Faster Smarter Microsoft® Office XP

Author Katherine Murray Pages 368 Disk N/A Level Beginner Published 11/13/2002 ISBN 9780735618626 Price $19.99 To see this book's discounted price, select a reseller below.	More Information About the Book Table of Contents Sample Chapter Index Related Series About the Author Support: Book & CD Rate this book

Chapter 11: Creating a Presentation-From Start to Finish

• What Can You Do with PowerPoint?
• A Walk Around the PowerPoint Window
• Understanding the PowerPoint Views
• Starting with the End in Mind: Setting Up the Show
• Creating a Presentation
• Using the AutoContent Wizard
• Adding and Editing Your Own Text
• Adding Pages
• Creating a Chart
• Inserting Graphics
• Formatting Slides
• Making Simple Formatting Changes
• Selecting a Different Font
• Changing Color Scheme
• Arranging Slides
• Take One: Running the Presentation
• Saving Your Presentation
• Saving in Other Formats
• Previewing for the Web
• Saving as a Web Page
• Printing Handouts
• Key Points

Chapter 11   Creating a Presentation—From Start to Finish

I'm not one of those people. Are you?

Microsoft PowerPoint helps you prepare presentations that are easy, smooth, and professional, whether you're a seasoned veteran or a novice quaking in your boots. To those who would rather do just about anything other than give a presentation, PowerPoint provides all kinds of help—professional designs, easy-to-use special effects, and even a wizard to help you with content. To experienced presenters, PowerPoint offers convenience, interesting effects, and the ability to take the presentation to people, to desktop, or to the Web. This chapter covers all the basics you need to know to put together a solid, professional presentation in PowerPoint. Maybe you'll be so excited about the result that you won't even notice those butterflies.

What Can You Do with PowerPoint?

• Present your next report to the board in a 10-slide PowerPoint presentation, complete with printed handouts.
• Use a PowerPoint presentation instead of overheads in the next English Lit class you teach; print the slides as handouts for students so they can spend more time discussing your topic and less time taking notes.
• Use PowerPoint (with embedded spreadsheets from Microsoft Excel) to show potential investors why your company is worth a closer look.
• Prepare a PowerPoint presentation to walk your new technicians through the process of repairing copper tubing.
• Design a PowerPoint presentation to show the group how the project workflow will be handled.
• Use a PowerPoint presentation to give a multimedia annual report at your next stockholders meeting.
• Prepare a PowerPoint presentation to introduce your top 50 donors, live and online, to your organization's new giving program.

These are only a few of the more traditional business uses for PowerPoint. But if you're feeling artsy, you can use PowerPoint to create a digital short film, mixing audio and video clips with still photos. Or you could produce a low-budget commercial for online broadcast. Or create a Web page that launches your annual report and gives visitors control over which elements they want to see and when they want to see them.

The list goes on and on. PowerPoint has the functionality to handle any level of creativity you can throw at it. And once you create the presentation, you can display it in a number of ways:

• Run it on a desktop computer as a welcome-to-our-company orientation for new trainees.
• Display it on a movie screen (run from your laptop computer) at the front of the lecture hall.
• Package it to run on a kiosk in the mall.
• Burn it to a CD with an auto-running utility so that clients who don't have PowerPoint can view your presentation as soon as they pop the CD into their computers.
• Save the presentation as a Web page so that visitors to your Web site can view the presentation interactively online.
• Broadcast the presentation live, online, to a group of invited clients.

Enough inspiration? Ready to start the perspiration part? Let's move on to a tour of the PowerPoint window.

A Walk Around the PowerPoint Window

Click to view graphic

Figure 11-1   The PowerPoint window displays familiar toolbars but a much different window design.

Right off the bat, you'll notice the familiar Standard and Formatting toolbars, as well as the task pane. You'll see two new tools on the Formatting toolbar that are particularly worth mentioning:

• The Design tool lets you choose a design for your presentation.
• The New Slide tool displays the Slide Layout task pane so that you can add slides to your presentation.

