PowerPoint 2010 All-in-One For Dummies E-Book

Peter Weverka

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 819

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

A fully updated guide to creating dynamic presentations with PowerPoint 2010 PowerPoint dominates the presentation landscape. With the changes in PowerPoint 2010, including the availability of an online version, PowerPoint users need this comprehensive reference to make the most of the program. PowerPoint 2010 All-in-One For Dummies features in-depth coverage of the elements and the process involved in creating knockout presentations. Seven minibooks cover all the new 2010 features, providing a great education for beginners and showing PowerPoint veterans lots of new tricks. * PowerPoint is the leading presentation software used in business and education; new features in PowerPoint 2010 include an online version and expanded audiovisual capabilities * Seven self-contained minibooks cover getting started; building a presentation; tables, charts, and diagrams; graphics and shapes; adding audio, video, and animation; giving the presentation; and PowerPoint for power users * Explains how to use the interface and tools and shows how to represent data visually for greater impact * Provides important tips on adding the human element when making a presentation * Gives advanced users advice on creating templates, collaboration, automation, and more PowerPoint 2010 All-in-One For Dummies gets novices up to speed and helps experienced users take their skills to the next level.

Leseprobe

PowerPoint®2010 All-in-One For Dummies®

Table of Contents

Introduction

What’s in This Book, Anyway?

What Makes This Book Special

Easy-to-look-up information

A task-oriented approach

Meaningful screen shots

Foolish Assumptions

Conventions Used in This Book

Icons Used in This Book

Good Luck, Reader!

Book I: Getting Started in PowerPoint

Book I: Chapter 1: Introducing PowerPoint

PowerPoint Slides

Some PowerPoint Jargon

PowerPoint as a Communication Tool

A Whirlwind Tour of PowerPoint

Creating the slides

Designing your presentation

Inserting tables, charts, diagrams, and shapes

“Animating” your slides

Showing your presentation

Book I: Chapter 2: PowerPoint Nuts and Bolts

Starting PowerPoint

Creating a New Presentation

Deciding between the blank presentation and a template

Creating a blank presentation

Creating a presentation from a template

Starting from another presentation

Saving Your Presentation Files

Saving a presentation

Saving a presentation for the first time

Telling PowerPoint where you like to save presentations

Saving presentations for use in earlier versions of PowerPoint

Saving “AutoRecovery information”

