I’ve had numerous people ask me recently to teach them how to make worksheets for their classroom and products for TeachersPayTeachers. Being a visual learner myself, I decided to lay it out step-by-step in the hopes of making it as simple as possible!
Yes, there is a LOT of information included, but I tried to make it as simple as possible. There will be variations if you have a different version of PowerPoint, but it shouldn’t be too hard to modify the steps. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask them below!
Step 1: Open PowerPoint and click “layout.” Select the blank layout.
When I started creating, I used Microsoft Word. I can’t even tell you how overjoyed I was the day I learned to use PowerPoint instead! It is SO much easier to move things around where you want them!
Step 2: Select “Slide Size” (usually in the Design tab) and set a custom size to your page size.
You can definitely set it to 8.5 x 11 or 11 x 8.5. My school’s printer doesn’t like to print all the way to the edge of the page, so I always set my size to 10.75 x 8.25 or 8.25 x 10.75.
Step 3: Add borders.
You can find all sorts of cute borders on TpT and insert them following the clip art step below. I personally like to make my own borders by inserting a shape.
I use the rectangle to make my outline. In the Format tab (this only appears if you click on the shape), I choose the white center and black border and then click on “Shape Outline” and “Weight” to make it thicker.
I didn’t even think to add this as a picture, but you can easily make your border centered on the page too! Just go to that Format tab and click where it says “Align.” Click “Align Center” and “Align Middle” and it will be perfect!
Step 4: Insert text boxes wherever you need them.
You can do this with the Insert tab, but if you look at the Home tab, there is a box with all the shapes and a text box. It will also keep frequently used shaped here.
You can find all sorts of fonts on TpT! Remember: some of these are free for personal use in your classroom, but if you want to sell your work, you’ll have to buy font licenses from each seller (if the font was free).
Some of my favorite font sellers are: A Perfect Blend, Kimberly Geswein Fonts, Cara Carroll, and Babbling Abby.
If you want to sell on TpT, you will also want to make your copyright (your name or the name of your store) very small and place it in a corner. I generally set mine to pt 8. This will make sure your work is always credited to you!
Step 5: Insert clip art.
Again, there are a lot of options for free clip art on TpT. You want to download them and save them to your computer. Then you can open your folder, right click the image and “copy,” then paste onto your page.
Many clip artists will include both JPG and PNG images. I personally like to use PNG images. These will have a clear background instead of a white box behind them.
If you do decide to sell your work, make sure you create a credits page showing which clip artists you used! There are many great examples online, or even in TpT products you own.
Step 6: Insert any shapes and lines. You will use the same steps as making a border, but I will show you how to format it so it is the perfect size and in the right place.
Format the color of your shape:
There is nothing that bugs me more than when a shape is not perfect! This is a little trick I learned to make sure it is the right size:
Go to the Format tab. On the right, look at the sizes for the height and width. If you need a shape to be a certain size, you can change these. To make a circle perfectly round, make sure both the height and width are the same.
Ok, you got your shapes together, but they’re not in the right spot. You don’t have to move every piece individually!
Click your mouse and hold it down as you go over and around the shape, just as if you were making a text box or square around it.
Let go and all of those pieces will be selected together and will move together. You can click one piece with your mouse and move the whole thing. You can also use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move it, which is helpful if it’s something so small your mouse can’t click it properly.
You can duplicate the shapes by having them selected and clicking “Ctrl+D.”
If you want them perfect lined up, just move it around. These handy red guidelines appear that will show you when it is aligned to another shape!
And now you’re done! At least with the PowerPoint section. However, there are a few more steps!
Step 7: Save as a PDF.
This will ensure that your fonts and layout will look the same, even if you are on a computer that does not have the fonts downloaded or has a different version of PowerPoint.
At the top, click the File tab then click “Save As.” It’s not a bad idea to save your PowerPoint as a PowerPoint too just in case you need to go back and edit (I generally do this right at the beginning and save throughout in case my computer suddenly shuts down!)
