PowerPoint will put together computer presentations, outlines, overhead transparencies, speaker’s notes, and handouts.

• When you open the program, or choose file/new, you will be given the choice of “Autocontent Wizard,” “Template,” or “Open an existing presentation.”

Using Autocontent Wizard
• The easiest way to make a presentation is to choose “Autocontent Wizard.” You’ll be asked a few questions, then press finish. You will see an outline. You will see the slides on the side as you go down the outline. You can fill in your information here, or go to the slides themselves.

To go to the slides:

• Look on the bottom of the window and you will see 5 icons: normal view, outline view, slide view, slide sorter view, and slide show.

• Click on slide view to type your information directly onto the slide.

• Scroll down on the right side scroll bar to go to the next slide. Scroll up to go to previous slide.

•Advance through slides and add text.

Design Template

•This will give you pre-made backgrounds and templates. Click on the “Design Templates” tab to see different possible designs. The other tabs will five you layouts for different types of presentations. This is another quick way to make a presentation.

Blank Presentation

• Click here to start an entirely new presentation that you will format yourself. First you will be asked which layout you want for the first slide. Then you will see a white slide with that layout on it. You proceed to add slides and formatting until you are done.

Using the view icons at the bottom:

Remember: You can use the View menu instead of the bottom icons if you wish.

The Normal View will show you the slide that you are currently working on, or the slide that you have selected in the slide sorter view. At the left of the slide will be the text of all of the slides in outline form.

Slide View: You will see the slide displayed quite large in the center and at the left just a row of pictures with numbers beside them. You can go down the list to look at other slides.

Outline View: This will show you a page with the slide at the top right, the outline on the left, and a square to make notes at the bottom right. When you print these, you will have pages with a picture of the slide in the top half and the notes in the bottom half to use when you make your presentation. This can be like a script, or just notes. You may want to format the text in the notes to be larger in order to see it well while you are reading it during a presentation.

Slide Sorter view will show you all of the slides that you have created so far. To edit any slide, double click on it, or click once to select it, then go to slide view. You can move the slides around in this view if you want to change their order. There is also a quick way to insert transitions and effects in this view.

Slide Show View Icon: NOTE--this icon does something different than the Slide Show choice in the View menu. When you click this icon, if the first slide is selected, you will see a slide show of the entire presentation. What does that mean? It means that you will see the first slide full screen size, then, when you click the mouse, you will see the next slide, and so on. If you choose this icon when any other slide is selected, the slide show will start at that slide. If you choose Slide Show...from the View menu, the slide show will always start from the beginning.

Using the Slide Show Menu

Slide Show/View Show: you will see the entire show, either automatically, or manually, depending how you have set it in Slide Show/Set Up Show.
Rehearse Timings: Each time you see a slide, there will be a timer in the bottom right corner. If, for example, you want that slide on the screen for 10 seconds, click the mouse when the timer says 00:10 and you will advance to the next slide. Do this for each slide and then you will be told how long the entire show took, and asked if you wish to record the new timings and see them in slide sorter view. If you say yes, you will go back to slide sorter view and the times for each slide will be listed. From now on if you go to Slide Show and you have it set up to advance using timings, the show will automatically advance after the correct number of seconds for each slide. In order to change any of the times, you can run the slide show again, and choose Rehearse Slide Timings and the new times will override the old ones. If you want to change only one slide or a consecutive group of slides, go to Slide Show/Set Up Show, enter those numbers in the “from” and “to” boxes and then choose Rehearse Timings and only those will be changed.
Set Up Show: check the appropriate boxes, and tell if you want the slide show to include all slides, or a range of slides. Then choose if you want to use the timings, or advance manually. Here you will choose your pen color as well. (more on that next)

While running a slide show you can secondary click on any slide and the show will pause. You will see a menu that lets you go to the next slide or the previous slide, or “go” lets you choose which number slide to go to. You can see your notes for that slide. If you click on pen here the arrow turns to a pen and you can write or draw directly onto the slides (it won’t stay). This lets you point things out or circle them for emphasis. Click on screen and you can pause the show or black the screen.

Formatting Your Presentation

Formatting is anything that you do to the slides in your presentation to customize them. In the Wizards, all slides are formatted the same way, unless you change anything. When you choose a blank presentation, there is no formatting except the layout of the slide that you choose each time you insert a new slide.

Transitions: If you want to use special effects when a new slide opens, this is called a transition effect.. In Slide Sorter View, on the left above the title bar, if a slide is selected you will see a bar that says “No Transition.” You can pull down this menu to choose your transition. Click the icon to the left of this bar to get the Transition dialogue box. You will see a dialogue box asking you first what effect you want. Pull down the menu to see your choices and pick one. After you select one, you will see a demonstration of it on the picture. Then you will have to choose the speed. After selecting the speed, you will see it demonstrated again. You can try all of the speeds and look at the demonstrations to decide what you like. Then you will see “Advance.” You can tell it to advance only if you click the mouse, or set it to automatically advance after a certain number of seconds. This is another way to set the timing. If you do this for each slide, you won’t have to set the times in the slide show. You can also apply the same effect to all of the slides by choosing “apply to all” in this box.

