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You have probably heard the adage, "A picture
is Worth a Thousand Words!". That is undoubtedly the premise behind
PowerPoint, Microsoft Office's visual presentation program. In addition to
being entertaining, a multi-color visual presentation is a very effective
way of getting an idea across to an audience, whether the audience is a
classroom of students or a group of potential business clients. The
ease with which someone with minimal technical skills can put together a
professional looking visual presentation is one of the reasons PowerPoint
has been used for lectures, trade shows, and even court cases. This tutorial will take you through some basic steps in putting together a simple, but effective presentation. Before you begin you should collect any graphics, images, photographs, and any other information that you are planning to use for your presentation. |
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Getting Started: | ||||
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When you first open PowerPoint you will probably notice some familiarity with MS Word. Many of the tools and operations are found in standard locations. | |||
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The default page opens with
two pre-defined Text Boxes. A Text Box is different than a paragraph
or a Table in that it can be re-sized or moved pretty well anywhere on the
page, regardless of what seems to be in it's way. Text boxes can also hold
images. To add a Text Box go to Insert
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The default tools that open with a new project are:
You can override these tool selections by going to
View |
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Using Templates: | You can create your own design, or you can choose from a
variety of pre-configured design templates. Either way, stick with a
theme - don't switch colors for each slide. If you are doing a business related project remember that anything you do in terms of presentation is part of the 'branding' process, so it might be an idea to use colors that coincide with corporate or logo colors. Also, keep in mind that the overall look of your presentation should reflect the nature of the idea that you are trying to get across, (humorous, serious, historical, technical, etc.). Refer to: |
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This presentation is for a wooden toy business, and will
be used in a self-running trade show kiosk. I may ultimately create custom graphics for the project, but for now I chose the "Maple" theme, as it has a natural look and suits the maple and oak hardwoods used in the businesses products.
With the exception of adding one Text Box for the "Welcome To" caption, I used the existing text boxes and color scheme. By highlighting any portion of text in a box you can change the characteristics of only the selected area. |
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To insert a picture got to Insert
![]() From File: Browse your computer for the image file, then Select and Insert. Clip Art: If you select Clip Art click the Search button in the Task Pane to see a preview of the available Clip Art images. Once the image is placed it can be moved with the mouse or 'nudged' with the keyboard arrow keys. |
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Refer to
Creating a Feathered Image Effect if you want to use the image effect
shown. Text alignment and other formatting are handled just like they are in MS Word.
You can change the layered order of an image to place it behind another object. Select the Draw button in the lower left corner of the Drawing Tools and choose Order. |
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To create the next slide go to
Insert ![]() At this point you could skip the next few steps and continue adding the necessary slides to complete your presentation. The next few steps will go over some customizing techniques. |
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Customizing - Applying your own styles: | ||||
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With a little bit of work in CorelDraw
and PhotoShop I created some custom graphics, which will also be used on
the business web site. The familiarity of the color/graphics scheme will
help in the business identification/branding process. Also, for the
little bit of extra work up front, you can end up with a totally unique
appearance for your presentation.
It's nice to have pre-defined templates, but the flip-side is that there could be a million other PowerPoint presentations out there that look almost identical to yours! |
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These are the two images that I will
import into the new Slide Master.
The Custom graphic is a wood grain pattern that I applied a faded edge effect to using PhotoShop. This will form the left edge of each page. I created the Custom header for the title page using CorelDraw. A smaller version of the same image will be used as a common footer image on each page. |
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While still in the Master Slide edit
mode go to Insert ![]() ![]() I created two separate Slide Masters, one for the title page, and one for the rest of the pages. |
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Here are the two master slides with the graphics in place. The one on the left will be for the title, intro, and closing pages. The one on the right will be for the common pages. | ||||
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To select the Master Slide to be used, highlight it in the Task Pane under "Used in This Presentation". | ||||
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Adding New Slides: | ||||
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The very first slide was the title page.
The second slide will be an introduction using the same format as the
title page, so I can create a duplicate of the title page then modify it
to suit.
To create the second slide I can go to
Insert
With the duplicated slide you can edit the text and images to suit. |
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Go to Insert ![]() |
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Click again on the drop-down arrow and select Slide Layout. Here you can choose from various pre-formatted layouts for text and image boxes. | |||
Continue
adding slides by going to Insert |
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At any time, you can view all of your
slides by going to View
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At this point the
presentation could be considered complete and ready to go. It will have
default transitions and effect already applied to it. To make a
`free-standing` presentation `go to File
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