Haiku Deck Tutorial

November 5th, 2012 by

We’ve tried to make Haiku Deck as simple and intuitive to use as possible, but here are some tips to help you get started. If there’s a question we didn’t answer, just drop us a line at team@haikudeck.com or let us know in the comments! We’re always here to help.

Note: The Haiku Deck Tutorial has been revised for Haiku Deck 2.0. If you haven’t updated your app yet, you can do that here.

Get Started

To start creating amazing presentations and stories with Haiku Deck, first create an account by tapping ACCOUNT at bottom left. You can sign in with Facebook, Twitter, or an email address and password. Important: Be sure to make a note of how you sign in, because you’ll want to sign in to our website the same way to take advantage of all the awesome features available online.

Create and Title a Haiku Deck

To create a deck, tap the white “+” at the bottom center of your screen. Type a title to get started. (Tip: You can change the title of your deck when you publish it, or at any time from the Main screen–just press and hold anywhere in the title until the cursor appears.)

Haiku Deck Tutorial: Add or change your title from the main screen

Add or change your title from the main screen.

Choose a Theme

Once you’ve given your deck a title, tap RETURN to enter Edit Mode. At the top of your screen, you’ll see the THEME handle. Pull it down and swipe left or right to scroll through the options, then tap to apply a theme. Each theme gives your deck a unique look through font, text size, and color palette, as well as an optional image filter you can adjust with the toggle on the right.

Haiku Deck Tutorial: Choosing a theme in Haiku Deck

Choosing a theme in Haiku Deck

Tip: Haiku Deck includes five free themes, and you can purchase new ones (individually or as a collection) right from the app by tapping the green $ in top right corner of any unlocked theme.

Create and Work With Slides

To create your first slide, just tap and start typing your text. Click the “+” in the lower right corner to add new slides. On the left, you’ll see a panel with three icons you can use to edit text, images, and slide layouts.

  • Tap the orange TEXT icon to add or edit your slide text. You can select either a classic one- or two-line text slide or a bulleted or numbered list.
Haik Deck Tutorial: Using the built-in keyword image search

Haiku Deck’s built-in keyword image search

  • Tap the green LAYOUT icon to adjust how your text will be arranged on the slide.
Haiku Deck Tutorial: Adjusting text layout

Selecting a text layout option

At the bottom of your screen is the Slide Tray, which displays all of your slides in the order they’ll appear in your final presentation. To make edits to a slide, simply tap it. To delete a slide, tap the white x in the top right corner. To change the order, tap and hold a slide, then move it left or right.

Preview, Save, and Share

To preview your final deck, tap the PLAY button in the top right corner. Swipe right or left to advance or go back. To return to Edit Mode, tap the screen, then tap the pencil icon in the top right corner.

When you’re all set, save your work to the web by tapping SHARE from the Main Screen or the arrow SHARE icon that appears in the top right corner in PLAY mode, or toward the bottom left in EDIT mode. You’ll also be prompted to save if you return to the Main Screen before publishing. Publishing your work to the web ensures you can view your deck from any web-enabled device and unlocks many important features of Haiku Deck. You can easily control who can view your deck from either the app or the website.

Once your deck is published, sign in to the Haiku Deck website (the same way you signed in to the app) to view it in MY GALLERY. (Tip: If it’s not showing up, try this.) From there you can add notes, see how many people have viewed your deck, download a beautiful PDF of your deck and notes that you can use for a handout, or easily embed your deck on a blog or website. You can also set your story free by sharing to your favorite social networks or easily upload it to Slideshare.

More Haiku Deck Help

Once you’ve mastered the Haiku Deck Tutorial, check out our power tips for image searching, incorporating video, or making lists. And if you need a little inspiration, take a spin through our Featured and Popular Galleries. You can also tap GALLERY right from the Main Screen in the app! Once you have a gallery-ready Haiku Deck, email it to gallery@haikudeck.com, or tweet it with the hashtag #hdgallery.