Name your document and click “Save as Type.” Select “PDF.”
If you are just wanting to make worksheets for your own personal use, then you’re done! You can print and go.
If you want to sell your work, then after you have added a cover, you have a few more steps to make sure your work is secure. I will show you how to secure your PDF using Adobe Acrobat Pro. This is a paid program; if you aren’t wanting to spend the money right away, I believe they do offer a free trial.
Step 8: Open your PDF and select “Protect.”
If you don’t see this option to the right, you can go up to the top and click the Tools tab.
Step 8: Password protect your document.
You will click “Restrict Editing” and put in your password. Make sure it is something you can remember easily but can’t be guessed easily.
Step 9: Change the security settings.
Click “More Options” then click “Security Properties” from the drop down menu.
When this box pops up, click “Change Settings.”
Click “Changes Allowed” and choose “None” from the drop down menu. Then click “OK.” Make sure that you don’t change the printing option!
Step 10: Save your secure PDF. You’re ready to sell it!
Click “Save” and when the box pops up, select the same folder you saved it in before. It will say another document has the same name and ask if you want to save it still. Click yes.
You are officially done! I hope this tutorial was helpful to you – whether you want to make worksheets for you classroom or TpT. Again, if you have any more questions or want another tutorial, just let me know!
If you do decide to start selling your work on TeachersPayTeachers and you found this tutorial helpful, please consider signing up through my referral link (this provides me with a small commission, but does not take any sales money from you):
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Signup/referral:nburszty
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What a great post!
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Thank you, Carmen!
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WOW!!! Great post. Thanks.
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This is such a helpful post. I am still after many years a word or publisher worksheet maker. I am keen to try PowerPoint now you made it look so easy! Thank you 😊
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Im glad it was helpful! Thank you! I haven’t tried Publisher, but I do completely recommend trying PowerPoint!
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Awesome! Thanks for your post.
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Thanks so much! I just made my first worksheet and it looks great!
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Awesome, Marnie! I’m glad I could help!
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Looking forward to trying this during our Spring Break! Thank you.
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Your post is as good or better than your products!!!
Thanks.
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Thank you, Maggy!
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I love your tutorial!!! Thank you soooo much!!! I was wondering if you could help me figure a couple of things out though? I am a beginning TPT seller and I am a little past this stage. I am now in the stage of tweaking products. For instance, do you know how to select what you want customers to be able to edit? Or do you know how I can do auto-fill boxes? For instance, if I were creating a name worksheet for the week, how do I allow teachers to be able to fill in 1 box and all the other days of the week are filled in with that name? I would greatly appreciate any help you could provide!!!! Thank you soooo much!!
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I know you can do that with adobe pro, but I’m sorry to say I’m not an expert at that yet! I believe if you make a text box in adobe and duplicate it, whatever you type in one of those boxes will appear in all the rest. Generally, if I want a customer to be able to edit a large amount of text or make a lot of changes, I save my document as a PNG file and then make a new PowerPoint and insert the pictures of the pages on each slide (I hope that makes sense!) You can add text boxes then for the buyer, but your clip art and background will be secure and not editable.
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I found this great tutorial for making editable PDFs from Teaching in the Tongass! Hopefully this is what you need!
http://www.teachinginthetongass.com/2016/06/how-to-create-editable-pdf.html
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This is exactly what I was looking for!! I have been dying to make my TPT worksheets more professional and cute but had no idea how! 😀 Thank you!
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I’m so glad it was helpful to you! Thank you. 😁
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Love the tutorial!! What is the purpose of securing a document in Adobe?
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Thank you, Kendra! Great question. If your document is not secure, others can add/delete pages and text and copy your work or your clip art. It makes it too easy for people to copy your hard work and call it their own. Almost all clip artist require your documents to be secure because they don’t want people to be able to use their clip art without purchasing it themselves.
