Getting Started with PowerPoint - Microsoft Office 2016 At Work For Dummies (2016)

Microsoft Office 2016 At Work For Dummies (2016)

Chapter 14

Getting Started with PowerPoint

In This Chapter

arrow Moving around in a presentation

arrow Choosing the right view

arrow Creating a new presentation with a template

arrow Adding and removing slides

arrow Using content placeholders

arrow Manually placing text on a slide

arrow Moving and resizing slide objects

arrow Deleting slide objects

PowerPoint is the most popular presentation software in the world. Presentation software creates support materials for people who give speeches. You can project PowerPoint slides on a big screen behind you as you speak, create handouts to distribute to the audience, and print note pages for your own reference. PowerPoint can also create self-running presentations for distribution via CD or online.

This chapter offers you some basics for working with PowerPoint. You learn how to start a new presentation, add slides and text to it, and move and resize the content on a slide. In later lessons, you learn how to add other types of content and special effects to a show.

Start a new presentation

When you start PowerPoint, as with the other Office applications, a Start screen appears. From here, you can:

reda.eps Click Blank Presentation, or press Esc, to start a new blank presentation.

redb.eps Click one of the other templates to start a new presentation based on it

redc.eps Open an existing presentation.

image

Figure 14-1: The Start screen in PowerPoint.

To start a new presentation at any other time than startup, press Ctrl+N for a blank one, or click File  ⇒  New and choose a template.

Move around in a presentation

A slide is an individual page of the presentation. The term page isn’t a perfect descriptor, though, because PowerPoint slides are designed to be displayed on a computer screen or with a projector rather than printed. A presentation is a collection of one or more slides saved in a single data file.

At a big-picture level, the PowerPoint interface is very similar to that in Word and Excel: It has a Ribbon, a File tab, and a status bar. The default view of the presentation, called Normal view, consists of three panes, as shown in Figure 14-2.

tip The presentation shown in Figure 14-2 was created with the Welcome to PowerPoint template. Here are some things to note:

reda.eps The Slides pane is the bar along the left side. Thumbnail images of the slides appear here. It is sometimes called the thumbnails pane or the slides pane.

redb.eps The Slide pane (that’s singular, not plural) in the middle shows the active slide in a large, editable pane. Here’s where you do most of your work on each slide. It is sometimes called the editing pane.

redc.eps The Notes pane runs along the bottom of the screen. Here you can type any notes to yourself about the active slide. These notes don’t show onscreen when you display the presentation, and they don’t print (unless you explicitly choose to print them).

redd.eps The Notes pane is minimized in a new blank presentation. To see it, position the mouse pointer just above the status bar (orange bar) at the bottom of the screen and drag upward. Drag the top border of the Notes pane down again to hide it.

rede.eps Another way to display or hide the Notes pane is to click the Notes indicator on the status bar.

You can navigate a presentation in many of the same ways you moved through other applications’ content.

redf.eps Click above or below the vertical scroll bar in the Slide pane, or press Page Up or Page Down, to move one slide at a time.

redg.eps You can also drag the scroll box to move more quickly as well.

redh.eps You can click an up or down arrow on a scroll bar to scroll a small amount at a time.

redi.eps You can also click a slide in the Slides pane to jump directly to that slide.

redj.eps The Slides pane has its own scroll bar, in case you can’t see all the slides there at once.

image

Figure 14-2: Normal view consists of three panes.

image

Figure 14-3: Drag upward from the status bar to display the Notes pane.

image

Figure 14-4: Ways to move around in Normal view.

Choose the right view

PowerPoint provides several views for you to work with. Each view is useful for a different set of activities. Here are some things to remember about views:

reda.eps To switch views, on the View tab, click a button for the view you want.

redb.eps The Master views are not regular PowerPoint views; they enable you to edit the underlying designs and layouts on which individual slides are based. You will learn about them in Chapter 15.

redc.eps Slide Show view is not represented on the View tab. To switch to Slide Show view, use the From Beginning or From Current Slide button on the Slide Show tab instead.