Navigating the Save As and Open Dialog Boxes

Opening and Closing Presentations

Opening a presentation

Closing a presentation

Entering the Document Properties

Shortcut Commands Worth Knowing

Undoing a mistake

Repeating an action — and quicker this time

Entering text quickly with the AutoCorrect command

Book I: Chapter 3: Finding Your Way around the PowerPoint Screen

A Brief Geography Lesson

Knowing Your Way around the PowerPoint Interface

The File tab

The Quick Access toolbar

The Ribbon and its tabs

Context-sensitive tabs

The anatomy of a tab

Live previewing

Mini toolbars

PowerPoint for keyboard lovers

Zooming In, Zooming Out

Getting a Better View of Your Work

Changing views

Normal/Slides view: Moving from slide to slide

Normal/Outline view: Fiddling with the text

Slide Sorter view: Moving and deleting slides

Reading View view: Proofreading slides

Slide Show view: Giving a presentation

Notes Page view: Reading your speaker notes

Black and White and Grayscale views

The Master views

Hiding and Displaying the Slides Pane and Notes Pane

Displaying, Hiding, and Reading the Ruler

Book I: Chapter 4: Planning Ahead for a Solid Presentation

Formulating Your Presentation

Start by writing the text

Make clear what the presentation is about

Start from the conclusion

Personalize the presentation

Tell a story

Assemble the content

Designing Your Presentation

Keep it simple

Be consistent from slide to slide

Choose colors that help communicate your message

When fashioning a design, consider the audience

Beware the bullet point

Observe the one-slide-per-minute rule

Make like a newspaper

Use visuals, not only words, to make your point

Delivering Your Presentation

Rehearse, and rehearse some more

Connect with the audience

Anticipate questions from the audience

Know your equipment

Take control from the start

Play tricks with the PowerPoint screen

Book II: Building Your Presentation

Book II: Chapter 1: Inserting and Handling Slides

Understanding How Slides Are Constructed

Slide layouts

Text frames and content frames

Selecting the right layout

Creating New Slides for Your Presentation

Inserting a new slide

Shortcuts for creating slides

Creating a duplicate slide

Copying and pasting slides

Stealing slides from other presentations

Conjuring slides from Word document headings

Selecting a Different Layout for a Slide

Dividing a Presentation into Sections

Creating, naming, and removing sections

Managing and manipulating sections

Changing the Size and Orientation of Slides

Changing the size of slides

Changing the orientation of slides

Selecting, Moving, and Deleting Slides

Selecting slides

Moving slides

Deleting slides

Hidden Slides for All Contingencies

Hiding a slide

Showing a hidden slide during a presentation

Book II: Chapter 2: Handling Master Slides and Master Styles

Using Master Slides and Master Styles for a Consistent Design

Switching to Slide Master view

Understanding master slides (the Slide Master and layouts)

