[Libs-Or] Tech-Talk: GRAPHICS - Unlocking Your Creativity with Napkin.ai

Tue Mar 4 14:46:11 PST 2025

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[Graphic image with a flower an d bubbles with a button that says View the Tech Tip Video Here]<https://opiayfbab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001kCh18lTgYYVWqnphKZNauf3RiMkWcArbUgr1tRMRPQKUAkGe3PqD0SZl31fFF_CJgsJrHiuXB0GGFT8Zs-qNcb7QVHOYGTAvzgpUKO-fRa_u5315dSs1OetUVYsLdL8vc_MyiI7b26gXwfVw8XctowwASWld9MClfSv_eHdKdvb-cYSuLuuCQbtqqx7x3WMq9y34mA0TctvnUAeExvEW1Q==&c=zwGjGPnoKX-0IMfiloMLdevZ2pzwZDnsO6dO9WbEJc27OlSAZ2cQeA==&ch=w3e_1PFqjsA1ZxuGB-HBJitPE6j1wR3Hu5DmUrD7aCx2ZUQPKER9mg==>

Photo by julien Tromeur<https://opiayfbab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001kCh18lTgYYVWqnphKZNauf3RiMkWcArbUgr1tRMRPQKUAkGe3PqD0SZl31fFF_CJQxd4lFTk9u_RWkiL2oNB8hVn1qcznTeHwr8q_z1asuxYtCOV2hsGqpu2vnWSaMDQUGRAXm7QAU45ANLaRsf3FBbp5u7OtQ-aQ7n-tHTPLsPA0Nl80n1C-woVqpDz8HP4BrBETA4lmOoaZM9KudUur9cNpMskxwpA8MnPaZ_WpbLiOKDhY-hrn_Su11M9yQJgPN-V-Pebcjf9s6obzxAsRA==&c=zwGjGPnoKX-0IMfiloMLdevZ2pzwZDnsO6dO9WbEJc27OlSAZ2cQeA==&ch=w3e_1PFqjsA1ZxuGB-HBJitPE6j1wR3Hu5DmUrD7aCx2ZUQPKER9mg==> on Unsplash<https://opiayfbab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001kCh18lTgYYVWqnphKZNauf3RiMkWcArbUgr1tRMRPQKUAkGe3PqD0SZl31fFF_CJztL2T9riYKGWArSFjebSGR5V8fE-J-KjLiAKNNF_ycixEcwd7Z5zI6qAxrVNfJbi0XiWmX1FwGSYGlQVy1HwFEQu1F9zBHWpvb2o9Jq4Wz4YoARTVTGm-0dUNqwtEODSk7gxC3sdZQ1upRzEosyqcryg78eUrIGGrMo-sYTc5xnXnUmszhq_cJ4cFZQnxFGwMwZKj7Pj_BZQFWkabXfkmSG4KtMpTBpQGxg_q2V5i3xlb6YhKf0udB9Hg0RHt3H7solmmOrnuOwclhIyCSU2qw==&c=zwGjGPnoKX-0IMfiloMLdevZ2pzwZDnsO6dO9WbEJc27OlSAZ2cQeA==&ch=w3e_1PFqjsA1ZxuGB-HBJitPE6j1wR3Hu5DmUrD7aCx2ZUQPKER9mg==>

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Webinars for You

NOTE: Webinars begin at 3 pm ET / 2 pm CT / 1 pm MT / 12 Noon PT and are one hour long.

March 12: [AI] Empowering Creativity with AI: 3 Tools to Design Stunning Visuals Why attend? You want a boost in your creativeness.

March 26: [COMMUNICATE] Unlock the Secret to Effective Communication with the Tech-Talk "Magic Form" Why attend? You want to create more focused and effective letters, email notes, presentations.

April 9: [SOCIAL MEDIA] Exploring Bluesky: The Next-Generation Social Media Platform Why attend? Learn more about this new "X" competitor.

April 23: [EXCEL] How to Edit Charts Like a Pro - Basic Techniques Why attend: You use charts in Excel but want to learn more about customizing.