You can also click one of the View buttons in the bottom-right corner of the PowerPoint window:

redd.epsNormal

rede.epsSlide Sorter

redf.epsReading View

redg.epsSlide Show

image

Figure 14-5: View buttons on the View tab of the Ribbon.

image

Figure 14-6: View buttons on the status bar.

Here’s a quick overview of the available views:

· Normal: You’ve already seen this one in Figure 14-4; it’s the default. It consists of a Slides pane, a Slide pane in which you can edit the slide, and a Notes pane in which you can record private notes and comments.

· Outline: This view is identical to Normal view except instead of the Slides pane there is an Outline pane that shows a text outline for each slide.

warning In Outline view, only text from the slide’s text placeholders appears in the Outline pane. If you have any manually created text boxes (such as those you create with Insert  ⇒  Text Box), their text doesn’t appear there.

· Slide Sorter: This view shows thumbnail images of each slide, like the Slides pane does in Normal view, but it takes up the entire window. You can’t edit slide content in this view, although you can rearrange and delete slides. See Figure 14-7:

redh.eps If your presentation has sections, as the Welcome to PowerPoint template’s presentation does, each section appears on a separate row in Slide Sorter view. You can manage sections with the Home  ⇒  Section command.

redi.eps To zoom in or out on the thumbnail view, drag the Zoom slider. A lower zoom means more slides are visible at once, and they’re smaller. A higher zoom means fewer slides are visible, but you can see each one more easily.

· Notes Page: This view shows a vertically oriented page for each slide, as shown in Figure 14-8:

redj.eps The top half of the page shows the slide.

redk.eps The bottom half of the page provides a large text box into which you can enter and edit note text.

redl.eps Use the Zoom slider to zoom in to make the note text easier to see as you work with it if desired.

· Slide Show: This is the view you would use to show the presentation full-screen on your monitor. It’s covered in detail in Chapter 17. Each slide fills the entire screen, one by one, and you click to advance.

· Reading: Reading view is like Slide Show view except the presentation runs in a window rather than full-screen. That’s useful because you can do other things, like work with other programs or windows, while the presentation is running.

image

Figure 14-7: Slide Sorter view is good for arranging slides.

image

Figure 14-8: Notes Page view makes it easy to compose and edit lengthy speaker notes.

remember Most people prefer to work in Normal view most of the time when creating a presentation, so switch back to Normal view before you go any further, after experimenting with the other views.

Add and remove slides

Each new blank presentation begins with one slide in it: a title slide. (Presentations based on other templates may have more.) You can easily add more slides to the presentation by using the default layout (Title and Content) or any other layout you prefer.

Several methods are available for creating new slides, and each one is best suited for a particular situation. In the following sections, you learn each of the methods.

Create a new slide in the Slides pane

In the Slides pane in Normal view, you can click to place a horizontal insertion point between two existing slides or at the bottom of the list of slides and then press Enter to create a new slide. (See Figure 14-9.)

image

Figure 14-9: Create a new slide from the Slides pane (Normal view).

The layout of the new slide depends on the layout of the slide immediately before (above) it. If that slide uses the Slide Title layout, the new slide uses the Title and Content layout. Otherwise the new slide uses the same layout as the preceding slide. You learn more about slide layouts in Chapter 15.

Create a new slide in the Outline pane

In Outline view, you can create a new slide as follows:

001.eps In the Outline pane, click at the beginning of the title of the slide that the new slide should come before.

2. Press Enter. A new paragraph (a slide title) is created, and that causes a whole new slide to be created also.

003.eps Press the Up arrow key once to move the insertion point up into the new blank slide title, and type the title text.

image

Figure 14-10: Create a new slide from the Outline pane (Outline view).

Create a new slide from the Ribbon

When you create using the Ribbon, you can select the layout you want for the new slide. Follow these steps:

001.eps In Normal view, select the slide that the new slide should come after.

002.eps On the Home tab, click New Slide to create a slide with the same layout as the selected one (unless the selected one is a title slide, in which case the layout will be Title and Content).

OR

002.eps Click the arrow on the New Slide button, and then select the desired layout from the gallery that appears.

image

Figure 14-11: Create a slide by selecting a layout from the New Slide button’s gallery.

