Using Inspiration (v7)
Contents:
Using Inspiration (v7)
Uses of Diagrams
Applications of Inspiration
Starting and Stopping Inspiration
Conventions used in this Userguide
Help
Diagram View
Diagram Toolbar
Adding and Customising Boxes
Adding Symbols from the Symbols Palette
Changing text
Adding Notes in the diagram View
Changing Arrows and Links
Printing Diagrams/Outlines
Advanced Features
Using Inspiration (v7)
Inspiration is a mind mapping program that helps with the planning
and organising information.
It has two main views or environments:
Diagram view – To create a graphical organizer or a map showing
how ideas or concepts interconnect.
Outline view - Converts your diagram to a linear plan. This is useful
for writing a report.
As you work, both views keep track of your work.
Uses of Diagrams
You can create many types of visual diagrams. The kind of diagram
you create in Inspiration depends on the idea you want to develop.
A diagram that will be used to help structure an essay could be very
different from a diagram used to help you remember ideas as part of
the revision process.
Below are two examples of the different types of diagrams you can
easily build using Inspiration.
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Example Mind Map (1)
You may wish to use more visual aids for revision that help things
stick in your mind (visual imagery).
The example above was created to help a student learn about how
substances can enter a cell.
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Example Mind Map (2)
Inspiration can help you plan and create quite complicated
documents (essays, dissertation theses, and reports).
The Add Note facility means that you can enter paragraphs of text for
each key idea and build-up an entire essay that can then be copied
into Word for final editing.
The example above was created to help a student plan a 300 word
essay on ‘the mind-body problem’ i.e. the question of whether the
mind is separate from the body (drawing on Philosophy and
Psychology theories).
This plan would enable the student to build up a complex document
piece by piece. It would also help them to remember what their ideas
are and how the ideas relate to each other.
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Applications of Inspiration
o Essay and Project Planning from Scratch helping students to
brainstorm their initial essay or project title, and build up model
into paragraph and section headings.
o Organising Existing Lecture Notes helping students revise what
has been learned and check that there are no gaps.
o Mental modeling helping students to understand difficult
concepts, especially good for math/science concepts which
may have been presented in a linear form initially.
o Timeliness showing how ideas have developed over time, e.g.
‘what was the impact of Piaget or Montessori on the British
education system?’
o Exam Revision students can devise content-free diagrams and
use them to revise exam subjects, e.g. revising chemical or
physical processes; impact of climate change on European
tourism market.
o Web Page Design students can construct a web page from an
Inspiration brainstorm.
o Diagrams for Presentations students can create flow diagrams
or overview mind maps which can be copied and pasted into
Word or PowerPoint for presentations.
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Starting and Stopping Inspiration
To start Inspiration:
 Click on Start ► All Programs ► Accessibility.
 Click Inspiration.
You will see the Tip of the Day window.
 Click on Close to close the window and access Inspiration.
To Stop Inspiration:
 On the Menu bar, click File ► Exit.
Conventions used in this Userguide
Inspiration offers many ways to do things, from toolbar buttons to
menu commands or keyboard shortcuts. While all these options are
readily available, this userguide usually shows one way to do the
task. To see other ways to do each task, you can look at on line Help.
Help
To access the Help system while you are using Inspiration, choose
Inspiration Help on the Help menu.
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Diagram View
This is a brief guide to some of the main features available in the
Design view in Inspiration.
Inspiration opens in Diagram view.
You will see a white screen with a Diagram toolbar across the top, the
Formatting toolbar at the bottom, and the Symbol palette on the left.
The main idea in Inspiration is to use boxes, arrows and symbols to
represent your ideas and the relationships or links between them.
These can then be converted to a linear outline or plan.
You would usually work in diagram view to create boxes then join
them up.
Entering the Main Idea or Topic
When you open Inspiration, a symbol appears in the centre of the
screen, with the placeholder text, Main Idea, selected. Just enter a
topic to get started.
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Diagram Toolbar
RapidFire:
Enter linked
ideas
quickly
Outline:
Go to
Outline
View
Create:
Add a new
linked symbol in
a particular
direction
Link:
Create a
link
between
two
symbols
Arrange:
Arrange a
diagram
into
selected
layouts
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Hyperlink:
Create a
hyperlink to
another item
such as a
web page, a
document, or
an email
address
Note:
Add or
edit a
note
attached
to a
symbol
Spell:
Check the
spelling in a
document
Listen:
Listen to
the
computer
read the
information
in your
document
Adding and customising boxes
There are three main ways of adding new boxes or symbols to the
diagram.
By clicking the Create button, a cell can be produced from
an existing symbol or box in the direction of the pointer.
 Select the box or symbol by clicking on it.
 On the Create button, click on the Pointer in the direction you
want to create the new box or symbol.
RapidFire is used to produce lots of cells from an existing
idea (symbol or box). These are positioned around the
original idea and can be picked up and moved.




