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HT: Become a PowerPoint Guru in 20 Steps

kitedemon

kitedemon

Really Experienced
Joined
Jul 6, 2005
Posts
199
At the request of the studio audience and as a companion thread to the 20 Things you didn't know about Excel thread created earlier I am starting a thread about PowerPoint. You can see the Excel thread here.

The features of the PowerPoint program have evolved somewhat more than the Excel features. This means, unfortunately, that those of you who are using 'older' versions of PowerPoint will not be able to do some of the activites or your instructions will be a bit different from those given in the thread. I will try to make mention of any differences as I go.

The first PowerPoint tip will come in my next post.
 
PowerPoint Tip #1

Here's the thing. You need to put your PowerPoint presentation on "Hold" for a while during a discussion with your colleagues. You actually have a couple of ways to do this.

Method 1:
  1. While your presentation is running press the W key on your computer keyboard.
  2. This causes PowerPoint to suspend your presentation and make the screen go White.
  3. The data projector will now flood the room with white light allowing your group to make notes and see each other clearly.
  4. You would use this technique when the room in which you are working is dark due to window coverings or because there are no windows.
Method 2:
  1. While your presentation is running press the B key on your keyboard.
  2. This causes PowerPoint to suspend your presentation and present a Black screen.
  3. You would use this technique when there is already enough light from room lighting or windows.

To resume your presentation after the discussion press the W or B key again.

Did I mention that your presentation has to be running for this to work?
 
PowerPoint Tip #2

This one's short and sweet.

You have your PowerPoint program open to a presentation and you are ready to run it. How do you do that? Most everyone uses the menu choices Slide Show | View Show.

Sure it works but it is definitely not the best way. What is the best way? When you are ready to go press function key 5 (F5). This starts your show beginning at slide one.

What if you've added some content to one particular slide and you want to see how that one slide looks. You don't want to run all the way through your show just to see that slide. The trick here is to click the little movie screen icon in the lower left corner of the PowerPoint window. There are several icons there. The one you want is the third or fourth one (depending on version). You can also do a SHIFT and F5 for that activity instead.
 
PowerPoint Tip #3

So, your stupid boss throws a stack of scribbled notes onto your desk and needs you to come up with a brilliant PowerPoint presentation within the hour.

Step #1 -- Explain to your boss how procrastination on her part does not imply she can always receive priority treatment from you. You will need her to grant a favour back.

Step #2 -- Use the AutoContent Wizard to create the presentation while she goes for lunch.

Here's how:

  1. Open PowerPoint and click File | New | From AutoContent Wizard (older versions have an AutoContent Wizard radio button on the first window)
  2. The first step in the wizard is just information. Click Next.
  3. Step two in the wizard lets you select the type of show you want such as a brainstorming session or conveying bad news. Click the All button and choose one from the list then click Next.
  4. Your boss is likely going to make an On-screen presentation so just click Next.
  5. In the Presentation title box type the title of your boss's speech (we hope it's not Time Management Tips :rolleyes: )
  6. In the footer box type: More info from:bossname@yourorganization.com
  7. Remove the check from the Date last updated box.
  8. Leave the Slide Number box checked.
  9. Click Next.
  10. All done. Click Finish.
  11. Refer to your boss's scribbled notes and go from slide to slide adding her remarks to the bulleted lists and other slide objects.
  12. You may need to delete a slide or two or add others. Come back for other tips to learn how do those things. The background is probably ugly too--stay tuned to this station for that skill too.
  13. Test the show by pressing F5 on your keyboard (that was tip #2)
  14. Stop the show by pressing the ESC button (upper left corner of your keyboard)

PowerPoint can make you look good and you don't have to work very hard. All you need is a little help from the wizards. ;)
 
PowerPoint Tip #4

Suppose you are going to a trade show, a convention, or a wedding reception. A PowerPoint presentation is a great marketing/promotion/educational/entertainment tool. The problem is you don't want to stand around making the presentation. The solution? Make PowerPoint give your presentation continuously.