Understanding how master styles work

Relationships between the Slide Master, layouts, and slides

Ground Rules for Handling Master Slides

Altering a Master Slide

Editing a master style

Changing the layout of master slides

Creating another Slide Master

Restoring a Redesigned Presentation to Its Original State

Reconnecting a presentation slide to its original layout

Re-imposing the original design on an entire presentation

Removing a Background Graphic from a Single Slide

Book II: Chapter 3: Handling Slide Backgrounds

Looking at Themes and Background Styles

A look at themes

A look at background styles

Design Considerations

Setting the tone by your color choices

Carefully selecting the background colors

Making a Theme for Your Presentation

Selecting a theme

Customizing a theme

Creating Slide Backgrounds on Your Own

Using a solid (or transparent) color for the slide background

Creating a gradient color blend for slide backgrounds

Placing a clip-art image in the slide background

Using a graphic or photo for a slide background

Using a texture for a slide background

Creating a pattern for slide backgrounds

Changing the Background of a Single or a Handful of Slides

Selecting a different theme for some of the slides

Creating a different background for some of the slides

Using a different background for slide layouts

Book II: Chapter 4: Entering the Text

Entering Text: The Basics

Normal/Outline View for Reading and Editing Text

Manipulating the Text

Selecting text on a slide

Moving, copying, and pasting text

Deleting text

Changing the Look of Text

Choosing fonts for text

Finding and replacing fonts throughout a presentation

Changing the font size of text

Applying font styles to text

Applying text effects to text

Changing the color of text

Quick Ways to Handle Case, or Capitalization

Entering Symbols, Foreign Characters, Quote Marks, and Dashes

Entering symbols and characters with the Symbol dialog box

Handling dashes and quotation marks

Correcting Typos Automatically with the AutoCorrect Command

Opening the AutoCorrect dialog box

Telling PowerPoint which typos and misspellings to correct

Preventing capitalization errors with AutoCorrect

Finding and Replacing Text

Finding stray words and text

Conducting a Find-and-Replace operation

Correcting Your Spelling Errors

Correcting misspellings one at a time

Spell checking an entire presentation

Fine-tuning the spell checker

Researching a Topic inside PowerPoint

Using the Research task pane

Choosing your research options

Finding the Right Word with the Thesaurus

Working with Text Written in a Foreign Language

Telling PowerPoint which languages you will use

Marking text as foreign language text

Translating Foreign-Language Text

Book II: Chapter 5: Formatting Text on a Slide

Putting a Text Box on a Slide

Creating a text box

Rotating a text box

Establishing a default text box style

Using a Shape as a Text Box

Turning a shape into a text box

Turning a text box into a shape

Selecting Text Boxes and Text Frames

Changing the Direction of Text

Controlling How Text Fits in Text Frames and Text Boxes

Choosing how PowerPoint “autofits” text in text frames

Choosing how PowerPoint “autofits” text in text boxes

Positioning Text in Frames and Text Boxes

Aligning text in frames and text boxes

Indenting text in text frames and text boxes

Aligning Text with Tab Stops

Changing the tab settings

Creating tab settings with the ruler

Creating tab settings with the Tabs dialog box

Adjusting and removing tab stops

Handling Bulleted and Numbered Lists

Creating a standard bulleted or numbered list

Removing bullets and numbers from lists

Choosing a different bullet character, size, and color

Choosing a different list-numbering style, size, and color

Making sublists, or nested lists

Fine-Tuning the Text Layout

Adjusting the space between lines and paragraphs

Fixing a top-heavy title

Adjusting the space between characters

Changing the internal margins of a text frame or box

Putting Footers (and Headers) on Slides

Some background on footers and headers

Putting a standard footer on all your slides

Creating a “nonstandard” footer

Removing a footer from a single slide

Book III: Communicating with Tables, Charts, and Diagrams

Book III: Chapter 1: Constructing the Perfect Table

Talking Table Jargon

Creating a Table

Entering the Text and Numbers

Selecting Different Parts of a Table

Aligning Text in Columns and Rows

Merging and Splitting Cells

Laying Out Your Table

Changing the size of a table, columns, and rows

Adjusting column and row size

Inserting and deleting columns and rows

Moving columns and rows

Changing the size of cell margins

Formatting Your Table

Designing a table with a table style

Calling attention to different rows and columns

Decorating your table with borders and colors

Neat Table Tricks

Changing the direction of header row text

Using a picture as the table background

Drawing diagonal lines on tables

Drawing on a table

Wrapping slide text around a table

Book III: Chapter 2: Putting a Chart on a Slide

A Mercifully Brief Anatomy Lesson

The Basics: Creating a Chart

Choosing the Right Chart

Ground rules for choosing a chart

Examining the different kinds of charts

Providing the Raw Data for Your Chart

Entering data in an Excel worksheet

Resizing the data range

Updating a chart with new data

Changing a Chart’s Appearance

Changing the chart type

Changing the shape of a chart

Relying on a chart style to change appearances

Changing the layout of a chart

Handling the gridlines

Changing a chart element’s color, font, or other particular

Saving a Chart as a Template So That You Can Use It Again

Saving a chart as a template

Creating a chart from a template

Chart Tricks for the Daring and Heroic

Decorating a chart with a picture

Annotating a chart

Displaying the raw data alongside the chart

Animating a chart

Creating an overlay chart

Converting 97–2003 Charts to PowerPoint 2010 Charts

Troubleshooting a Chart

Book III: Chapter 3: Putting Diagrams on Slides

The Basics: Creating SmartArt Diagrams

Creating the Initial Diagram

Creating a diagram

Swapping one diagram for another

Changing the Size and Position of a Diagram

Laying Out the Diagram Shapes

Selecting a diagram shape

Removing a shape from a diagram

Moving diagram shapes to different positions

Adding shapes to diagrams apart from hierarchy diagrams

Adding shapes to hierarchy diagrams

Adding shapes to Organization Charts

Promoting and demoting shapes in hierarchy diagrams

Handling the Text on Diagram Shapes

Entering text on a diagram shape

Entering bulleted lists on diagram shapes

Changing a Diagram’s Direction

Choosing a Look for Your Diagram

Changing the Appearance of Diagram Shapes

Changing the size of a diagram shape

Exchanging one shape for another

Changing a shape’s color, fill, or outline

Changing fonts and font sizes on shapes

Creating a Diagram from Scratch

Writing Equations with the Equation Editor

Launching the Equation Editor

Templates and slots

Drawing equations

Book IV: Embellishing Your Slides with Graphics and Shapes

Book IV: Chapter 1: Drawing Shapes, Lines, and Other Objects

The Basics: Drawing Lines and Shapes

Drawing Lines and Arrows

Drawing a straight line (or arrow)