Animation Effects: This will affect how the printing moves on a slide. For example, it can shoot in from the right, left, top or bottom. Click on the bar to the right of the transition bar when a slide is selected and you can choose the effect from the list.

Custom Animation: Click on the yellow star on the right end of the toolbar. This only works if you are in normal or slide view. You will get a small window. Click on the icon in the bottom left of this window. (custom animation icon with green star) You will see a list of the slide objects in the top left window. click in the box to the left of the first one you want to animate and it will appear in the box below, the top left “Animation order” box. Now choose either “on mouse click” or “Automatically” a certain number of seconds after the last event. Now click the “Effects” tab. Choose the effect you want from the menu, then, if you want a sound, too, choose that. This is another way of choosing animation effects... and other effects as well.

Format Menu
Format/Font... Choose font, style, size, color and effect.

Format/Bullets and Numbering... Choose the font, color, size and symbol that you want to use for your bullet. (you will most likely keep the “bullet symbol, but not always) This is exactly like word.

Format/Alignment Justifies your writing the way you want it. Left, centered, right or justify (on both sides).

Format/Line Spacing... Choose single, double or triple spacing. Also choose spacing between paragraphs. You can choose to do your spacing with units of lines or points.

Format/Replace Fonts...Change from one font to another.

Format/Slide Layout... Here you can change your mind about the autoformat layout you chose for that slide. When you change the layout you will not lose your text or formatting.

Format/Slide Color Scheme...Here you can do many things at once. You can change the color of any element of a slide.

Format/Slide Background... Here you can choose the color for the entire slide background of the selected slide. You can also choose shading of various kinds. Pull down the color menu, choose More Colors or Fill Effects. If you choose Fill Effects, then click the textures tab, you can make very interesting backgrounds. Click “Preview” to see what your choices will look like before applying them.

Apply Design Template...This will add a standard design to all of the slides. You will get a list of choices to preview.

Drawing things on to a slide

You can add things on to a slide with the drawing toolbar. It is usually open on the bottom of the screen. Shapes, lines, arrows, etc.

To add shapes, such as stars or sun: On the Drawing toolbar choose the autoshapes menu. Then go to the slide and click where you want to place the shape. Drag the cursor down diagonally to the right to form the shape. While the shape is selected, you can choose the color of the inside and the color and thickness that you want for the line around the shape, if any. There is also a shadow icon here. You can make a shadows of any shapes or text.

Inserting Pictures and Clip Art: Choose Insert/Picture. You will see a dialogue box where you can find any picture on your computer and insert it into the slide. If you choose Insert/picture/Clip Art, you will see the PowerPoint clip art gallery, along with tabs for sounds, video and photos. If you have the CD-ROM in, you will see many of these. Choose the one you want and click OK. Size and move pictures and clip art: To size, after selecting, place cursor over black handle on corner and when it turns into a line with arrow on either end, drag down and right diagonally. To move, after selecting, place cursor anywhere in box and drag

To make formatting changes to an entire presentation: Master Slides

Go to View/Master and choose “Slide Master” Now, if you make a change it will affect every slide in the presentation. You can then change an individual slide if you want it to be different. This can be handy. If, for example, you want to put your name, or the class, or a picture such as a star in the same place on every slide, this is the place to do it.

Secondary Click Menu: Secondary click anytime in slide view and you will have a way to quickly go to slide layout, slide color scheme, background, or apply design.

A Word about Printing

When you are printing Be sure to choose what you are printing: slides, notes pages, overheads, outline. It will automatically print slides if you don’t specify.

Adding a Chart to a Presentation:

Go to Insert/Chart. You will get a different set of menus now. OR click on
the chart icon—it looks like a red, yellow and blue bar graph.
Go to Chart/Chart Type and choose the type of chart you want to use. For a
less detailed list of possibilities, pull down the chart type menu—it’s
an icon on the toolbar that is dark blue and has a little arrow next to it.
Go to Chart/Chart Options to choose how you want your data to be
presented.
Go to Edit/Import File to import data from an Excel worksheet that you
have already done.

Adding Comments to a Presentation:
Insert/Comment. When you insert a comment on a slide, the Reviewing toolbar appears. You can insert and delete comments and mover from one comment to another by using the buttons on the toolbar. The second icon on this toolbar lets you show or hide the comments. You can write anything you want on the comments, then hide them by clicking the show/hide comments icon.

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