Here's how:

  1. Create your presentation in the normal manner then save it.
  2. To make your show run continuously put a check in the Browsed at a kiosk (full screen) box. Older versions make you put a check in the Loop Continuously until ESC box too.
  3. Make sure the Use timings if present selection has been made.
  4. Click OK.
  5. To set the timings click Slide Show | Slide Transition.
  6. Put a check into the Advance Slides Automatically after box.
  7. Type a number of seconds in the box provided. This is the length of time each slide will be displayed.
  8. Click Apply to All Slides. (Older versions have an Apply to All button instead). You can adjust the timing for individual slides if you want.
  9. Check out your work by pressing F5 to start your show. Do not click or type any key on your keyboard. Your show should run all by itself.
  10. Press the ESCape key to stop your show.
Now you can make your presentation all day long and still schmooze the room, take in a workshop or dance with the bride.
 
PowerPoint Tip #5

Suppose you need to make a presentation but it is just a face-to-face with a group of colleagues or clients. You won't need a PowerPoint presentation for this one--or will you?

By creating a PowerPoint presentation you get a bunch of bonuses. You can organize your thoughts so your presentation becomes more powerful. The preparation process forces you to collect all the material you need ahead of time. There will be no surprises at crunch time.

Perhaps the best bonus of all would be the handouts that PowerPoint will give you. People will only remember a small part of your pitch. The handout will tell the whole story again whenever they look at it.

Here's how to make the handouts:

  1. Open or create your presentation.
  2. Click File | Print.
  3. Click the drop-down for the Print what list and click Handouts.
  4. Click the drop-down for the Slides per page and click 3. This selection gives you three slide graphics each with some space for participants to make notes as you give your speech.
  5. Click OK to print your handouts.
People like to have handouts. You need to make your pitch as powerful and rememberable as possible. PowerPoint handouts are a good step in that direction and are no-brainers to make.
 
Just a question

Please post a reply to indicate if you are using an earlier version of PowerPoint (Office 2000 or earlier) or a later version (Office XP/2003).

I'm just interested in the numbers.

Thanks.
 
This is awesome!
Being a uni business student, I've obviously had to use PP before. But with two or three presentations due in the next week or so, these tips are extra-timely! The B & W keys are totally new to me! Thanks so much!
*S
 
amiss said:
This is awesome!
Being a uni business student, I've obviously had to use PP before. But with two or three presentations due in the next week or so, these tips are extra-timely! The B & W keys are totally new to me! Thanks so much!
*S
Click to expand...
You are absolutely welcome. Good luck with the rest of your course work. Maybe there will still be a tip or two later that will help.
 
Can I butt in?

Someone turned me on to a program called Snag it. You can try a free version. It allows you to pull a shot from a screen without getting the whole screen. You can add text or arrows and so on. You can then save the image and paste into a Word or Powerpoint doc. It is really cool and very fast and easy to use. I created a how-to doc with screen shots and instructions for my online class in less than an hour. Thought I would pass this info along-maybe you'd find it useful.
Have a great day!!
:D
 
INeedLove said:
Someone turned me on to a program called Snag it. You can try a free version. It allows you to pull a shot from a screen without getting the whole screen. You can add text or arrows and so on. You can then save the image and paste into a Word or Powerpoint doc. It is really cool and very fast and easy to use. I created a how-to doc with screen shots and instructions for my online class in less than an hour. Thought I would pass this info along-maybe you'd find it useful.
Have a great day!!
:D
Click to expand...
Hey! Thanks for sharing. You are absolutely right, SnagIt is a great program. I use it regularly during the process of creating user manuals but it has way more features than I use.

Literoticans can get the free download you mention here.

For an unbiased review of the program click here.

BTW, INeedLove, if you teach an online course you might want to consider another TechSmith product called Camtasia. It is much more comprehensive than SnagIt and does a great job of capturing screen activity instead of just a static display. You can create an avi movie of several steps in a menu selection process for example. Camtasia even lets you convert your avi into a Flash move so you can easily include it on a web page.

Check out the link here to see some product demos.

Thanks again for sharing your experience with us.

Other contributions are certainly welcome from anyone.
 