Select the box or symbol by clicking on it.
Click the RapidFire button.
Type your text and press Enter.
As long as the RapidFire button is on, whenever you type text
and press Enter a new box will appear.
 To turn the RapidFire tool off, click on the RapidFire button.
Boxes can also be placed using the cursor key anywhere on the
screen. First click with the mouse to position the cursor and then click
on the type of symbol required.
Different types of boxes or colours can be used to make cells stand
out or to show that they are related.
To change the shape of a box
 Select the box by clicking it.
 Click on the desired shape on the symbol palate.
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To change the colour of a box




Select the box by clicking it.
Click on Effects on the Menu bar.
Move to the Fill Color option.
Pause slightly and a box of different colours will appear off the
side of the main menu.
 Move the mouse pointer over the desired colour and click once.
Note: The outline colour of the box and the text colour can be
changed in the same way using the Line Colour and Text Colour
options on the Effect menu.
Changing the Colours Using the Format toolbar (bottom of
screen):
 Select the box and click on the Fill Colour button to change the
colour of the box, or the Line Color button to change the line
colour.
Line Color button
Fill Color button
To Change the Colour of a Multicolour Symbol
 Select the symbol by clicking on it.
 The colours in the symbol appear on the Formatting toolbar,
after the Fill Color and Line Color buttons (see above
diagram).
 Click on a colour and select a new colour from the palette. This
new colour will replace the existing colour.
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Adding Symbols from the Symbols Palette
Symbols can be selected from the symbols palate to make a
particular point or idea particularly distinctive. Some of the possible
symbols are shown below.
To select a symbol
 Click on the screen where you would like the new symbol to
appear This may be an existing symbol or box.
 Select an appropriate palate displaying the desired symbol
(either scroll through the palates using the left and right arrows,
or select a palate from the list displayed by clicking the middle
arrow).
 You will now see your symbol appear.
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Changing Text
Mind-maps can also be customised using different text. The following
elements can be changed.





Font (style)
Size
Colour
Italics
Bold
e.g. Times, Courier, Bookman old style
e.g. Small, Medium, Large or Extra Large
e.g. Red, Blue, Green, Pink or any other
e.g. This is where the words slant
e.g. The letters are thicker and darker
These options are found on the Format menu on the Menu toolbar.
Different types of text can be used alongside different colour and
shaped boxes to colour code ideas and groups of ideas.
Coding makes things stand out and visually makes it easier to pick
out different parts of the map.
Colour and differentiation can also help make ideas more memorable
so that they stick in the mind better.
Adding Notes in the Diagram View
The Add Note feature allows you to extend a mind map with
extra information, while continuing to work in a visual format.
This note is added into the outline and appears when the ‘map’ is
looked at in outline view.
 Select a symbol by clicking on it.
 Click the Note button.
 A note opens below the symbol, and you can type your text.
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Notes are very useful when writing essays or reports as they can be
built up in steps e.g.
 Mind map the ideas.
 Note any references using Add Notes.
 Expand any definition of terms, explanations of ideas, or
descriptions of theories using the Add Notes feature.
 Edit each Add Note box into full sentences and paragraphs to
form the content of the essay/report.
 Check/change the order of the paragraphs using outline view.
 Copy and paste the whole essay/report into Word for final
editing.
Notes can also be added in Outline view
 In the Outline view, click at the point where the note is to be
added.
 Click the Add Note button.
Changing arrows and links
This menu item allows you to connect two boxes together using an
arrow.
Linking Symbols
Links show the connections and relationships between
ideas.




Select the symbol by clicking on it. This is the start of the link.
Click the Link button to turn on the Link tool.
The mouse cursor will turn into a double circle and arrow.
Click the box or symbol you want as the end of the link.
You can carry on linking symbols until you turn the Link tool off.
 To turn the Link too off, click on the Link button again.
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Changing the Links format
The way arrows look can be changed using the Link menu
The type of arrow head at the start or end of the link can be changed.
The arrow can be straight or curved. The direction it is pointing can
also be reversed.
 Select the arrow to change by clicking on it.
 Click on Link on the Menu bar and select from the options
displayed.
There are two types of curved links
o Curved link (3 pts) has one bend (like a ‘u’ or a ‘c’)
o Curved link (4 pts) has two bends (like an ‘s’)
One or two boxes will appear on the arrow selected. Click on these
with the mouse and drag (holding down the mouse button) to see the
arrow bend.
Printing Diagrams/Outlines
Diagrams or Outlines can be printed out from the File menu on the
Menu toolbar.
o To print a diagram you must be in the Diagram view i.e. looking
at the diagram on the screen.
o To print an outline you must be in the Outline view i.e. looking
at the outline on the screen.
A diagram may fit on the page better if the page is tuned lengthways
(landscape).
If you have changed the colour of the background, you may wish to
return this to white before printing, especially if you are printing on to
coloured paper.
To view the map or the outline as it will look when it is printed, click
on Print Preview under the File menu.
When you are happy with the way that the diagram looks in the print
preview, print it out by selecting Print from the File menu, followed by
a click on the Okay button.
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Advanced Features
BACKGROUND COLOUR
The colour of the background can be changed to make the screen
easier to look at and the text easier to read.
 Click on Effects ► Background colour and pick colour.
ZOOM
The mountains in the bottom-left corner of the screen allow you to
zoom in and out of your diagram.
CHANGING THE ORDER IN OUTLINE VIEW
The boxes from Diagram view are converted to main headings in
Outline view in the order in which the boxes were created.
This order can be changed by clicking on the number or letter next to
the bold heading and dragging it up or down (keeping the mouse
button pressed down). Moving the mouse from left to right changes
main headings into sub-headings.
The new position of the box is shown by a dotted outline. Release the
mouse button to insert the heading into its new position.
COPY INTO WORD
The whole picture can be copied into another program like Word or
PowerPoint.
 Chose Select All from the Edit menu and then Copy
 Open a blank document in Word or PowerPoint
 Select Paste or Paste Special from the Edit menu.
GRID SNAP
This is turned on or off using the Tools menu. When on, the boxes
jump so that they are aligned with the grey grid squares displayed.
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