Changing a line’s length and position

Changing a line’s appearance

Attaching and handling arrowheads

Drawing and editing arcs and curved lines

Freeform and scribble drawing

Connecting Shapes with Connectors

Making a connection

Attaching a connector to a different shape

Adjusting a connector

Drawing Rectangles, Ovals, Stars, and Other Shapes

Drawing a shape

Changing a shape’s symmetry

Exchanging One Shape for Another

Using a Shape as a Text Box

WordArt for Bending, Spindling, and Mutilating Text

Creating a WordArt image

Editing a WordArt image

Book IV: Chapter 2: Managing and Manipulating Objects

The Basics: Manipulating Lines, Shapes, Art, Text Boxes, and Other Objects

Selecting Objects So That You Can Manipulate Them

Laying Out Objects with the Grid, Drawing Guides, and Rulers

Displaying the grid and drawing guides

Telling PowerPoint how tight to make the grid

Creating and moving drawing guides

Displaying and hiding the rulers

Changing an Object’s Size

“Eye-balling it” with the selection handles

Entering Height and Width measurements

Changing an Object’s Proportions

Positioning Objects on a Slide

Dragging to move objects

Positioning objects by way of the dialog box

Copying Objects

When Objects Overlap: Choosing which Appears above the Other

Controlling overlaps with the Bring and Send commands

Controlling overlaps with the Selection and Visibility pane

Rotating and Flipping Objects

Tricks for Aligning and Distributing Objects

Aligning objects

Distributing objects so that they are equidistant

Changing an Object’s Color, Outline Color, and Transparency

How PowerPoint handles object color

Filling an object with a color, picture, or texture

Making a color transparent

Putting the outline around an object

Using a shape effect

Grouping Objects to Make Working with Them Easier

Grouping objects

Ungrouping and regrouping

Putting a Third Dimension on an Object

Letting PowerPoint do the work

Building the third dimension on your own

Putting a Shadow on an Object

Book IV: Chapter 3: Decorating Slides with Graphics and Photographs

All about Picture File Formats

Bitmap and vector graphics

Resolution

Compression

Color depth

Choosing File Formats for Graphics

The All-Important Copyright Issue

Inserting a Picture on a Slide

Touching Up a Picture

Softening and sharpening pictures

Correcting a picture’s brightness and contrast

Recoloring a picture

Choosing an artistic effect

Selecting a picture style

Cropping off part of a picture

Removing the background

Compressing Pictures to Save Disk Space

Using Graphics as Backgrounds

Using a picture in the background

Using a graphic as background for text

Putting Together a Photo Album

Creating your photo album

Putting on the final touches

Editing your photo album

Using Microsoft Office Picture Manager

Mapping the graphic files on your computer

Displaying the graphic file you want to work with

Editing a picture

Book IV: Chapter 4: Decorating Slides with Clip Art

What Is Clip Art?