Now….time to set your story free!

  • macslavko

    My selected theme won′t apply?

    • mamatweeta

      Which theme are you trying to apply? Sorry you’re having trouble.

  • macslavko

    Is there any Undo available?

    • mamatweeta

      Not yet, but that’s something we’ll consider for a future release. Thanks for the suggestion!

  • Simon

    How can I change the size of the text I write, or write more than one line? (If much text it becomes automatically so small).

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Hi Simon! We’ve built the app to automatically adjust the size based on the amount of text. It definitely works best when you limit the amount of text—and it’s usually good creative practice, too, to keep your message focused! Our next release will offer more flexibility in terms of how much text you can include.

      • Simon

        Ok, thanks! It’s a good app, hope it will continue to be developed!

  • DBurr

    where do you find the notes version

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      You can access it from the Haiku Deck website! Here’s how: http://blog.haikudeck.com/?p=854
      Please let us know if you have more questions; we’re here to help.

  • James

    How do I emal my powerpoint

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Hi James—See above; we had a glitch with republishing existing decks that should be fixed today or tomorrow. Thanks so much for your patience!

  • James

    Very time I try to share my PowerPoint it says there is an error

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Hi James-Really sorry about that. We discovered this yesterday and have already written up a fix; we’re just waiting for it to go live in Apple. Should be in the next day or so. Apologies for the blip!

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      James, the fix is now live in the app store. Try updating the app to version 2.1, and you should be all set. Thanks so much for your patience!

  • Bronz

    Hello
    is there anyway to create a textless slide as I only want one word per slide for the project I am working on. Also can you tell me hoe to turn of the auto cap for text. Thank you

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Absolutely–you can just choose to leave one or more of the text fields blank, and they will not appear at all in your finished deck.

      You can turn auto-capitalization off from the Main Screen, Settings wheel in lower right corner.

  • http://twitter.com/timj0nes Tim Jones

    Hi, im struggling to share a deck from the new app. Error message & try later advice repeatedly. Is there a way i can export to ppt another way? Thanks.

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Hi Tim–Really sorry about the hiccup. Yesterday we identified a problem with republishing existing decks, and we already have a fix written up—just waiting for the update to post through Apple. You should be able to share with no problem within the next day or so.

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Hi again! The fix is now posted in the app store. Try updating to version 2.1 and everything should work just fine now. Sorry for the blip; we really appreciate your patience! (And, of course, let us know if this doesn’t do the trick.)

  • Raul

    Everytime I try to write any text, it goes right up and out of sight, and I can’t see what I’m writing anymore.

    • Adam

      Raul, are you using a Bluetooth keyboard? We have a known bug, the fix for which has been submitted to Apple for review. It will be released ASAP. in the meantime, disconnect your keyboard and the problem should go away. Thanks for using Haiku Deck. Reach us next time at support@haikudeck.com.

  • Pamela hubert

    When I share the deck I just created only 2 of the 13 slides are transmitted

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Hi Pamela–Sorry for the glitch. We discovered a problem with republishing existing decks yesterday, and we’ve already submitted a fix to Apple. It should be available in the next day. You should be able to publish new decks just fine in the meantime. Thanks so much for your patience!

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Pamela, the fix is now posted in the app store. Try updating your app to 2.1 and then try again! Sorry for the inconvenience, but it should be smooth sailing now.

  • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

    If you’ve been having issues publishing a deck you created before, be sure to grab the latest and greatest version from iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/haiku-deck/id536328724?mt=8

    Thanks so much for your patience! And if you need help, drop us a line any time: support (at) haikudeck (dot) com.

  • Knit2n

    This app has a nice feel, and I wish it success. There are a few things that come to mind from my first exploration of the online help: 1. Add a search feature. 2. How do you put music in a deck? 3. I wish there was a “back” button while browsing.

