Microsoft Powerpoint
Create and share impressive slide shows for work or for personal use.
Create a presentation
PowerPoint creates slide shows containing text, images and videos, useful for many purposes. Businesses present products and services to customers, teachers present course materials, and families show slides of loved ones on anniversaries and birthdays.
Use a template
As with Word and Excel, PowerPoint has a large collection of templates into which you can drop your text, images and videos. Click File>New and you will see a few of the templates (Fig 1), but most of them are stored online and you must search for them.
Enter a word or phrase into the search box or click one of the suggestions below it and the matching templates are displayed. Find one that most closely matches what you need and click it. An info box is displayed that contains a larger thumbnail image. To see the various slides within a presentation, click the forward and back buttons below the thumbnail image of the slide (Fig 2). When you find a template you like, click the Create button.
Add slides
When you start a new presentation, there may be just one slide or many and it depends on the template that is selected. It is unlikely to be the exact number or type that you need, so click New Slide on the Home tab and choose one of the templates that are displayed. There are several different layouts to choose from. To delete a slide, select it on the left and press the Delete key.
Enter text
Most slide shows contain text, even if it is only the title on the first slide. There are several types of text and the simplest is the text box. Select the Insert tab and click Text Box in the Text section of the ribbon. Click and drag a rectangle on the page to create a text box and a flashing cursor waits for you to type in some text. If you have opened a template, it will contain dummy text to show where the text boxes are located. Click the text, such as the title, delete it and replace it with your own. You can add more text boxes to a slide and delete ones that are not needed.
Text boxes have little squares in the corners and along the sides (handles); click and drag them to resize the text box. As the mouse passes over the edge of a text box, it becomes a cross-shaped arrow and this means the text box can be clicked and dragged to move it on the slide.
Click and drag the top‑centre rounded arrow to rotate a text box to the desired angle.
Apply text effects
There are many effects that can be applied to text and these are accessed by clicking and dragging over some text to select it, right-clicking it and then selecting Format Text Effects from the menu. This opens a panel on the right and there are three buttons near the top. The first is to access Text Fill & Outline,
Right-click an image and select Format Picture to apply special effects such as shadows.
the second is Text Effects and the third is Textbox.
Select Text Fill & Outline and at the bottom of the panel is a button to set the foreground and background colours. The Text Fill options are most useful for large headings and it is possible to have text outlines that are transparent in the middle, a solid or gradient fill, and a picture or pattern fill. Just click a pattern to fill the selected text, for example (Fig 3).
The Text Effects panel has some eye-catching options that will make headings stand out. Expand the Shadow section and click the Presets button to select one of the ready-made shadow effects. Expand the 3D Format section and click Top Bevel or Bottom Bevel to make flat text 3D. All the effects can be combined, so you can fill text, add a shadow and make it 3D.
Insert pictures
A slide needs pictures to add interest and there are several sources for them. Select the Insert tab of the ribbon and in the Images section click Pictures to select a photo or artwork from the computer’s disk drive, such as a digital camera photo. It is quite likely that the image is too large for the slide, but it is easy to resize them. Click an image to select it and handles (squares) appear in the corners and along the sides. Click and drag a handle to make the image larger or smaller, and click and drag the middle of the image to position it on the slide.
If you don’t have any images of your own to accompany your slide show, you can import obejcts you have made on Paint 3D and insert them into slides.
Select transitions
Transitions are special effects that are often used when moving from one slide to another in the presentation. The next slide could simply appear on the screen, but it might be more interesting if it slides on, slowly fades in while the previous one fades out. Alternatively, the new slide could push out the old one, fade to it through black and any one of a couple of dozen other effects. It is possible to use the same transition effect for the whole slide show or to have a different one for each slide. Try not to use too many or you’ll make your audience dizzy with all the effects.
When assigning a transition, there is a Timing section in the ribbon and this enables the duration to be set. A brief duration will produce a fast transition and a long duration slows it down.
You can also choose to advance a slide when the mouse is clicked or after a certain time.
View the presentation
So far we have looked at some of the different ways that slides can be created using text, images, animations and transitions. When you have finished all the slides, go to the Slide Show tab of the ribbon to see the options for viewing and
setting up slide shows. A slide show can be started from any point and in the Start Slide Show section you’ll find buttons to start from the beginning or the currently selected slide.
In the Set Up section of the Slide Show ribbon there is a button to Rehearse Timings. If you are going to give a public presentation or one at work to colleagues or customers, you should practise it until you get it right. You can run through the slides and speech as many times as you need. There is a Record Slide Show button and this enables you to play through the slide show while you narrate it. You will need a microphone in order for PowerPoint to record your speech and you don’t have to do it all in one go.
There is more than one way to view a presentation and you could share it online or print it out on paper. Click File and then Print or Export to see the options. Don’t forget to set standard or widescreen formats (Fig 4).