In addition to the familiar items, you'll find a screen separated into different areas, each providing a different look at the current slide.

The largest area you'll see as you start a new presentation is the slide view, in the center of the workspace. This is where you'll do the majority of your work as you're adding text and placing graphics. The onscreen text Click to add title and Click to add subtitle are placeholders that will be replaced by the text you type.

On the left of the slide area is the thumbnail pane, which shows you a small representation of the current slide. As you add slides to your presentation, these will fill the column. This column also has a second tab, Outline, which enables you to see the slide headings and text items in your presentation.

Beneath the slide area is a small section where you can enter notes related to the slide displayed. To add a note, simply click in the Click to add notes area and type whatever information you want to add. The text you type will stay with the slide but will not appear in a presentation or on presentation handouts, unless you specifically choose to print the slide while showing all notes.

Understanding the PowerPoint Views

Table 11-1 PowerPoint Views

Button	View Name	Use When.
Click to view graphic	Normal View	You want to work on individual slides or add notes to your slides.
Click to view graphic	Slide Sorter View	You are organizing, reviewing, rearranging, or setting timing and transitions for your slides.
Click to view graphic	Slide Show	You want to display a slide show based on the open presentation, starting with the currently selected slide.

You also can display the current slide in Notes Pages view, which displays a small version of the current slide atop a large notes area.

Starting with the End in Mind: Setting Up the Show

The answer to this question will determine some of the considerations you'll need to keep in mind as you create the presentation. You answer that initial question in the Page Setup dialog box, shown in Figure 11-2.

Click to view graphic

Figure 11-2   You use the Page Setup dialog box to tell PowerPoint how you plan to deliver the presentation.

To display the Page Setup dialog box, choose Page Setup from the File menu. You can then prepare your presentation by following these steps:

1. Click the Slides Sized For down arrow to display the list of available options. On-Screen Show is the default setting, but you can also choose a number of paper sizes, 35mm Slides, Overhead, Banner, and Custom.
2. If you want to change the width and height of the slides, click in the Width and Height boxes, respectively, and change those values either by clicking the up and down arrows or by typing a new value.
3. Enter the number you want PowerPoint to use as the first page number in the Number Slides From box.
4. By default, the Slides orientation is set to Landscape (horizontal, 11 × 8 1/2 mode). For most purposes, you should be able to leave this setting as is. The Notes, Handouts And Outline orientation setting is Portrait (vertical, 8 1/2 × 11-inch mode). This is a traditional orientation for the printed page, so this, too, should be fine as it appears.
5. Click OK to save your settings. You're now ready to begin creating your presentation.
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Before you start working on the presentation, close the task pane if it's still visible by clicking the close box in the upper-right corner of the pane. This gives you more room to work with your slide on the screen.

Creating a Presentation

• Click Blank Presentation to open a new blank document on your screen. (There's no need to choose this option right now, however, because you've already got a blank document displayed on the screen.)
• Click From Design Template to display a collection of design templates in the task pane (as shown in Figure 11-3). These design templates are great—experiment with them to see whether one fits your vision for your presentation. The templates include background designs, color schemes, and text settings that work together to provide a pleasing, interesting look. In the task pane, scroll to the design you like and click it; PowerPoint then displays a new presentation based on the design template you've selected. Your next task is to add text and images to make it yours.


Click to view graphic

Figure 11-3   When you choose From Design Template, a collection of templates appears in the task pane.

• Click From AutoContent Wizard to start a wizard that helps you pull together the content for your presentation. The next section takes you through the process of using the AutoContent Wizard.

Using the AutoContent Wizard

Click to view graphic

Figure 11-4   The AutoContent Wizard walks you through the process of creating basic text for your presentation.

