and choose the Blank layout from the Content Layouts list.

On the Slide Show menu, point to Slide Transition. In the Slide Transition pane, click a transition.

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, go to Home -> Slides -> New Slide to add another blank theme. Repeat the Transition settings in Step 1.

Step 4: Add in a movie/video to enhance your Christmas card

Click Insert -> Movies and Sounds -> Movie from File to input a video from your local computer. The movie appears on the blank slide.

On the Format menu, click Picture. In the Format Picture dialog box, select the Size tab, change Height to 2.5, and click OK. Position the movie on the slide.

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, select Insert -> Media -> Video -> Video from File to choose a video that you want to use for the Christmas card. If you use a 2007 version, click here to see How to insert a video into PowerPoint 2007?

Step 5: Type in your text message for the Christmas card

On the Insert menu, click Text Box. Click and drag the text box to below the movie. In the text box, type your Christmas greeting, for example: Merry Christmas to Bill Clinton! Drag the text box by the resize handles to resize the greeting. Center and format the text.

Repeat the Insert procedure above to draw a sub text box below the first. This time, type some individual messages like: Wish you a warm and joy filled Christmas and a promising New Year! Drag the text box to resize the message. Format the text.

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, follow Insert -> Text -> Text Box to draw a Horizontal or Vertical text box where you can enter your Christmas greetings for the recipient.

Step 6: Add in Mood Music for your Christmas card

Go to Insert -> Insert Movies and Sounds -> Sound from File to select a song or sound track for the Christmas card. Select to play the sound automatically across the greeting card. The sound icon, a speaker, appears on the slide. Adjust the sound icon to minimum.

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, it goes this way: click Insert -> Media -> Audio -> Audio from File.

Step 7: Save the Christmas card as a template for reuse

On the File menu, click Save As. On the Save as type drop-down list at the bottom of the Save As dialog box, select Design Template (*.pot).

Note: In PowerPoint 2010, select File -> Save As and  save it as PowerPoint Template (*.potx).

Step 8: Send the Christmas multimedia card to your family or friend

Now a peppy PowerPoint Christmas card is done, you can zip it and email to friends and family.

Note: If the recipient of the Christmas card has an older version of PowerPoint, some of the card’s features, such as animation, will be lost. Also, if he/she uses a different OS like Mac, or even does not have PowerPoint installed, he/she will not be able to view the Christmas card.

To avoid that problem and make a smoother distribution of your Christmas card, you can convert it from PowerPoint to video using conversion apps like Moyea PPT to Video Converter. Then, you can get web-friendly video Christmas card in a few minutes. Upload it to YouTube, Facebook, and send the embed code to your family and friend in distance.

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With Christmas that is approaching you will have to think about the cards that you will send to your family and friends. You may have even already sent them some form of a photo card in the past. This article will cover 7 different ideas for a photo Christmas card this year.

If you want to go for a dramatic difference, you can choose to use black and white photo. Your digital camera has probably a black and white function; otherwise, you may choose to use a photo editing software as most of them come with this function. If you do not know how to use such features, the store where your cards are made will certainly provide this service at no extra cost.

People generally tend to just put their children in these photos. Why not make it a whole family thing and put everyone in there! When you are out and about doing your holiday family tradition things, make sure to pack along some accessories such as a Santa hat, this way whether you are are looking at the Christmas lights, picking pinecones or on a hay ride, you can get a snapshot of the family to use.

If you do not want to make a basic posed picture, make use of the natural environment of your children such a nice picture while they are playing in the snow, decorating the Christmas tree or the Nativity scene, or have them bring an item they particularly like such as their Teddy Bear.

You may even want to go with the scrapbooking idea... It is really easy to do: you just have to choose some of your photos and combine them on a sheet of holiday scrapbook paper and have that made as your greeting card. Card making stores can help you to make this as they provide many holiday themes available.

A great idea to decorate a standard greeting card is by going the hobby store and pick up small scrapbooking Christmas decorations, you will only have to put them on the card. You can even personalize the design of the card by adding details such as items that your friend likes or collects: cows, bears, etc. Simply buy a package of these things and put one of them on each corner of the photo.

Several Web based companies provide Christmas cards for an affordable price; however they get more expensive when you improve the design of the card. Many of these companies let you design the card that match exactly your expectations. These companies also have their own photo editing software that can help you to touch up your photos.

These ideas can help you to make your Christmas card sending more particular.

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The most effective way for sending greetings to your family, friends, customer and colleagues alike on Occasion of Christmas is via Christmas Card. You can convey your emotions and feelings to all your loved ones in your very own way, giving final touch of elegance to the celebration of special occasions in their life.

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A Christmas card is a greeting card sent as part of the traditional celebration, As it conveys range of sentiments related to the Christmas season between people. A Christmas card is generally commercially designed and purchased for the occasion. The content of the design might relate directly to the Christmas narrative with depictions of the Nativity of Jesus, or have Christian symbols such as the Star of Bethlehem or a white dove representing both the Holy Spirit and Peace.

Several Christmas cards are secular and show Christmas traditions such as Santa Claus, objects associated with Christmas such as candles, holly and baubles, and Christmastime activities such as shopping and partying, or other aspects of the season such as the snow and wildlife of the northern winter.

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Copyright (c) 2008 Mike Adams

Christmas should be a wonderful time for your family. But with the fast pace of modern life, it sometimes seems like you just run back and forth between working and Christmas shopping with little opportunity to spend any special time with your family. Often life is so busy you might feel lucky even to get Christmas day off from work!

Making time for family Christmas crafts projects is a great way to make the holidays magical. Making your own Christmas cards can be particularly fun, and it's really quite simple.

There are basically two ways to make your own Christmas cards: the old-fashioned way and the modern way.

In the old fashioned way, you can use construction paper, crayons, paints, and glue to create hand-made Christmas cards. In the modern way, you can create the card on a computer and print it out. You can even buy paper specially designed for printing greeting cards at most office supply stores or online.

Surprisingly, both ways share a great deal in common. After all, a Christmas card is fairly simple. You just need a nice picture for the front and some short, nice text for the inside and perhaps for the cover.

I recommend picking the picture first. The colors in the picture will give you a better idea of what color of paper to use if you are not using white paper. Often the picture you choose will give you the perfect idea for the text.

You can get the pictures from old Christmas cards or from magazines and paste them onto the front of the card. Or your family can draw or paint the pictures. You can even find Christmas graphics online. Whether you are pasting a picture onto construction paper, painting or drawing it, or copying and pasting on a computer screen, a great picture goes a long way to creating a beautiful card. It sets the tone of the card. Do you want a funny card? A religious card? The picture sets the stage.

For the text, you can either write your own greeting or you can borrow a couple lines from Christmas stories like, "Twas The Night Before Christmas." If it's a religious card, you can even borrow a line or two from scriptures. You can have text on the cover of the card with the graphic or you can just have a picture on the front and only have text inside the card. It's totally your choice.

Fun for young and old alike, making your own Christmas cards is easy and it doesn't take long. But the fun in making them and the smile on the face of the person who opens the card will be remembered forever. Whether making your own cards or doing other family Christmas crafts projects, the key is that these family activities create fond memories that last a lifetime.

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