Inserting a Clip-Art Image in a Slide

Tinkering with a Clip-Art Image’s Appearance

Handling Media Files with the Clip Organizer

Knowing your way around the Clip Organizer

Locating the media file you need

Inserting a media file into a PowerPoint slide

Storing your own files in the My Collections folders

Book V: Flash and Dash

Book V: Chapter 1: Taking Advantage of Transitions and Animations

Comparing Transitions and Animations

Showing Transitions between Slides

Assigning transitions to slides

Troubleshooting transitions

A Short but Sweet Animation Primer

Uses for animations

Choosing which slide elements to animate

Choosing an animation and animation effect

Defining the order of animations

Deciding when elements are animated

The Quick Way to Animate a Slide

Advanced Techniques for Animating Slides

Planning ahead

Using the Animations tab and Animation pane

Applying an animation

Changing and scrapping animations

Modifying an animation

Animating text frames and text boxes

Hiding elements and changing their color after animation

Motion paths for moving elements across a slide

Playing choreographer with animations

Starting an animation with a trigger

Playing Sounds along with Animations

Suggestions for Animating Slides

Animating bulleted and numbered lists

Changing elements’ size as they move

Building a slide one element at a time

Animating different parts of a chart

Book V: Chapter 2: Making Video Slides

Looking before You Leap

Understanding how video files strain your computer

Understanding video file formats

Compressing video files

Placing Videos on Slides

Inserting a video on a slide

Inserting a video that isn’t compatible with PowerPoint

Starting and Pausing a Video during a Presentation

Fine-Tuning a Video Presentation

Editing a Video

Adding Spice to Your Video Presentation

Adjusting the size of the video screen

Putting a border and poster frame on a video

Book V: Chapter 3: Making Audio and Music a Part of a Presentation

Ways to Include Sound in a Presentation

A Word about Audio File Formats

Finding Audio Files on the Internet

Marking Slide Transitions with Sound

Assigning a transition sound to a slide

Fine-tuning transition sounds

Inserting Audio Files in Presentations

Inserting an audio file in a slide

Telling PowerPoint when and how to play an audio file

Playing audio after a few seconds have elapsed

Playing an audio file as several slides appear

Getting the audio from a CD

Playing a string of audio files

Starting, Pausing, and Resuming an Audio File

Recording a Voice Narration for PowerPoint

Testing your computer’s microphone

Recording a voice narration in PowerPoint

Book VI: Giving a Presentation

Book VI: Chapter 1: Giving an In-Person Presentation

Rehearsing and Timing Your Presentation

Putting on the Finishing Touches

Showing Your Presentation

Starting and ending a presentation

Going from slide to slide

Switching to another program during a presentation

Drawing on Slides

Wielding a pen or highlighter in a presentation

Hiding and erasing pen and highlighter markings

Pointing with the Arrow

Making Use of Blank Screens

Customizing Shows for Particular Audiences

Assembling slides for a custom show

Editing a custom show

Presenting a custom show

Summarizing PowerPoint Presentation Techniques

Book VI: Chapter 2: Speaker Notes and Handouts

What Are Notes and Handouts?

All about Notes

Entering a note

Editing your notes in Notes Page view

The Notes Master for formatting notes pages

Providing Handouts for Your Audience

Printing an Outline Version of Your Presentation

Printing Slides, Handouts, and Notes Pages

Printing: The basics

Examining the Print options

Getting around in the Preview area

Book VI: Chapter 3: Creating a Self-Running Presentation

Good Uses for Self-Running Presentations

Challenges of a Self-Running Presentation

Deciding How Long to Keep Slides On-Screen

Entering time periods yourself

“Rehearsing” slide times

Telling PowerPoint that Your Presentation Is Self-Running

Starting and Ending a Self-Running Presentation

Book VI: Chapter 4: Creating a User-Run Presentation

What Is a User-Run Presentation?