Click Next on the first page of the wizard. This automated helper then leads you through the following four steps:

1. The first step asks you to choose the category of presentation you want to create (General, Corporate, Projects, Sales/Marketing, or Carnegie Coach). When you click one of the choices, a list of specific presentations appears. Click the one closest to the presentation goal you are trying to achieve, and then click Next.
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If you want to see all the types of presentations the AutoContent Wizard has to offer, simply click the All button to display the entire list. Click the one you want and then click Next.
2. In the next step, the AutoContent Wizard asks what kind of output you will use for your presentation. Click your choice (for most presentations, you will likely use either On-Screen Presentation or Web Presentation); and then click Next.
3. Enter a title for your presentation and, if you want to include a footer (which might include your company or department name), type it in the Footer box. If you want the date and slide number to appear in the footer line, leave the options checked; otherwise, click the boxes to clear them and disable the options. Click Next.
4. Click Finish on the last page. The presentation is created and placed in the work area (as shown in Figure 11-5), ready for you to modify to your heart's content.


Click to view graphic

Figure 11-5   When you create a presentation with the AutoContent Wizard, PowerPoint creates an entire presentation for you, providing text prompts for the type of information to include.

Try This!

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One thing the AutoContent Wizard doesn't allow you to do is choose the design you want to work with. Luckily, PowerPoint is extremely flexible, and you can go back and change a design at any time as you work on the presentation. When you want to choose a different design for your presentation, follow these steps:

5. Open the presentation you want to change.
6. Click the Design button on the Formatting toolbar. The Slide Design task pane appears with the various design templates displayed.
7. Find a design you like and click it. PowerPoint applies the design to the entire presentation, and that old presentation design is gone, gone, gone.

If you don't like the change, you can return the presentation to its earlier design by pressing Ctrl+Z immediately.

Adding and Editing Your Own Text

If you've used our friend, the AutoContent Wizard, to start the presentation, you've got all kinds of text in your presentation. The topics that are already there are prompts that are intended to spark your ideas for the information you need to provide. You shouldn't feel roped into what the AutoContent Wizard does for you, of course—your presentation should have its own flavor and approach. (But why reinvent the wheel if the one you've got is working fine?)

You can change the text in the presentation two ways:

• On the slide, you can click the text you want to change. The text box highlights and the cursor appears. You can then highlight the text you want to replace and type the new text. The AutoContent text is replaced as you type.
• When all the text for that slide is highlighted in the Outline pane, begin typing. This replaces all the text in that slide.
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If you accidentally erase more information than you intended, press Ctrl+Z and PowerPoint will undo your last action.

Adding Pages

1. Display the page before which you want to add the page.
2. Click New Slide on the Formatting toolbar. The Slide Layout task pane appears, offering you a collection of different text and content layouts (as shown in Figure 11-6). Scroll to the slide layout you want to use and click it.

The new slide is added in the format you selected. Now you can plug in new text or add objects as needed.

Click to view graphic

Figure 11-6   Choose a layout for the new slide in the Slide Layout task pane.

Creating a Chart

1. Display the page before which you want to add the slide with the chart.
2. Click the New Slide button on the Formatting toolbar. The task pane appears.
3. Scroll to the Other Layouts section of the Slide Layout task pane and click the Title, Text, or Chart layout. The new slide in the layout you selected is displayed in the work area.
4. Now, double-click the chart area to begin the chart-creation process. A bar chart is drawn by default and a sample datasheet appears with dummy data already inserted.
5. Replace the data in the datasheet with your own information. You can edit these cells the way you edit cells in Excel: Click the cell and type the new information. Like an Excel spreadsheet, the column and row labels are used as the axis labels and the legend on the chart (as shown in Figure 11-7).
6. After you've replaced the data, click the datasheet's close box to hide the datasheet and give yourself more room to work.
7. If you want to change the type of chart used to portray your data, click the Chart Type tool on the Standard toolbar. A palette of chart styles appears, and you can simply click the chart type you want to use.


Click to view graphic

Figure 11-7   PowerPoint draws a bar chart by default and displays dummy values in the datasheet.