View Webinars and Register Here<https://opiayfbab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001kCh18lTgYYVWqnphKZNauf3RiMkWcArbUgr1tRMRPQKUAkGe3PqD0WRuUDwzmtR5RbGvB8BsxT06oebOdiS1GSE3T4CTh61OiHTcGT5W8tzOye0_m5u8IaWjyLa6w1WG6u415rJbCM79J5ZCL7I4moI1c6rq66wP-gD4Zo0O2D8=&c=zwGjGPnoKX-0IMfiloMLdevZ2pzwZDnsO6dO9WbEJc27OlSAZ2cQeA==&ch=w3e_1PFqjsA1ZxuGB-HBJitPE6j1wR3Hu5DmUrD7aCx2ZUQPKER9mg==>

Artificial Intelligence - Unlocking Your Creativity with Napkin.ai

Intermediate

Have you ever worked on a PowerPoint presentation and needed to create a visual to make a set of statistics more understandable? Maybe you need a way for some plain text to come alive in a document or flyer? Or you'd like to create an Infographic for a social media post.

Sure, there are features in PowerPoint or Excel to create charts and graphs, but the pre-determined layouts can get a bit stale.

[Logo displaying a stylized black arrow icon next to the word Napkin in bold letters]

We discovered a new AI platform called Napkin.AI that is designed to turn your words into pictures. You simply type or paste in some text and using artificial intelligence it will analyze the content and create visuals like flow charts, diagrams and other graphics that you can download.

For example, here are a few ways you can use it:

1. Create a graphic for an article, blog post or report.

We pasted in the text of a short article on "5 Ways to Keep Your Inbox Empty" and it gave several different visual representations, including this one. Not only did Napkin.ai take the sub-head text from the article, but summarized the content for the graphic and created icons for each main point.

[Infographic titled Strategies for an Organized Inbox with tips showing Two-Minute Rule Regular Check-Ins Email Management Tools Folders and Labels Unsubscribe]

2. Build a chart or graph based on statistics.

We pasted in some stats on the "most borrowed library books based on the genre" and in the image below you see what Napkin.ai produced.

[Flowchart of library borrowing trends by genre]

3. Create a visual for a project or event planning timeline.

This example is for an upcoming story hour outlining the tasks and steps before the event.

[Flowchart titled Event Planning Timeline A Structured Approach detailing tasks from 8 weeks before to the event day]

You get the picture! There are so many different scenarios where an image can help the reader visualize the text that goes along with it.

NOTE: Currently Napkin.ai is free to use (still in beta testing) so set up an account right away to give it a try.

[App interface featuring a pie chart and text]
How to Get Started with Napkin.ai

Go to Napkin.ai<https://opiayfbab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001kCh18lTgYYVWqnphKZNauf3RiMkWcArbUgr1tRMRPQKUAkGe3PqD0SZl31fFF_CJgMpskiUJ8Z12VS4QNr-Og0863ZrpIDKDbSoq7ac7vt9SveNh7b27bULAcVU7n7Mv10fAGenWY9td9MsjJFMk5Q==&c=zwGjGPnoKX-0IMfiloMLdevZ2pzwZDnsO6dO9WbEJc27OlSAZ2cQeA==&ch=w3e_1PFqjsA1ZxuGB-HBJitPE6j1wR3Hu5DmUrD7aCx2ZUQPKER9mg==> to sign up for your free account (only available on desktop computers, not on mobile devices or tablets.)

·     First, compose your text in a Word Doc, PowerPoint, Notes app … (or you can have Napkin.ai help you with this in the next step using their "AI" text feature).

[Screenshot showing a menu with a  New Napkin button highlighted alongside options for Draft with AI and Blank Napkin]
·     In your Napkin.ai account, click the +New Napkin button in the upper left corner. You will be prompted to either 1) Draft with AI or 2) open a Blank Napkin.

·     If you're using the AI feature, follow the steps and enter a prompt for it to generate text.

·     Or paste in your text for a blank Napkin.

·     Now, highlight the text and click the small blue Generate Visual button that will appear to the left of the highlighted area to start the creation process.