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Wowsers! I found your post on Pinterest and have been muddling my way through word. Thanks so much for sharing. I don’t sell my stuff, but I appreciate this so much X
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I’m so glad it was helpful! I was SO happy the day I realized Word wasn’t the only option! 😉
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Thank you! Teaching can make you feel isolated at times and it’s always nice when there’s knowledge-sharing. I’m a second-year school librarian, and was thinking of trying to start small on TpT. Your helpful tutorial has no doubt saved me a lot of frustration. This is very much appreciated !
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I’m glad it was helpful to you. 🙂 TpT definitely takes time and patience, but the community of teacher-authors is amazing!
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Amazing post. Thank you for sharing. I was wondering if you know how to make a worksheet where you enter text in once and then it is mass produced in other places. Like the ‘learning to print your name’ files where the file user types in the class list of names and Adobe (?) adds it into the rest of the file.
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Hi, Laurel. I just found this great post from Teaching in the Tongass that explains how to made a file editable in adobe. I believe that, to make text duplicate, you just copy and duplicate that text box. Then whenever someone types into one text box would appear in all the boxes. So if you had text boxes for someone to type their words into on the first page, you would duplicate those same boxes into every other page of the document.
Here’s the tutorial on making things editable: http://www.teachinginthetongass.com/2016/06/how-to-create-editable-pdf.html?m=1
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Thank you for this awesome post. I am a novice author-teacher on TPT and would love to create worksheets. I do have one question, what version of MS office are you using? As I am attempting to follow you steps I am running into difficulties. Thank you for your help.
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Right now I’m using the most recent version. I previously had the 2013 version, I believe, and it was almost the same. If you email me at collaboratinginkinder@gmail.com with questions, I can try to help you troubleshoot, but I’m not a tech expert at all! 🙂
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This is great info! I am a teacher and a blogger and this is also an awesome way to make printables for a website! Glad to use this as a tool instead of shelling out for Photoshop. Thanks!
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How do I know if I can use someone else’s clipart in my own work? I love using clipart, I’m just never sure when I can include it in my paid products on my page.
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Most clip artists have a terms of use page included with their clip art. It will say ok for commercial use, which almost all clip art on TpT is. If it is an artist on TpT, it is generally OK to use their clip art so long as you secure it in adobe like I showed above.
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This is excellent! Thank you for the practical advice. It’s easy to read and execute.
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Thank you! I’ve been wondering how to do this! The process is very easy to follow.
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This post was so helpful! I was wondering which font you used in the word “number” in “number bonds”? Thank you!
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Hi Mary, I used “PB Morning Java” from The Perfect Blend’s PB Fonts pack 6.
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If you use “free” clipart do you have to pay and get a liscence or just credit them?
Also, are you allowed to re-create products people have made?
For example, if I made a sight word search and used a list I found that outlines what order to introduce them in … ???
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For free clip art from TpT, you do not have to purchase a license, you only need to credit them. Because of copyright, you cannot recreate products other people have made. You can order your sight words in any way that you want – you just may not be able to market it how you were hoping. Not all but many sight word programs are trademarked so you cannot use their name/brand in your product or title.
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This is so helpful! Thank you for sharing!!!
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Many thanks, I appreciate you sharing this! I am excited to learn how to do it.
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Thank you great visual tutorial because I am also a visual learner 😉
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Thank you sooooo much for sharing!
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It is a wonderful post thank you so much
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Your clear directions with the screen shots are very helpful. Thank you!
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Thank you so much for sharing this information. I am an older teacher without the computer smarts the newer teachers have, and this is so perfect for me.!
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Thanks so much for this! I am ready to begin making worksheets for MATH next year. SO excited! 🙂
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This is Awesome! Thanks for sharing
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WOW! I wish I would have found something like this a long time ago. It would have made things so much easier for me. Thank you for taking the time to create and post this.
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Thank you for your post! Cant wait to give this a try.
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