1. Inspiration 7.5
A Tutorial

2. Part 1: What is Inspiration?
Inspiration is a Visual Learning tool.
If you think visually, but aren’t sure
how to structure your ideas,
Inspiration can help you create
a Concept Map which is a visual
display of your ideas and their
structure.

3. Brain Dumping One way to make a concept map is by doing a Brain Dump:
Put down all of your ideas at once- don’t worry about ordering them.

4. Embedding and Linking
You can represent those ideas with text and any graphical objects you like, and link those ideas
to external files such as office documents, web pages, audio-visual content, or other inspiration
diagrams. Inspiration comes with a large symbol library; you can import your own graphics as well

5. Diagramming
You can connect those ideas, move them around, and individually
color them to better decide how they relate to each other.

6. Outlining and Exporting
Inspiration can turn your concept map into a hierarchical outline, and
export that outline to your word-processor, HTML or to PowerPoint.

7. Ready Made Templates Inspiration also comes with many
ready made templates to help you
with your work. This is a template
for an opinion statement. It can
help guide in gathering the ideas
necessary for this type of essay-
commonly assigned in beginning
writing classes.
After filling in your ideas, you can
export an outline to MS Word or
AppleWorks and expand it into a
complete essay. Writing goes
much more quickly when you
have the planning already done.
Inspiration makes it easy to
visualize and organize your ideas!

8. Part 2: Getting Started
Click the Start button, point to Programs, point to Adaptive Software, and then click on
Inspiration 7.5. Inspiration opens in a new untitled diagram.

9. Inspiration’s Diagram View
Diagram Toolbar
Most of Inspiration’s
functions are available as
buttons in Diagram view.
The Diagram toolbar on top
has the buttons most often
used. The Symbol palette
on the left of the Inspiration
screen can be dragged to any
convenient location. Colors,
styles, and fonts are changed
using the Formatting toolbar
along the bottom.
Inspiration opens with a new
Main Idea symbol, ready for
you to use.
Main Idea Symbol
Symbol Toolbar

10. Using the Create Tool to Add New Linked Symbols
Use the Create tool to add linked symbols in the location you choose. Select the upper right corner
of the Create button to create a new symbol on the upper right of an existing symbol.
Select the lower right corner of the Create button to create a new symbol on the lower right
of an existing symbol.
Create Button 

11. Using RapidFire to Grab Ideas Quickly
RapidFire saves you time when you want to “Brain Dump” all your ideas and get them down quickly. With
the main symbol selected, clicking RapidFire allows you to type your ideas without creating new symbols.
Each time you hit “Enter”, Inspiration creates a new symbol with your idea as the title. Typing Chimpanzees
-> Enter -> Big Ears -> Enter -> Fish for termites and ants -> Enter -> Dark hair -> Enter… creates your
diagram. You can drag and drop symbols and connecting arrows later when you decide how they should be
related.  

12. Adding an Unconnected Symbol Using Point and Type
Adding an unconnected symbol is easy. Point and click at the position you
want your text, then type. A new symbol with your text appears in that
position. Note how the symbol “Endangered Species” is unconnected from
the others.

13. Replacing a Symbol with One From the Symbol Palette
To replace a standard balloon symbol with one from the Symbol palette, select the
balloon you want to replace. Then, on the Symbol palette, select the symbol
you want to replace it with. The replacement proceeds automatically.  

14. Using Drag and Drop to Add a Specific Symbol
Symbols can be added by dragging and dropping from the Symbol
palette. For example, you can add a plant symbol from the “Plants”.
Symbol palette. Click on the symbol you want and drag it onto the screen.
Add a subject title in the blank space provided and connect the new symbol to
existing symbols.

15. Linking Symbols To link two unconnected symbols,
click the Link button. A line forms
between the last symbol selected
and your Mouse arrow. This line
follows your mouse’s movements.
Select the second symbol and a line
forms between it and the previous one.
Link Button 

16. Adding a Note to a Symbol
Note Button
Sometimes you want extra information
attached to a symbol. A good way to do
this is to add a text note. Select the
symbol to which you want to add a note,
then select the Note button. A note box
appears near your symbol, with a cursor
ready for you to insert text. Although this
note is associated with the symbol you
have chosen, you can click and drag the
note anywhere on your diagram. When
you switch to outline view, Inspiration
remembers where it belongs in your
diagram’s structure and puts it in the
appropriate spot in your outline.

17. Changing the Color of Symbols
If you prefer a different back
ground color for your idea
Symbols, select the symbol
whose background you wish
to change. Then click the Fill
color button on the bottom
toolbar, as shown at the left.
Select your new color and
the background changes
automatically. This is a good
way to create subgroups of
ideas within your diagram.

18. Moving a Note or a Symbol
Once you have made your diagram you may want to change the positions of the notes and
symbols. All notes and symbols are moveable by dragging and dropping. The tree
Symbol below has been moved in this way.
Inspiration moves the connecting idea arrow automatically. 

19. Saving Your Work To save a document for the first
time, or to save a document
you’ve already saved before
under the current name, use the
Save command.
On the File menu choose Save.
The dialog box appears with the
main idea as the name of the file..
Select the folder in which
you want to save the diagram.
Click Save. In Windows, the file
is saved with an .isf extension.

20. Part 3: Outline View
Inspiration will turn your concept map into an outline
which you can use to write a paper, create a
presentation, or desig a website. 

21. Switching from Diagram to Outline View
To switch to Outline view, select the Outline button on the Diagram toolbar.
Outline Button

22. Outline View This is an example of the Outline view.
Click the Diagram button take you back
to Diagram view.
The symbols have been transformed
into topics and subtopics, according to
the position of the linking arrows.
The Down arrows to the left of the
topics are Subtopic Quick Controls.
Clicking one of these collapses a
subtopic so that it is hidden; clicking it
again shows the subtopics. Notes are
hidden in the same way, using their
own Notes Quick Controls.
Diagram Button

23. Printing the outline
You can determine layout, margins, and header/footer values from the Page Setup menu. You can access
this menu by clicking File  Page Setup. This menu also lets you see a Print Preview of your outline.
To print your outline, in the Page Setup menu, click Print.