PowerPoint and Impress
PHOTOGRAPHIC BACKGROUNDS
You can embed a photo into a slide’s background in PowerPoint by clicking Format Background on the Design tab. Select ‘Picture or texture fill’ then choose to insert a picture from a file, the clipboard or online. Once done, you can adjust its transparency, type (tiled or stretched) and position on-screen. Like what you see? Click ‘Apply to All’ to apply the background to all your slides.
Impress users should simply select Slide > Set Background Image to select a suitable image – it’ll be stretched to fit by default. Another way to add the image is by right-clicking on a slide’s existing background and choosing Properties. Select ‘Bitmap’, click ‘Add/ Import’ to import your image, then use the controls to tweak its position and size – choose ‘Custom position/size’ and tick Scale to correct overstretch.
SPLIT INTO SECTIONS
One handy navigation aid for presenters on large PowerPoint slideshows is to split them into distinct sections. This doesn’t simply mean creating section slides, but also inserting section dividers: click between two slides to bring up a red dividing line, then right-click and choose Add Section. Give your section a name and you’re done. Repeat throughout your presentation – you can collapse section headers, plus use them to quickly rearrange the running order of your presentation via drag and drop.
INSERT SUMMARY SLIDES
Summary slides enable you to display multiple slides on a single slide as a summary, plus make them interactive so clicking a specific thumbnail will take you to the slide in question. In PowerPoint, click Zoom on the Insert tab to create one – these can be a summary of the entire presentation, a specified section or a group of one or more selected slides from your presentation. Just make your choice and the slide will be created.
In Impress, select the first slide you wish to appear in your summary, then choose Slide > Summary Slide. This creates a new (non-interactive, sadly) slide at the end of the presentation where all the titles from your selected slide to the last one in the deck are written as bullet points as a summary. If the option is greyed out, it’s because your slides have no titles on them.
UNDO CROP
Cropping images is a great way of making them fit the available space without having to edit them outside your presentation tool. You’ll find the option when you select a picture in PowerPoint on the Picture Format tab; In Impress, you simply need to rightclick the image in question and choose Crop. Use the drag handles to select the part of the image you wish to keep. Your edits are non-destructive (but note our ‘Shrink File Size’ tip on the page opposite), which means if you do want to undo your crop, click Crop again, but this time expand the drag handles to restore the missing parts of the image.
IMPORT SLIDES
Copy a slide from another presentation by choosing the Insert > ‘Slides from Files’ > Find Presentation tab and open the source presentation. Select the slide to copy and click Insert. Or simply drag and drop across – note: the slide will retain its original formatting but will adhere to whichever aspect ratio you have set up in the new presentation. Use an existing layout to convert it to the look and feel of your new slideshow.
SMART PASTING
When pasting text, PowerPoint retains the formatting by default. To paste the text and use the destination formatting you need to expand the Paste button on the Home tab and choose Keep Text Only. Or, to speed things up, add the command to the Quick Access toolbar above the Ribbon – click the expand button to its right and choose More Commands – you’ll find ‘Paste and Keep Text’ only under ‘Commands not in the Ribbon’. In Impress, you can simply make use of the Ctrl-Alt-Shift-V shortcut to achieve the same; you can’t assign custom keyboard shortcuts in PowerPoint, sadly.
CREATING TEMPLATES
If you frequently create slideshows of a certain type, save time by creating your own template. Head to the View tab on the Ribbon and click Slide Master to create the various layouts you’ll use. At the top is your basic master – anything placed here will appear on all your layouts, so use this as a starting point to define fonts, colours, background styles and so on. Once done, move on to create the different layouts you need.
In Impress, you access the master slide via the main sidebar: expand Slide and click Master View. You’re stuck with the pre-defined layouts – instead create separate Masters for all the different layouts you need. Once done, select File > Templates > Save As Template.
AUTOFIT OPTIONS
Typed too much text into a slide? Both PowerPoint and Impress will attempt to cram the text into the available space by automatically shrinking its font size. Switch this behaviour off in PowerPoint under the File > Options > Proofing > AutoCorrect Options > AutoFormat As You Type tab or apply it on a case-bycase basis using the AutoFit Options button that appears. Look out for options to split the text over two slides or convert the text box into two columns if it’s massively overwritten.
AutoFit is less elegant in Impress – you right-click a text box, choose Text and tick ‘Fit to frame’ on a case-by-case basis. However, you can also define this at the Master Slide level to make it the default behaviour for any slides based on that Master.
REPLACE FONTS
Don’t like a font you’ve used? The quickest way to get rid in PowerPoint is to choose Replace > Replace Fonts on the Ribbon’s Home tab in the Editing
section. Pick the font you don’t like and then choose a replacement. Click Replace to make the change across your entire presentation.
FINE-TUNE OBJECT POSITIONS
Use the arrow keys to nudge your text and graphics into position on your slide. Need even finer control? Hold [Ctrl] as you manoeuvre your elements around.
USE THE GUIDES
Gain additional help when moving objects with the help of guides. In Impress, first select View > Grid and Helplines > Display Grid to bring up a grid, and also View > Rulers to provide you with rulers from which you can place individual guides on the page. Snapping to guides is helpful for precise alignment, and you’ll find plenty of options under View > Snap Guides for what elements can snap to: the grid, snap guides, object border, object points and/or page margins.
Things are simpler in PowerPoint – just three tick boxes for Ruler, Gridlines and Guides on the View tab, then click the More button next to Show to control snap behaviour and to set the size of the grid. If nothing else, leave the ‘Display smart guides when shapes are aligned’ box ticked to make it easy to arrange items around other objects.
PREVIEW SLIDESHOW EFFECTS
Take a peek at how your presentation is coming together in Presenter view by holding Alt as you click From Beginning or From Current Slide on the Slide Show tab in PowerPoint. No such presenter view exists in Impress, but you can run the slideshow within the main Impress window instead of full screen by choosing Slide Show > Slide Show Settings and selecting ‘In a window’ under Presentation Mode.
PRINT HANDOUTS
Export slides to Word to create handouts in PowerPoint by choosing File > Export > Create Handouts, choose what to send and the format to use, and click OK. In Impress, you will find everything you need to print out handouts within the program itself – View > Handout Master is where you can tweak the master template, then simply choose File > Print and select Handouts from the Document drop-down menu.
FIX IMAGE ASPECT RATIO
Some images may have the incorrect aspect ratio – fix this in PowerPoint by making the Format Pane visible (click on the picture, switch to the Picture Format tab on the Ribbon). Select the size button and change one of the scales – if ‘lock aspect ratio’ is ticked, it should automatically fix this. If you need to, you can then re-crop pictures to fit the new aspect ratio so long as you’re confident
the key information is still shown.
SHRINK FILE SIZE
Image-hungry presentations can soon start to swell in size. Rein them in by optimising the images. In Impress, you can do this via Tools > ‘Minimise Presentation…’. Just follow the wizard to set the appropriate compression levels to reduce file size while keeping the presentation of sufficient quality to meet your needs.
It’s slightly more convoluted in Word: here, after saving a backup copy you need to select any picture, then switch to the ‘Picture Tools | Format’ tab on the Ribbon. Click ‘Compress Pictures’. By default, only the current image is affected, so untick ‘Apply only to this picture’ to have image compression apply across the entire document. You can then set a specific resolution and decide whether you need to keep the cropped elements of images. Click ‘OK’ and save to drastically cut the size of your presentation.