U3A Digital Tablets Group 24th November 2017

Cards & Photo Calendars DIY photo cards for emailing or print’n’post Pic-Collage runs on both iPad and Android tablets but only in portrait orientation. The free version puts a small ‘trademark’ in the bottom corner and excludes some editing options, but still does plenty.

Zero fold cards: Open Pic-Collage and tap Cards. Allow access to your Photos if asked. (If you prefer, tap Freestyle or tap Grids and adapt the steps given below.)

1. CHOOSE CARD STYLE. Scroll down to Happy Holidays and tap to select a template. 2. SELECT PHOTO. Tap green circle Photos, select a photo and tap the ✔above photos. Drag to adjust in frame. 3. EDIT PHOTO. Double tap the photo and then tap Effects in yellow circle. Explore the options in the pop-up

menu, starting with Effects. Tap Apply for each edit. Tap Done at top of pop-up when all editing finished. 4. ADD TEXT. Tap the + then tap Aa and type your message in the slot above the keyboard. Tap keyboard icon

in lower right and tap to choose font, text colour (black raindrop), colour of text background (white raindrop in black square). Tap ✔ or photo to return to card. You can have several text boxes on the same card. After creation double tap any text box to get the pop-up menu for fonts and colours.

5. RELOCATE TEXT. Tap text box and adjust size and position; it can be dragged over the text of template. Optional: tap + to get another text box or another photo. When finished tap Done at foot of screen and Save to Library. (An advert intrudes but wait and tap the X to dismiss it.) Tap < to see your card(s). You can select and do further editing (e.g. change name) or select and bin it. Tap V above photo to return to library.

6. FINALLY. Select card and use the up-arrow box to print’n’post or email the card for friend to print.

Four-fold cards: The top of the folded card is in the middle of the A4 page so you need to rotate info in quadrants 1 & 4. Put photos in all four quadrants to get a 2x2 grid but later remove surplus photos. 1. SELECT AND ARRANGE PHOTOS: Tap Grids, tap 4 photos then tap ✔ at top of screen. Tap Edit and drag to swap photos, getting correct ones into quadrants 1 and 3. Rotate

photo in quadrant 1. In Grids at foot of screen adjust slider to give border thickness. Double tap a photo to get editing tools and explore effects (not all free). Now you can remove the photos in

quadrants 4 and 2. Tap + and Background to change colour behind all four quadrants then tap ✔. 2. ADD TEXT: Continue as from 4 to 6 above, dragging text to quadrant 3, the inside of your card.

OR iPad people can use Pages, e.g. putting a photo in quadrant 1 and a text box in quadrant 3. Android tablet users may want to try something similar using Google Docs.

Animated e-cards FREE: 123 Greetings you need to ‘register’ but has good annual reminders, no ‘spam’ & wide choice of cards. 1. Google 123 cards to find the website, tap the Occasions tab (Birthday, Thanks, Christmas, etc) and scroll down to view cards. See more cards on next page(s). 2. Tap a card to view it, play and listen then either go back to view more cards or fill out the details. You can write a bit more than just names - e.g. ‘To my dearest Freddy’ or ‘From your loving Grandma’. Fill in the message box, set delivery date, untick the 3 pre-ticked boxes about notifications, then tap preview card. Edit if you wish then tap Send. 3. The app will email you when the card is sent and again when the recipient views it. The recipient is offered the choice of sending a Thank You card. PAID-FOR: e.g. Jacquie Lawson, very high quality and unlimited number of cards per year. Costs £9 for 1 year and £13 for 2 years. If you send many cards this can be cheaper than shop-bought. You may also want to check out Hallmarkecards (note the ‘e’) and there are several others.

DIY Calendar to print Pically is free and runs on both Android tablets and iPads with the same steps but in a different order. It lets you print your photo above a month or other layout. It is very easy to use but only does one month at a time. It seemed a bit flaky on an elderly iPad, better on an elderly Samsung. It is splendid when it all works. • iPads: Open Pically and select a photo from Camera Roll. Tap settings and select Template, then Font. • Tap Preview and edit again or use up-arrow box to print or save - to Acrobat or Pages. Tap Done to finish.

Relaxation Last year Dai Jones introduced us to the charity app freerice.com where answering multiple choice questions provides rice via the World Food Project. It is still available for both iPad and Android tablets.

Happy Christmas Next meeting Friday 26th January 2018. Tables & Spreadsheets