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You’ve always been able to import charts and graphs into Haiku Deck, but one of the most exciting features of our new version is the ability to create your own, right in the app. Like everything we do, we worked hard to make it simple, beautiful, and fun. That’s right…fun! No linked spreadsheets, no fussy formatting, no complicated formulas–just magical drag-to-edit and tap controls. Seriously, it’s actually fun.

Here’s a Haiku Deck that includes all three kinds of charts you can create: bar charts, pie charts, and stat charts.

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

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From science labs to homework assignments, innovative teachers, administrators, and students are embracing Haiku Deck for iPads in the classroom. No old school stuff here! Here are a few of our favorite examples.

Illustrating Lessons

Educator and Haiku Deck Guru Danielle Filas used Haiku Deck to enliven her lecture on transitions in essay writing.Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

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Educators and innovators, we invite you to be inspired by Haiku Deck Guru Jeremy Macdonald, a.k.a. “MrMacnology,” an expert on using iPads in the classroom. Jeremy was one of the first Gurus to come on board, and we have loved collaborating with him–especially on Twitter, where he often jumps in to answer customer questions before we can–Hai-5, Jeremy!

About Jeremy

Bio: ESOL & RTI specialist, instructional technology coach at Mills Elementary, team member of the ORVSD, father of 4
Location: Klamath Falls, OR
Guru inspiration: #HaikuEDU hashtag (Let’s make it happen!)
Go-to theme: Tabletop

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

Guest Q&A

Haiku Deck: What inspired you to start using Haiku Deck?

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Someday we plan to add the ability for multiple contributors to collaborate on a single Haiku Deck. But in the meantime, in this special edition of Haiku Deck help, here’s how we recently partnered with Haiku Deck Guru Greg Bamford on a deck he presented at EduCon in Philadelphia.

Outlining in Google Docs

First, Greg created a slide-by-slide outline for his talk in email. Catherine (our VP of Marketing) pulled the outline into a shared Google Doc and fleshed it out with ideas for image direction and suggested keywords for image searching.

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You know that Haiku Deck puts millions of beautiful, free Creative Commons licensed images at your fingertips to grab your audience’s attention and bring your words to life. Our built-in keyword search makes the searching part easy, but selecting the perfect one can take a little creativity (and sometimes patience, grasshopper). If you need a little presentation inspiration, these power tips will help you pick images like a pro.

Keyword Search Tips

1. Don’t limit yourself to literal: There’s no need to get stuck on a specific search word or phrase—try zooming out and exploring different angles in to your topic. For example, if you’re making a “Summer Road Trip” Haiku Deck, try evocative phrases like “highway” or “scenic route” if  ”summer vacation” or “road trip” isn’t doing the trick. (more…)

Note: This post has been updated to reflect the new publishing flow in Haiku Deck 2.0, which affects how you view your deck online to create Notes. If you haven’t updated your app, please be sure to do that here.

As a Haiku Deck user, you’re already on the leading edge of awesomeness. But we all know there’s always a way to be thatmuchmore awesome, so we want to be sure you know about a quick way to take your Haiku Decks to the next level of awesome: add Notes to the web view of your deck.

If you’ve ever felt like you can’t quite fit what you want to say on a Haiku Deck slide, or if you’d like to try a ridiculously easy way to incorporate best practices into your presentations, trust us–you will love this.

3 Reasons to Add Notes to Your Haiku Deck

1. Add Helpful Detail: Haiku Deck focuses your message by limiting the text on each slide, but if more detail or supplemental resources would add value, Notes gives you a place to do it. Here’s an example of a great Haiku Deck made exponentially more awesome with Notes (props to Bill Risser of Phoenix):

Click to view the full Haiku Deck with Notes (and pick up some great Facebook tips, too)

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Hello fellow WordPress fans! We are thrilled to hear how many of you want to share your Haiku Deck creations on your own personal and professional blogs. Decks are a great addition to any blog post, be it to better illustrate a topic or event, to add some visual flare to a project, or just to spread some Haiku Deck love. Embedding any published deck from your gallery on the website is simple. Here’s how:

1. Head to your “My Gallery” page on the Haiku Deck website to see your library of published decks.

2. From there, click on the deck of your choosing. Then find and click the “Embed” icon located underneath the deck.

3. You will then be given two options for embedding, either with an html or WordPress code. You guessed it, the WordPress code is the one you want. All you need to do is to click the “WordPress” tab, copy the url, and paste the code straight into your post.

If you still have issues with embedding decks after following these instructions, you may need to install the Haiku Deck WordPress plugin (which you can find here). If that doesn’t work, then try enabling the oEmbed Discovery plugin.

When you publish your post, the code you pasted will magically transform into your deck for all your viewers to click through and view, just like this one:
Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

Now get blogging!