NOTE
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Notice that the PowerPoint Standard toolbar and menu bar change when you are working with charts. The new Chart menu is added to the menu bar; in this menu you'll find all kinds of options for customizing and enhancing charts. Also on the Standard toolbar you'll find chart tools that are identical to those you used with Excel charts. (See Chapter 10, "Charting Spreadsheet Data," to learn more about using chart tools.)

Inserting Graphics

Some people make the mistake of creating presentations that are pages and pages of text. But think about it: Just as you need something now and then to break the monotony of reading page after page of this book, your audience will need a picture, a photo, or a splash of color every so often to give their eyes a rest and help them pause a minute before they focus again on your words.

Inserting graphics in PowerPoint is simple. And PowerPoint makes it even easier for you by providing ready-made clip art that you can use. The process starts with adding a slide to your presentation, as follows:

1. Select the slide before which you'd like to add the slide that will include the graphics.
2. Click New Slide on the Formatting toolbar.
3. Scroll down to the Text And Content Layouts portion of the Slide Layout task pane.
4. Choose a layout that gives you the ability to add objects.
5. Click the Insert Clip Art tool in the Click icon to add content area of the slide. (If you're not sure which tool is the Insert Clip Art tool, position the mouse pointer over each tool until the name appears.)

Now that you have added the type of slide you need to add graphics, click Insert Clip Art. The Select Picture dialog box appears, showing the art available in PowerPoint. Simply click the picture you want to use and PowerPoint adds it to the slide.

Formatting Slides

Pretty much everything in PowerPoint is changeable, however, and you can alter the look and placement of text to match whatever you envision. You'll make formatting changes using these methods:

• You can choose a tool on the Formatting toolbar that enables you to make the change you want quickly.
• You can select the command you need from the Format menu.
• You can right-click the object you want to change and choose the formatting command you want from the object's context menu.

Making Simple Formatting Changes

• Italicizing or boldfacing a few words for emphasis. Select the text you want to change and click Bold or Italic on the Formatting toolbar. You also can press Ctrl+B to boldface the selected work or Ctrl+I to italicize it.
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To select one word quickly, simply click in it. The formatting change will be applied to the word at the cursor position. To select a line of text (such as a single bullet item or a slide title), triple-click in the line.
• Changing the color of a title. Highlight the text and click the down arrow to the right of the Font Color tool on the Formatting toolbar. Click the color your want from the displayed palette.
• Changing the bullet characters on a bullet list. Right-click in the list you want to change and select Bullets And Numbering from the context menu. In the Bullets And Numbering dialog box, click one of the alternate bullet styles or click Customize to display the Symbol dialog box. Click the character you want to use as a bullet and then click OK.
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If you don't see a character you like, you might want to see what other fonts have to offer. Click the Font down arrow and choose a different font. The standard symbol fonts included in Office XP are Webdings, Wingdings, Wingdings 2, Wingdings 3, and Symbol, but your system may have others as well.
• Changing the alignment of text. The easiest way to change the way text is aligned is to select it and then click Align Left, Center, or Align Right on the Formatting toolbar. You also can press Ctrl+L, Ctrl+E, or Ctrl+R, respectively, to make these changes.
• Modifying indent levels. If you want to increase or decrease the indent of text on the current slide, you can use the Increase Indent or Decrease Indent tools. You also can change indents by clicking the text you want to change and pressing Alt+Shift+Right-arrow to increase the indent and Alt+Shift+Left-arrow to decrease it.

Selecting a Different Font

1. Select your text and then select Font from the Format menu. The Font dialog box appears.
2. Scroll through the Font list and select the font you want.
3. In the Font style box, click the style you want to apply to the text.
4. Click the new size in the Size box.
5. Add any special text effects you want by clicking the appropriate checkboxes.
6. If you want to choose a new color for the font, click the Color down arrow and click your choice from the palette. If you don't see one you want, click More Colors to see additional choices.
7. When you're finished entering font settings, click OK.