I've heard about camtasia. I planned on integrating it into my materials over the summer when I have more time. Thanks!!
:kiss:
 
INeedLove said:
I've heard about camtasia. I planned on integrating it into my materials over the summer when I have more time. Thanks!!
:kiss:
Click to expand...
You will really like it. A couple of years ago I had a contract to create an Intranet website for employees of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland. Part of the requirement included about 50 demo movies. Camtasia gave me all the movies in Flash format for the site. It also spits out all the HTML code needed to embed each movie on each page. Each movie took about 5 minutes to make (but we didn't tell them that :eek: )

When you take the plunge, PM me and I will be happy to help with any questions you might have.

PS: Michigan is a great place to live. Hockey at "The Joe" in Detroit, ice fishing on the lake near Muskeegan, ahh the good old days. A couple more posts for you and you get an avatar.

Hope the rest of the day goes great for you.
 
OK, here it is. Tip #6.

sperling said:
Great thread so far.
Waiting for # 6 :)
Click to expand...
Suppose you want to put the corporate logo or some other picture on every slide of your presentation. What a pain for 50 slides. Yuck.

The answer? Don't do it on any of the slides. There is a special slide called the Slide Master. The job of the slide master is to control how every slide in your show looks. Put the logo there instead.

Here's how:

  1. Open your presentation.
  2. Click View | Master | Slide Master.
  3. Click Insert | Picture | From File.
  4. Navigate to the folder in which the logo (or other picture) is stored.
  5. Double-click the picture file name.
  6. Resize and reposition the new image by dragging the sizing handles or the image.
  7. Click View | Normal View.
  8. Check out a few of your slides. The logo is there.

Don't want the logo on your title slide? Come back for tip #7.

FYI: You can actually put anything you want on the slide master--pics, text, date, anything) and it will appear on every slide.
 
PowerPoint Tip #7

kitedemon said:
Don't want the logo on your title slide? Come back for tip #7.
Click to expand...
In the previous tip we figured out how to put a graphic on every slide by putting it only on the Master slide. Sometimes we don't want that graphic on a particular slide. The title slide for instance will likely have a different 'look and feel' than the other slides. Slides with big charts fall into the same category.

Suppressing a background graphic on a particular slide is easy.


  1. Click the slide that has the graphic to be removed.
  2. Click Format | Background.
  3. Place a check in the Omit background graphics from master checkbox.
  4. Click Apply (not Apply to All).
  5. Tadahh! :nana: The background graphic is gone from this slide but not from the others.
See. I told you it was easy.
 
PowerPoint Tip #8

Changing the 'look and feel' of your PowerPoint presentation is a snap. Instead of formatting each slide in your show individually just apply a Design Template. Design templates change the title formatting, the bullet styles, the formatting of charts and other objects and also add a background graphic and colour too.

A couple of clicks and you have a whole new (looking) show.

  1. Open the presentation that you want to use.
  2. Click the Design button in the toolbar.
  3. In 'older' versions of PowerPoint you get a dialogue box of templates. In 'newer' versions you see them in a task pane on the right. Click one or two until you find one you like.
  4. Click Apply to all slides (either a radio button or a real button--depending on version).
  5. Everything gets updated.
  6. Don't like the look? Do it again. PowerPoint doesn't care.

In the newer versions of PowerPoint you can have multiple design templates applied in the same show. Slides one through four have one template and slides five through 20 have a second and so on.

To do this, hold down a CTRL key then click the slide images that you want to have the new colour scheme on the left side of the window before you choose a design template.

When you finally choose a template only the selected slides will get the treatment. It's a great way to clearly indicate a change in content for your presentation. Intro slides can have a bluish design, financial reporting slides have a greenish design, customer complaint issues have a purple look and feel and so on.

BTW, there are a ton of templates just waiting for you on the Microsoft site. Just click here to check it out.
 
PowerPoint Tip #9

Lights! Camera! Action (buttons).

PowerPoint Action Buttons can make you look like a Guru when you give a presentation. Here's the thing...

You will be sharing your latest project results with your management team. You have a lot of material but you know you will bore them if you try to cram it all in to your show. What to do, what to do...