Uses for User-Run Presentations

Challenges of a User-Run Presentation

Helping viewers understand how to run the presentation

Fitting action buttons on slides

Preventing a presentation from stalling

Making Yours a User-Run Presentation

Action Buttons vs. Hyperlinks

Action Buttons for Going from Slide to Slide

Drawing an action button

Repairing, removing, and reshaping action buttons

Creating your own action button

Placing action buttons on a master slide

Creating Hyperlinks

Creating a hyperlink to a slide

Creating a hyperlink to a Web page

Hyperlinking to a file in another program

Creating an e-mail hyperlink

Repairing and removing hyperlinks

Making Sure That Your Presentation Doesn’t Stall

Book VI: Chapter 5: Alternative Ways to Distribute Presentations

Putting On the Finishing Touches

Locking a File with a Password

Password-protecting a presentation

Removing a password from a presentation

Sending Your Presentation in an E-Mail Message

Packaging Your Presentation on a CD

Packaging a presentation on a CD

Playing a packaged presentation from a CD

Creating a Presentation Video

Book VII: PowerPoint for Power Users

Book VII: Chapter 1: Customizing PowerPoint

Customizing the Ribbon

Displaying and selecting tab, group, and command names

Moving tabs and groups on the Ribbon

Adding, removing, and renaming tabs, groups, and commands

Creating new tabs and groups

Resetting your Ribbon customizations

Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar

Adding buttons to the Quick Access toolbar

Changing the order of buttons on the Quick Access toolbar

Removing buttons from the Quick Access toolbar

Placing the Quick Access toolbar above or below the Ribbon

Customizing the Status Bar

Changing Color Schemes

Book VII: Chapter 2: Creating a Presentation Design for Your Company

Creating a Template for Your Presentation Designs

Making Your Company Colors Part of the Design

Finding out a color’s RGB or HSL setting

Employing a company color in a PowerPoint design

Making Your Company’s Fonts Part of the Design

Designing Your Template

Creating Slide Layouts for Your Template

Creating a new slide layout

Deleting slide layouts

Including Boilerplate Content in the Slide Design

Telling Co-Workers How to Use Your Template

Loading a template on a computer

Creating a presentation from a template

Book VII: Chapter 3: Collaborating with Others on a Presentation

Comments for Critiquing Others’ Work

Writing and editing a comment

Reading and reviewing comments

Cleaning comments from a presentation

Sharing Slides in a Slide Library

Reusing slides from a slide library

Book VII: Chapter 4: Linking and Embedding for Compound Presentations

What Is OLE, Anyway?

Linking and embedding

Uses for object linking

Uses for object embedding

Pitfalls of object linking and embedding

Embedding Data from Other Programs on a PowerPoint Slide

Embedding an object

Editing an embedded object

Linking a PowerPoint Slide to a Source File

Establishing the link

Updating a link

Editing data in the source file

Converting a linked object to an embedded object

Book VII: Chapter 5: Automating Tasks with Macros

What Is a Macro?

Displaying the Developer Tab

Managing the Macro Security Problem

Running a Macro

Running a Macro from a Button on the Quick Access Toolbar

Installing Add-Ins

PowerPoint®2010 All-in-One For Dummies®

by Peter Weverka

PowerPoint® 2010 All-in-One For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030-5774

www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. PowerPoint is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2010925704

ISBN: 978-0-470-50099-6

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Author

Peter Weverka is the bestselling author of several For Dummies books, as well as other computer books about various topics. Peter’s humor-ous articles and stories — none related to computers, thankfully — have appeared in Harper’s, SPY, The Argonaut, and other magazines for grown-ups.

Dedication

For Aiko Sofia and Henry Gabriel.

Author’s Acknowledgments

This book owes a lot to many hard-working people at Wiley Publishing in Indiana. I would like once again to thank Steve Hayes for his good advice, his encouragement, and the opportunity to write another For Dummies book.

It was a pleasure — once again — to work with Susan Christophersen, who knows the editing craft as well as any editor I have ever worked with.

Technical editor Joyce Neilson made sure that all the explanations in this book are indeed accurate, and I would like to thank her for her excellent work and suggestions for improving this book. I would also like to thank Rich Tennant for the witty cartoons you will find on the pages of this book, and Estalita Slivoskey for writing the index.

These people at the Wiley offices in Indianapolis gave their all to this book, and I want to acknowledge them by name: Carl Byers, Melanie Hoffman, and Patrick Redmond.

Finally, I owe my family — Sofia, Henry, and Addie — a debt for tolerating my vampire-like working hours and eerie demeanor at the breakfast table. How will I ever repay you?

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax [phone].

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions and Editorial

Project and Copy Editor: Susan Christophersen

Executive Editor: Steve Hayes

Technical Editor: Joyce Nielsen

Editorial Manager: Jodi Jensen

Editorial Assistant: Amanda Graham

Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Patrick Redmond

Layout and Graphics: Carl Byers

Proofreader: Lisa Young Stiers

Indexer: Estalita Slivoskey

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director

Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director

Publishing for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher

Composition Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Introduction

Only a few years ago, PowerPoint was a novelty. Then, all of a sudden, speakers started giving PowerPoint presentations at conferences and seminars. Audiences welcomed PowerPoint. The slides made presentations more interesting and lively. You could gaze at the slides while you listened to the speaker. Speakers — especially speakers who weren’t comfortable talking before an audience — liked PowerPoint, too. PowerPoint took away some of the burdens of public speaking. The program made it easier to speak in front of strangers.

