Using Microsoft PowerPoint Beginners Guide

Presentation software like PowerPoint helps you communicate your ideas to an audience, whether it's an audience of one in your own office or an audience of mil­lions on the World Wide Web. When you first start PowerPoint, it offers you three ways to proceed: AutoContent Wizard, Design Template, or Blank Presentation.

Using the AutoContent Wizard

The easiest way to create a presentation is with AutoContent Wizard, which lets you choose a look that appeals to you and even suggests content for several com­mon types of presentations. To use AutoContent Wizard, either select its radio but­ton from the start-up screen, or choose File > New, click the General tab in the New Presentation dialog box, and then double-click AutoContent Wizard. From the ini­tial screen of the wizard, click Next.

From the second screen, choose a presentation type. Click All to see all of the types of presentations AutoContent Wizard can help you create, or click General, Corporate, Projects, Sales/Marketing or Carnegie Coach to see just the presenta­tions filed under those subject headings. (Carnegie Coach presentations are designed to help you hone your presentation and public speaking abilities.) Highlight the presentation type you want, and then click Next.

Next, choose the method you will use to make your presentation (e.g., on a com­puter, on the Web, as 35mm slides, etc); then, in the final screen, enter a title for your presentation and any text you'd like to use as a footer on each slide, and select other presentation options. Finally, click Finish. AutoContent Wizard creates a presentation based on your guidelines (see Figure 1-11). You'll have to enter your own text and graphics to complete the presentation, but your basic design is in place.

Introducing the PowerPoint Interface

The easiest way to move through your presentation in PowerPoint is to use the Outline pane. Click anywhere on a slide title or within its text to open that slide in the Slide View pane. You can also use Slide Sorter view, which shows you thumb­nail versions of all your slides. Choose View* Slide Sorter, and then click on the slide you want to edit. Slide Sorter view also allows you to easily move slides around and change their properties.

Editing and formatting slides

Now you have an AutoContent Wizard-generated presentation that you want to make your own. Here's how.

Replacing and adding text

To replace existing text on a slide, find the slide you want to edit and click once inside the text you want to replace. This selects the text box that contains the text. Highlight the text you want to change, and then type in the new text to replace it. Finally, click anywhere outside the selected text box to deselect it. If you prefer, you can highlight text you want to change in the Outline pane and type over it there. You can insert text by simply placing your cursor where you want changes to be made, and then typing in the new text (the existing text moves aside to make room for it). To delete text, highlight it and press Delete.

Formatting text

To format text, click to select the appropriate text box, and then highlight the text you want to format. Finally, click the appropriate button on the Formatting or Drawing toolbars. Choose the typeface you want to apply from the Font list box, and the size from the Font Size list box. Make text bold or italic. Underline or shadow it to make it stand out. Align it within its text box with Align Left, Center, or Align Right. To create a numbered or bulleted list within a text box or change an existing list to a numbered list, click Numbering or Bullets. (To stop the number­ing/bulleting, press Backspace to delete the last number or bullet.) Click Increase Font Size to boost the size of selected text to the next-highest size in the Font Size list box, or click Decrease Font Size to shrink it to the next-lowest size.

Demote moves an item in a list one step lower in the hierarchy of the outline (which generally means it becomes smaller and gets indented further to the right.) Promote moves it up in the hierarchy, which makes it larger and moves it back toward the left margin. Click Animation Effects to apply one of several preset anima­tion effects to text.

Additional formatting commands can be accessed by clicking the More Buttons but­ton on the Formatting toolbar and then clicking the Add or Remove buttons, or by choosing Format from the menu bar. Also, the Drawing toolbar includes one partic­ularly useful formatting command, Font Color, which applies the color currently shown on it to the selected text. To choose a different color, click the down arrow beside the Font Color button.

Changing your presentation design

You may not like the default design provided by AutoContent Wizard. To change it, you apply a design template. (You can also start your presentation with a design template; it's one of the options in PowerPoint's start-up box. Like AutoContent Wizard, a design template takes care of the design work for you; unlike AutoContent Wizard, it doesn't provide suggested content.)

To apply a design template to your current presentation, choose Format > Apply Design Template, and then choose the design template you want from the list pro­vided. (A preview is provided.) The new template is applied to your current pre­sentation, without changing any of the content

Saving, opening, and closing presentations

To save your presentation, choose File b Save or click the Save button on the Standard toolbar. In the Save As dialog box, find and open the folder where you want to save the presentation, enter a name for your presentation, and then choose the format in which you want to save it: the standard PowerPoint presenta­tion format, HTML, an earlier PowerPoint format, or even a series of graphics. You can also save it as a template, which allows you to apply the same design to future presentations. Finally, click Save.

To save a copy without losing the original version, choose File > Save As and use a new file name and/or format type. To open a presentation, choose File > Open, locate the presentation you want to open in the Open dialog box, and then double­click on it. To close your presentation, choose File > Close. If you've made changes since the last time the presentation was saved, you'll be prompted to save it before it closes.

Previewing and showing your presentation

Before you show your presentation, it's important to preview it. To do so, choose Slide Show > View Show, or press F5. You'll see a full-screen view of your first slide.

Navigate through the slide show using the keyboard (Page Down, Down, or Right takes you forward through the show; Page Up, Up, or Left takes you back). You automatically return to PowerPoint at the end of the show; you can also end the show at any time by pressing Esc.

To print, choose File > Print. In the dialog box, choose a printer, which slides to print, the number of copies to print, and whether or not to collate them. You can also choose which aspect of the presentation to print: slides, notes, handouts, or the outline. (If you choose handouts, you'll be asked to choose the number of slides to print on each page and how to arrange them.) Finally, choose Grayscale (good for photographs and shaded graphics) or Pure Black and White (good for text and line art), whether to frame slides, and whether to scale them to fit the paper. When you've made all your decisions and are happy with them, click OK to print.