Changing Color Scheme

1. Open the presentation you want to change.
2. Choose Slide Design from the Format menu.
3. In the Slide Design task pane, click Color Schemes. A selection of color schemes appears in the task pane.
4. Point to the one you like and a down arrow appears. Click it and choose whether you want to apply the change to all slides or the selected slide. After you make your choice, the color change is made.

Arranging Slides

You use Slide Sorter view to make these kinds of changes in your presentation. You can display this view using one of two methods:

• Choose Slide Sorter from the View menu.
• Click the Slide Sorter View tool in the view controls in the lower left portion of the PowerPoint window.

Slide Sorter view displays all the slides in your presentation in a thumbnail view (as shown in Figure 11-8). You can easily review the different slides in this view and make choices about the order in which they are arranged. If you want to rearrange the slides, simply click the one you want to move and drag it to the new location. An insertion bar moves with the slide as you drag it to show you where the slide will be positioned when you release the mouse button. You can reverse a change you make by pressing Ctrl+Z.

Click to view graphic

Figure 11-8   You can rearrange your slides easily in Slide Sorter view.

Take One: Running the Presentation

Saving Your Presentation

1. Press Ctrl+S to display the Save As dialog box.
2. Navigate to the folder in which you want to store the file.
3. Enter a name for the presentation in the File Name box.
4. Click Save.

Saving in Other Formats

Previewing for the Web

Click to view graphic

Figure 11-9   The presentation displayed as a Web page.

The presentation is created using frames to provide users with the links they need to get to other pages. The first page of the presentation appears in the right pane; on the left you see the titles of the other slides in your presentation. To go to another page, simply click the title.

Saving as a Web Page

Click to view graphic

Figure 11-10   The Save As dialog box has a few additional options for Web pages.

Beneath the file list in the Save As dialog box, click Publish to set further options, such as whether to save the entire presentation or a selected range, whether to include speaker notes, which browsers you want to support, and the title and folder for the saved Web page. Click the Open Published Web page in the browser check box if you want to see the page after it has been saved. Click Publish to complete the process.

Printing Handouts

To begin printing in PowerPoint, choose Print from the File menu. In the Print dialog box, set all your options as you would in any other Office application. When you get down to the Print What box, click the down arrow and choose the setting you want from the displayed list, as shown in Figure 11-16.

Click to view graphic

Figure 11-11   You can choose to print handouts, outlines, and speaker notes in PowerPoint.

Before you print your document, click Preview to look at what you're printing. Then, when you're ready, click Print and then OK to print your file.

Key Points

• PowerPoint is a presentation graphics program that makes it easy for you to create professional-quality presentations.
• You can start a presentation by selecting a blank page, working with a design template, or using the AutoContent Wizard to suggest content based on the topic you select.
• Add pages easily by clicking the New Slide button on the Formatting toolbar.
• Changing the layout of a slide is a simple matter: Choose Slide Layout from the Format menu and choose the layout you want from the thumbnails displayed in the task pane.
• PowerPoint includes layout templates that make it easy for you to add charts, clip art, tables, pictures, diagrams, and media clips.
• You use the tools on the Formatting toolbar to make simple changes; additional options are available on the Format menu and on individual objects' context menus.
• Click Design on the Formatting toolbar to display the Slide Design task pane; then choose Color Schemes to choose a different color set for your presentation. You can also see how the presentation will look in black and white by clicking the Color/Grayscale tool on the Standard toolbar.
• You will use Slide Sorter view to rearrange the slides in your presentation.
• Run your presentation by pressing F5, and advance the slides by clicking the left mouse button or pressing the right-arrow key, Enter, or spacebar. Return to a previous slide by pressing the left-arrow key.
• You can save your PowerPoint presentation as a Web page. Choose Save As Web Page from the File menu to save a browser-ready version of your presentation.
• In PowerPoint you can choose to print handouts of your slides, your entire presentation, the presentation outline, or speaker notes.

Last Updated: October 28, 2002

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