    • http://www.facebook.com/lois.zachary.1 Lois Zachary

      Me too. A back button would be very useful

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Hi, and thanks for the note! We will have a search feature for the online help very soon. And the back button is a great idea; we’ll add that to our list! We’ve seen some users adding music by exporting their decks to PPT/Keynote, then iMovie (or similar). We’ll try to cover this on our blog soon!

  • Jo

    I love this app – good job! I do wish I could choose more than one pic without having to re-enter my search word, though, and then add my text in after. Is there already a way to do this?

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Hi Jo! Thanks for the note. This is an improvement we’d like to build….stay tuned and thanks for your patience!

  • http://twitter.com/jasonjurotich Jason Jurotich

    Hello, Haiku Deck. For me (and I suppose others) to be able to use this a lot more efficiently we need a few more things:
    1. Integration with Google Drive. I need to be able to add things from GDrive because i don’t save things anywhere else. I am almost positive you will get more users if you do this.
    2. Ability to add video (Youtube or GDrive) and audio or mp3 (could also be from GDrive so as not to have to save anything on your server).

    I understand the present philosophy of “keeping it simple” but there are times where we need to add other things, and that you can treat those things as if they were a photo (reshaping, moving, etc.).

    i am a professor, and I would start promoting your app with my 300 some students that I have, but these things need to be added first. I appreciate your comprehension. Thx.

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Hi Jason, and thanks for the note! We really appreciate your feedback.

      1. You actually can import right from Google Drive now! Just click the camera icon, then select Google Drive to pull in your own images, screenshots, etc. And if you Export to PPT/KEYNOTE, the app will generate an email you can send to yourself. Just press and hold on the file attachment to save that right to Google Drive.

      2. We are looking at video & audio integration. In the meantime, here are a couple of workarounds we recently posted on our blog: http://blog.haikudeck.com/?p=1109,

  • Nick

    How do I print a deck easily?

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Hi Nick! From the website, you could click DOWNLOAD, then PDF, and print that. Or from the app, you could choose PPT/KEYNOTE and create an export file that you could print.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jaysmomma2010 Heather Thrapp

    Is there a way to type several lines of text without creating a bulleted list or maybe two or three list levels? I am a student in English Education and create a lot of presentations for mini-lesson workshops for several different classes. Often, I need to have a few slides with some resource information or backgroud information which leads up to current lesson presentation. I want to put a list of three or four website description/title with the link below it and/or story titles with one or two line descriptions, simply to explain where I am at in the larger unit plan that a particular lesson I am presenting comes from. If I try to do this in Haiku Deck, then I end up having to create seperate slides for each website/book, or I end up with one of two probelms: bulleted lists with two many bullets or text that is too small to read if I leave it all together. As this is simply background information to give other student teachers an idea of where a single lesson (say a reader-response lesson) fits into a larger unit and what story/website resouces I have found useful in planning for an entire Unit Plan as well. However, I don’t want to give each background resource a seperate slide, because this seems to misplace emphasis for the presentation. On the same hand, I don’t want the list to look goofy with titles & descriptions/website links all bulleted at the same level or have text that is too small to read.

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Hi Heather! This sounds like a GREAT case to add Notes to your Haiku Deck. You can keep the text streamlined, and then sign in to the website to add more detailed notes, including clickable URLs. Here’s an article that might be helpful: http://blog.haikudeck.com/why-your-haiku-deck-needs-notes/

  • Andra

    Is there a way to add more than one picture? If not, I think that would be a good thing to add.

    • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

      Hi Andra! Do you mean include slides with more than one picture, or be able to select multiple pictures for multiple slides at a time? (Both good ideas and things we’ve thought about).

      • Andra

        I was thinking about adding more pictures to one slide. So there is no way to do that?

        • http://twitter.com/HaikuDeck Haiku Deck

          Not from right in the app—but you could use a different program to create a side-by-side image, take a screenshot, and import that image to Haiku Deck. It’s something we’ll consider for the future, though!

  • Pingback: Technology | Pearltrees