We love hearing about why and how people are using Haiku Deck, but it’s also incredibly helpful to hear the reasons why they’re not. Some things people are asking for are in the plans (we hear you, Android users!), but other things we can address, well, now. So please read on if you’ve ever thought or heard these words: “Haiku Deck looks cool, but….”

1. “I’m Not Giving a Presentation Anytime Soon.”

Haiku Deck isn’t just for “real” presentations. You can use Haiku Deck to add rich content to your blog, make a memorable list, send a personal message, recap a favorite book, capture sound bites from an event, or just be creative and have fun. We continue to be inspired by all the amazing ways our community is using Haiku Deck every day.

2. “My Presentation Is Super Data Heavy.”

No problem. You can now easily create your own charts and graphs or pull in your own images and screenshots. With Haiku Deck, you can tell the story behind your numbers in a creative and engaging way, and your audience will be sure to give the hard data their full attention. For a little inspiration, be sure to check out our Charts and Graphs Pinterest board.

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Our mission is to make it simple and fun to create beautiful decks you’ll want to share again and again. Now, to make it even easier to set your story free (and to show off your amazing work to a whole new audience), you can seamlessly integrate your Haiku Deck creations with Slideshare.

Publishing Your Haiku Deck to Slideshare

1. Every Haiku Deck you publish generates a web link. You can email the link to yourself right from the app, or log in to our website to view your deck in My Gallery. (Be sure to sign in to the Haiku Deck website the same way you sign in to Haiku Deck on your iPad.)
2. Locate the buttons immediately below your deck, and click “SHARE.”
   
3. Type in your Slideshare username and password information, click “SHARE,” and a PDF of your deck will be automatically uploaded to your Slideshare profile, including attribution for any images you’ve selected using the built-in Creative Commons image search.
4. You can then sign in to Slideshare to customize the description, tags, and category, all of which help your great ideas get discovered. You can even upload an audio track if you like, since great presentations are more than just slides.

We’ve seen some standout Haiku Decks get featured on the Slideshare home page–The Mindmapping Road, by Haiku Deck Guru Stefanos Karagos of Xplain.co, has received more than 6,000 views to date on the site. In fact, earlier this week, two of the top three “Presentations of the Day” were Haiku Decks! As we described recently on the Slideshare blog, we believe this power-packed partnership puts you on the fast track to slide stardom!

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

Have a Haiku Deck that’s been featured on SlideShare? Let us know, and we’ll add it to our “Featured on SlideShare” Pinterest board.

More Haiku Deck Help

Have a question? We’re always here to help! Drop us a line any time at team@haikudeck.com.

The Internet is a bountiful place, full of information, wonder, and an endless supply of heart-melting puppy videos. But what may sometimes seem in short supply are fantastic, free photos to easily–and legally–use for your presentations or blog slideshows.

While Google image search is convenient, it’s up to you to make sure you’re using any images you find lawfully. Flickr is an incredible resource for Creative Commons-licensed images–as long as you apply the correct filters and include proper attribution, which requires a bit of legwork. We believe that Creative Commons images are an incredible cultural treasure trove, and they are central to the Haiku Deck experience. We want to make it as easy as possible to do the right thing AND bring your stories to life with beautiful, free photos that you are free to use, like these:

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

Finding Images

Every image search you perform within Haiku Deck taps into the millions of ready-to-use Creative Commons licensed images that have been posted to Flickr by photographers all over the world. We match keywords from your slide text to tags supplied by the photographers to streamline the process, but you can always search for any word or phrase you like, whether it’s “giant blueberry pancakes” or “bearded pirates.” We’ll even give you a list of related keywords to get your creative juices flowing. (Power tip: We have all found that allowing ourselves a little time to play with keyword searching often reveals fresh inspiration that leads to stronger slides and decks.)

Using the built-in image keyword search

Automatic Attribution

Once you select the perfect image, Haiku Deck magically embeds the image credit, so proper attribution is always just a click away. When you play a Haiku Deck directly from your iPad, tap the screen and click the CC logo in the lower right corner to view the photographer and the license details. You can even Click the “i” button next to the photographer’s name to view their Flickr photostream in a pop-up window.

If you’re viewing a Haiku Deck on the web, look for the CC logo in lower left corner of each slide.

Tap the CC logo for image credit attribution

Click it to reveal a black bar filled with useful links. Click “photo” to view that exact image on the Flickr site, click the photographer’s name to view their photostream, and click the CC icon for more details about the specific license. The image attribution is preserved even if you export your deck to Powerpoint or as a PDF.

The upshot: There’s no need to resort to lackluster clip art, or to act like a bearded pirate, if you want to add visual interest your decks. With the superpowered Haiku Deck image search, finding beautiful free photos has never been easier. And with the knowledge that every photo is licensed through Creative Commons and properly attributed, you can create rock-star slides AND sleep soundly.

P.S. Want to use your own images? You can just as easily upload photos and screenshots straight from your iPad or from the Cloud.