PowerPoint became a staple of conferences, seminars, and corporate boardrooms. Then the novelty wore off, and audiences started grumbling. The presentations were too much alike. You saw bulleted list after bulleted list. Presentations followed the same tired formula — introductory slides followed by “key point” slides following by a tidy conclusion. Writing in the New Yorker, Ian Parker declared that PowerPoint is “a social instrument, turning middle managers into bullet-point dandies.” Edward Tufte, professor of information design at Yale University, lamented the program’s “charjunk” and “PowerPointPhluff.” In a Wired essay called “PowerPoint Is Evil,” he wrote, “PowerPoint style routinely disrupts, dominates, and trivializes content.”

Despite these complaints, speakers have not abandoned PowerPoint, and audiences still welcome it. But expectations have risen. Audiences expect the presenter to use PowerPoint skillfully and creatively. The audience knows when a presenter is just going through the motions and when a presenter is using PowerPoint to explore a subject and show it in a new light.

This book was written with the goal of showing you how to use the PowerPoint software, but also how to use it with skill and imagination. I tell you which buttons to click to complete tasks, but I also show you how PowerPoint can be a means of communicating and connecting with your audience. I show you how to build a persuasive presentation, one that brings the audience around to your side. No matter how much experience you have with PowerPoint, this book will make you a better, more proficient, more confident user of the program.

What’s in This Book, Anyway?

This book is jam-packed with how-to’s, advice, shortcuts, and tips for getting the most out of PowerPoint. Here’s a bare outline of the seven parts of this book:

♦ Book I: Getting Started in PowerPoint: Explains the PowerPoint interface and how to get around on-screen, as well as basic tasks such as how to create presentations and view presentations in different ways. You can also find advice for formulating and designing presentations.

♦ Book II: Building Your Presentation: Shows how to create, manipulate, and format slides, as well as how to handle the master slides and master styles that make it possible to format many slides simultaneously. You discover how to design the look of your presentation and enter lists, text, and text boxes.

♦ Book III: Communicating with Tables, Charts, and Diagrams: Explores the many techniques for creating, designing, and formatting tables, charts, and diagrams.

♦ Book IV: Embellishing Your Slides with Graphics and Shapes: Demonstrates how to create lines, shapes, text-box shapes, and WordArt images. You also find out how to adorn a presentation with photographs, graphics, and clip-art images.

♦ Book V: Flash and Dash: Shows how to take advantage of transitions and animations, as well as make video and sound a part of a presentation.

♦ Book VI: Giving a Presentation: Explores all the different ways to deliver a presentation — in person, as a self-running presentation, as a user-run presentation, and as a video. You find out how to write slide notes and print presentations, as well as deliver them over the Internet and on CDs.

♦ Book VII: PowerPoint for Power Users: Looks into customizing PowerPoint, designing templates, collaborating with others, linking and embedding, and understanding macros.

What Makes This Book Special

You are holding in your hands a computer book designed to make learning PowerPoint as easy and comfortable as possible. Besides the fact that this book is easy to read, it’s different from other books about PowerPoint.

Easy-to-look-up information

This book is a reference, and that means that readers have to be able to find out how to do something quickly. To that end, I have taken great pains to make sure that the material in this book is well organized and easy to find. The descriptive headings help you find information quickly. The bulleted and numbered lists make accomplishing a task simpler. The tables make options easier to understand.

I want you to be able to look down the page and see in a heading or list the name of the topic that concerns you. I want you to be able to find what you need quickly. Compare the table of contents in this book to the book next to it on the bookstore shelf. This book is better organized than the others.

A task-oriented approach

Most computer books describe what the software is, but this book shows you how to use the software. I assume that you came to this book because you want to know how to do something — animate a slide, create a chart, design a look for your presentation. You came to the right place. This book shows you how to make PowerPoint work for you.

Meaningful screen shots

The screen shots in this book show only the part of the screen that illustrates what is being explained in the text. When an explanation refers to one part of the screen, only that part of the screen is shown. I took great care to make sure that the screen shots serve to help you understand the PowerPoint features and how they work.

Foolish Assumptions

Please forgive me, but I made some foolish assumptions about you, the reader of this book. I assumed that:

♦ You own a copy of PowerPoint 2010, the latest version of PowerPoint, and you have installed it on your computer.