Duplicate a slide

If you need to create a series of very similar slides, you might find it easier to copy or duplicate a slide and then make the small modifications to each copy.

Copying and duplicating are two separate commands in PowerPoint, but they have essentially the same result.

When you copy a slide (or multiple slides), you place a copy of it on the Clipboard, and then you paste it from the Clipboard into the presentation. You can paste anywhere in the presentation or into a different presentation (or, for that matter, a different document altogether).

To copy a slide:

001.eps Select the slide in the Slides pane.

002.eps Press Ctrl+C or choose Home  ⇒  Copy.

3. Click where you want the copy to go. If you want to place the copy after a certain slide, select that slide.

4. Press Ctrl+V or choose Home  ⇒  Paste.

image

Figure 14-12: Copy a slide using the Clipboard.

When you duplicate a slide (or multiple slides), you don’t have to paste, because that command accomplishes both a copy and a paste operation at the same time. However, you also don’t get to choose where they’re pasted; they’re pasted directly below the original selection.

001.eps Select the slide(s) to be duplicated. To select more than one slide, hold down Ctrl as you click each one in the Slides pane.

002.eps Click the arrow on the New Slide button to open its menu.

003.eps Click Duplicate Selected Slides.

image

Figure 14-13: Duplicate one or more slides.

Delete a slide

Deleting a slide removes it from the presentation. To delete a slide, right-click it and choose Delete Slide, or select it in the Slides pane and press the Delete key. (See reda.eps in Figure 14-14.)

image

Figure 14-14: Delete a slide.

tip There’s no Recycle Bin for slides; you can’t get them back after you delete them. However, you can undo your last action(s) with the Undo button on the Quick Access toolbar, and that includes undoing deletions. If you haven’t saved your work since you made the deletion, you can also get a deleted slide back by closing the file without saving changes and then reopening it.

Change the slide layout

A slide’s layout determines the placeholders that appear on it and the arrangement and positioning of those placeholders.

To change a slide’s layout, follow these steps:

001.eps Select the slide to change in the Slides pane.

002.eps On the Home tab, click Layout to open a gallery.

003.eps Click the desired layout.

tip The layouts available depend upon several factors, including the template you started with, the theme that is applied (see Chapter 15), and any custom layouts you may have created in Slide Master view. The nine layouts shown in Figure 14-15 are the default ones that come with the Blank template.

image

Figure 14-15: Choose a different layout.

Use content placeholders

The most common type of placeholder is a multipurpose Content placeholder. It gives you a choice of filling it either with text or with one of six types of graphical content.

remember You can fill each placeholder with only one type of content; if you want other content on the slide, you must use a layout with multiple content placeholders or add the extra content manually, as described in the next two sections. The available types of content are:

reda.eps Table

redb.eps Chart

redc.eps SmartArt Graphic

redd.eps Picture

rede.eps Online Picture

redf.eps Video

image

Figure 14-16: The types of graphical content for a Content placeholder.

Fill a Content placeholder with text

To fill a Content placeholder with text, click in the box and start typing. It’s as simple as that!

Here are some things to keep in mind about Content placeholders:

reda.eps Most templates and designs use bulleted lists in the Content placeholder boxes by default, which means any text you type will automatically be formatted as a bulleted list.

redb.eps You can turn off the bullet for a paragraph by clicking the Bullets button on the Home tab.

redc.eps Use the Numbering button to convert a bulleted list to a numbered one.

redd.eps To demote (indent) a paragraph — for example, to create a subordinated bulleted list within a list, click Increase List Level on the Home tab.

rede.eps To promote a paragraph, click Decrease List Level.

remember It might seem counterintuitive to increase something you are demoting, but think about the list level as a hierarchy, with 1 as the most superior. If you increase the level, you demote the item to a later, less-important level.

tip Another way to demote a paragraph is to press Tab when the insertion point is at the beginning of the paragraph. Another way to promote is Shift+Tab.

