Inspiration Handout

Creating a Graphic Organizer

In Inspiration, you think and learn visually. Inspiration provides you with the tools that let you create a picture of your ideas or concepts in the form of a diagram. It also provides an integrated outlining environment for you to develop your ideas into organized written documents.

Toolbar at top:

Outline – Will turn your visual graph into outline form.

Rapid Fire – You can use the RapidFire tool when you want to add a series of connected ideas to a symbol. The advantage of using the RapidFire tool is that you can concentrate on adding the ideas, rather than creating symbols one at a time. Each symbol you add is automatically linked to the symbol you start with.

Create – You can add a new symbol to your graph. A symbol palette floats on the workspace. This is the palette. You see other symbols you may use by clicking on the arrows. To change a symbol, you just select it and then click on the new symbol to change it.

If you want to create a new symbol that is not connected to the graphic organizer you are already creating, just click on the work area where you want it. A crosshair will appear. Then click on the new symbol and it will appear. It can be sized on the corners.

Link – Links will link two symbols together. This button can be used in several ways. If a symbol is already selected a line will appear. Now just lick on the symbol you want to link to and the new link line will appear. If no symbol is selected then click on the symbol you want and then on the second symbol you want then the link line will appear.

Arrange – This will arrange the symbols and links into many different arrangements. See Graphic.

Hyperlink - You can insert hyperlinks that connect the file you are currently working on to other files. You can link to Inspiration documents, documents created in other programs, and files such as video clips, sound clips, and graphics.

Notes - A note box appears as a list of topics with no indentations. Notes text you enter appears below each topic, just as it does in Outline View. As you write and edit in Notes List View, you can change the text style, and you can print your document.

Toolbar at bottom:

Zoom - Allows you to zoom in and out the graphic organizer.

Formatting toolbar

This will change style of font.

This will change size of font.

These buttons will make fonts bold, italics, underlined or change the color.

Changes colors of symbol.

Sets default colors for whole graphic organizer.

Allows you to draw other objects

Nudges or moves symbols