·     After a few seconds, a list of visuals generated from your text will display on the left part of the screen. Scroll through the options, then choose a style by clicking on it.

[Flowchart showing Library Borrowing Trends by Genre]

TIP: You can highlight ALL of your text, or parts of it. For example, you might have an article with five tips, and you want an image for each one.

·     Paste in the whole article and then highlight only one section before clicking the blue Generate Visuals icon.

·     In the image below, we highlighted tip #4 and it gave us a great graphic for that section of the article.

[Infographic titled Unsubscribe from Unwanted Newsletters with tips for managing email subscriptions effectively]

Make Image Adjustments

After you select an image type, and click on it, you can make changes if needed.

Click on any part of the image and new options will appear depending on the type of design: change Font, Bold, Spacing, Color, as well as change any of the design elements and text.

[A waterfall with different colrs showing a webinar titled Empowering Creativity with AI]

Register Here<https://opiayfbab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001kCh18lTgYYVWqnphKZNauf3RiMkWcArbUgr1tRMRPQKUAkGe3PqD0WRuUDwzmtR5RbGvB8BsxT06oebOdiS1GSE3T4CTh61OiHTcGT5W8tzOye0_m5u8IaWjyLa6w1WG6u415rJbCM79J5ZCL7I4moI1c6rq66wP-gD4Zo0O2D8=&c=zwGjGPnoKX-0IMfiloMLdevZ2pzwZDnsO6dO9WbEJc27OlSAZ2cQeA==&ch=w3e_1PFqjsA1ZxuGB-HBJitPE6j1wR3Hu5DmUrD7aCx2ZUQPKER9mg==>
Upcoming Webinar!

Want to learn more about generating images with Napkin.ai, customizing them, and see this tool demonstrated live?

Join the webinar, “Empowering Creativity with AI: 3 Tools to Design Stunning Visuals” on March 12th (3pm ET / 12 pm PT)

Copy or Download

When you're ready to download the image to use in another application:

·     Click to highlight the design, and choose the download button that will appear in the upper right corner.

·     A new window will open with file type options: PNG, SVG or PDF.

·     You can also adjust the Color Mode to have a light or dark background, turn the Background off to make it a transparent file (for downloading as a PNG file) and adjust the Resolution making the image larger if needed.

·     Additionally, at the bottom left of this window is a Clipboard option. Click it to copy the image and then paste the design into another app like a Word Doc or PowerPoint file.

[Popup window showing file format options PNG SVG PDF and a timeline for event planning]

Your text and designs will be saved in the Library. To access them in the future, click on the Library icon in the top left corner.

[https://files.constantcontact.com/ee1208b4001/e565d7d1-215e-487a-8e78-f332113e7825.jpg]

Communications: Writing

Advice or Advise?

Have you ever stared at the words advice and advise and thought, “Wait… aren’t these the same word?”

Nope! But don’t worry - you’re about to master the difference forever!

First, Let’s Talk Pronunciation!

·     Advice (ad-VICE) rhymes with ice. It’s a thing - a helpful tip or suggestion. It's a noun.

.
·     Advise (ad-VIZE) rhymes with wise. It’s an action (a verb) - the act of giving advice.

The Super-Easy Trick to Remember

Think of the "s" in advise as a "z". (They look a little alike, right?) Plus in this word the "s" is pronounced like a "z".) Advise is something you do - you advise people.

Advice has the “ice” sound. There is no "s" in this word. Just like ice sits still, advice is a thing, not an action!

Quick Examples:

·     My teacher gave me great advice for the test! (Noun – a thing!)
·     She advised me to study harder. (Verb – an action!)

See? Now you’ve got it! And if anyone asks, advise them to read this!

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Cheers,
Darci Hanning, MLIS (she/her/hers)
Public Library Consultant / CE Coordinator
Continuing Education Resources: https://slo.oregon.gov/conted/
State Library of Oregon | Library Support and Development Services
971-375-3491 | darci.hanning at slo.oregon.gov<mailto:darci.hanning at slo.oregon.gov> | www.oregon.gov/library<http://www.oregon.gov/library>

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