The solution is to hide some of the material and access it by using an Action Button on appropriate slides. You will only reveal the hidden material if someone asks. This allows you to present only the 'meat' of your report but when the boss asks for more you've got it at the click of a button. Don't you look good!

Here's how:

  1. Open/create a presentation.
  2. Determine which slides are 'main' slides and which slides are the 'extra' slides.
  3. Using the slide list on the left, drag the 'extra' slides to the end of the show.
  4. Return to a 'main' slide and click the AutoShapes button in the drawing toolbar.
  5. Point at Action Buttons and click the first (blank) action button icon.
  6. Drag a button shape out on the slide face. When you let go of the mouse you will get the Action Settings window.
  7. Click Hyperlink To and then use the drop-down to click the Slide... choice.
  8. Click the 'extra' slide in the list that this 'main' slide should link to then click OK then OK again.
  9. Right-click on the button face and click Add Text.
  10. Type any text. How about More Info?
  11. Format the button text as if it was regular text.
  12. Move to the slide in the list that you just linked to and right-click on its icon in the slide list on the left.
  13. Click Hide Slide.
  14. Place a small Action Button on this slide that will hyperlink back to the 'main' slide that links to it. Use Back as the button text.
  15. To test your work press F5 to run your show.
  16. Move through the show until you come to the 'main' slide that has the action button. Click the button to see the 'extra' info.
  17. On the 'extra' slide, click the Back button to return to the main slide again.
  18. Perform these steps for all the 'main' and 'extra' slide combinations.
  19. When you finally run your show you will have all the data available but the hidden slides will never be seen unless you click the appropriate Action Button.
  20. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned for the next tip to find out more about how Action Buttons make your presentations into powerful communication tools.
 
PowerPoint Tip #10

Action Buttons Revisited:
In the previous tip we explored using an Action Button to access hidden slides. In this tip we will add more functionality to action buttons.

We can use an Action Button to link to data that is not in your PowerPoint show. It can be a budget in Excel or even another PowerPoint show. We will link to an Excel file for this demonstration.

Before you start, it is highly recommended that you copy the Excel file you intend to use into the same folder as the PowerPoint show. If you move the PowerPoint show after you have created the link you are taking a chance on corrupting the link. It is better to have all your eggs in one basket this time.
  1. Open the presentation and move to the slide that needs the link.
  2. Drag out a blank Action Button using the steps listed in the previous tip.
  3. In the Action Settings dialogue box use the drop-down for the Hyperlink to choice and click Other File.
  4. Navigate to the folder in which you have saved the Excel file and double-click the file name.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Right-click on the button face and click Add Text.
  7. Type a suitable text entry and format it appropriately.
  8. Make sure that the Excel file is closed then press F5 to run the show.
  9. Move to the slide that has the Action Button and click it to see the Excel file contents.
  10. Close Excel to return to PowerPoint.
 
Still interested in Power Point

Love it or hate it - I spend way too much time using it, so any hints are appreciated

:) gcstudly
 
gcstudly said:
Love it or hate it - I spend way too much time using it, so any hints are appreciated

:) gcstudly
Click to expand...
Thanks for the feedback gcstudly. I will be posting more later this week. :)
 
Last weekend I put together my first PPT presentation. It took some time to figure out the basics. When I got chugging along things went well. I wish that I would have had the help from this thread last weekend, it's book marked now!

One thing that I REALLY liked about PPT was the drop-down formatting palette. That made it really easy to edit. Is there a similar drop down for Word?

Thanks for the help!
 
Treeview said:
Last weekend I put together my first PPT presentation. It took some time to figure out the basics. When I got chugging along things went well. I wish that I would have had the help from this thread last weekend, it's book marked now!

One thing that I REALLY liked about PPT was the drop-down formatting palette. That made it really easy to edit. Is there a similar drop down for Word?

Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...
Glad we could help.

Can you be more specific about your "drop-down formatting palette"? Perhaps you could list the clicks you use to get at it. There are lots of ways to format content in Word. Perhaps we can figure out something to answer your question more appropriately.
 
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