You can use the commands in the Font and Paragraph groups on the Home tab to format the text in the placeholder, the same as you do in Word. Here are a few minor differences to note:

redf.eps Shadow adds a shadow to the text.

redg.eps Character Spacing lets you adjust the spacing between letters from the Ribbon. In Word this capability is available in the Paragraph dialog box.

redh.eps Clear All Formatting removes all manually applied formatting, reverting back to the formatting specified by the template or the design.

redi.eps Columns enables you to set a text placeholder box in multiple columns.

redj.eps Align Text enables you to set vertical alignment within the text box of Top, Middle, or Bottom.

redk.eps Text Direction changes the orientation of the text to vertical, stacked, or rotated.

redl.eps Convert to SmartArt Graphic converts the selected paragraphs to a SmartArt graphic.

image

Figure 14-17: Here are some text formatting buttons that are different in PowerPoint than in Word.

Fill a Content placeholder with a graphical element

To use one of the graphical types of content, click the corresponding icon in the Content placeholder. A dialog box appears that guides you in selecting the content to include. The process is a bit different for each of the content types. Most of these content types you have worked with in earlier chapters; the dialog boxes are the same or nearly the same as in other Office applications. The one type you haven’t used yet, SmartArt graphics, is covered in Chapter 15.

Just as an example, here’s how to use a Content placeholder to insert a picture:

001.eps Click the Pictures icon in the Content placeholder.

002.eps In the Insert Pictures dialog box, select the desired picture.

003.eps Click Insert.

image

Figure 14-18: Click the placeholder icon you want.

image

Figure 14-19: In the dialog box that appears, choose the content to place in the placeholder.

Manually place text on a slide

First, a warning. Whenever possible, you should use the placeholders on the slide layouts and not create text boxes manually. One reason is that text in manual text boxes doesn’t appear in the Outline pane in Outline view. Manually placed text boxes also aren’t affected when you change layouts or designs for a slide, so with the new arrangement of placeholders the text box might be obscured, or might obscure other content.

Nevertheless, sometimes you really do need a manual text box. For example, you might want a little informational box to appear floating next to a picture or chart to explain it.

To create a text box on a slide, follow these steps:

001.eps On the Insert tab, click Text Box.

002.eps Drag to draw the desired text box on the slide.

3. Release the mouse button, and then type in the text box that appears.

image

Figure 14-20: In the dialog box that appears, choose the content to place in the placeholder.

Manually place a picture on a slide

Same warning here as in the previous section: Try not to manually place pictures if you can help it. Use placeholders whenever possible. If you make changes to the layouts or change to a different design later, you’ll thank me for this advice, because pictures in placeholders resize and move as needed, rolling with the changes. Manually placed pictures don’t.

To manually insert a picture, do the following:

1. On the Insert tab, click Pictures.

2. In the Insert Pictures dialog box, select the desired picture. (It’s the same dialog box as in Figure 4-19.)

3. Click Insert.

You can also insert various other types of graphics manually using the buttons on the Insert tab, such as Online Pictures, Chart, and SmartArt.

Move and resize slide objects

Objects on a slide are all free-floating frames. You can move and resize them just like in Word and Excel:

reda.eps Drag an object by any part except the selection handles to move it. If it’s a picture, you can drag it by any part, including the middle. If it’s a text box, you have to drag it by its border.

redb.eps Drag a selection handle to resize it. To maintain the aspect ratio, hold down Shift and drag only the corner selection handles.

redc.eps Drag the rotation handle to rotate it.

image

Figure 14-21: Drag the object’s border to move it, or drag a selection handle to resize.

You can specify an exact size for an object in the Size group:

reda.eps The tab on which the Size group appears depends on the object type. For example, for a picture, it’s on the Picture Tools Format tab, and for a chart it’s on the Chart Tools Format tab.

redb.eps Set an exact height in the Height box.

redc.eps Set an exact width in the Width box.

image

Figure 14-22: Control an object’s size precisely with the Height and Width settings.

Delete slide objects

To delete an object on a slide, select the object and press Delete on the keyboard. You can get a deleted object back immediately after deleting it by using Undo. Click the Undo button on the Quick Access toolbar or press Ctrl+Z. (See reda.eps in Figure 14-23.)

image

Figure 14-23: Undo a deletion with the Undo button or Ctrl+Z.