♦ You use the Windows operating system. Even if yours is an old version of Windows, all the methods in this book apply.

♦ You are kind to foreign tourists and small animals.

Conventions Used in This Book

I want you to understand all the instructions in this book, and in that spirit, I’ve adopted a few conventions.

Where you see boldface letters or numbers in this book, it means to type the letters or numbers. For example, “Enter 25 in the Percentage text box” means to do exactly that: Enter the number 25.

Sometimes two tabs on the ribbon have the same name. To distinguish tabs with the same name from one another, I sometimes include one tab’s “Tools” heading in parentheses if there could be any confusion about which tab I’m referring to. For example, when you see the words “(Table Tools) Design tab,” I’m referring to the Design tab for creating tables, not the Design tab for changing a slide’s appearance. (Book I, Chapter 3 describes the ribbon and the tabs in detail.)

To show you how to step through command sequences, I use the ⇒ symbol. For example, you can click the File tab and choose Share⇒Create a Video to create a video of a presentation. The ⇒ symbol is just a shorthand method of saying “Choose Share and then choose Create a Video.”

To give most commands, you can press combinations of keys. For example, pressing Ctrl+S saves the file you’re working on. In other words, you can hold down the Ctrl key and press the S key to save a file. Where you see Ctrl+, Alt+, or Shift+ and a key name or key names, press the keys simultaneously.

Yet another way to give a command is to click a button. When I tell you to click a button, you see a small illustration of the button in the margin of this book (unless the button is too large to fit in the margin). The button shown here is the Save button, the one you can click to save a presentation.

Icons Used in This Book

To help you get the most out of this book, I’ve placed icons here and there. Here’s what the icons mean:

Next to the Tip icon, you can find shortcuts and tricks of the trade to make your visit to PowerPoint Land more enjoyable.

Where you see the Warning icon, tread softly and carefully. It means that you are about to do something that you may regret later.

When I explain a juicy fact that bears remembering, I mark it with a Remember icon. When you see this icon, prick up your ears. You will discover something that you need to remember throughout your adventures with PowerPoint.

When I am forced to describe high-tech stuff, a Technical Stuff icon appears in the margin. You don’t have to read what’s beside the Technical Stuff icons if you don’t want to, although these technical descriptions often help you understand how a software feature works.

Good Luck, Reader!

If you have a comment about this book, a question, or a shortcut you would like to share with me, send an e-mail message to me at this address: [email protected]. Be advised that I usually can’t answer e-mail right away because I’m too darned busy. I do appreciate comments and questions, however, because they help me pass my dreary days in captivity.

Book I

Getting Started in PowerPoint

Contents at a Glance

Chapter 1: Introducing PowerPoint

PowerPoint Slides

Some PowerPoint Jargon

PowerPoint as a Communication Tool

A Whirlwind Tour of PowerPoint

Chapter 2: PowerPoint Nuts and Bolts

Starting PowerPoint

Creating a New Presentation

Saving Your Presentation Files

Navigating the Save As and Open Dialog Boxes

Opening and Closing Presentations

Entering the Document Properties

Shortcut Commands Worth Knowing

Chapter 3: Finding Your Way around the PowerPoint Screen

A Brief Geography Lesson

Knowing Your Way around the PowerPoint Interface

Zooming In, Zooming Out

Getting a Better View of Your Work

Hiding and Displaying the Slides Pane and Notes Pane

Displaying, Hiding, and Reading the Ruler

Chapter 4: Planning Ahead for a Solid Presentation

Formulating Your Presentation

Designing Your Presentation

Delivering Your Presentation

Chapter 1: Introducing PowerPoint

In This Chapter

Taking a peek at PowerPoint

Understanding PowerPoint jargon

Communicating by way of PowerPoint presentations

Taking a quick tour of the program

In this short chapter, I take you to the end of a pier, briefly explain what swimming is, and push you in the water. As you thrash about, I tell you what a PowerPoint presentation is and explain some PowerPoint jargon. Then I fish you out of the water and take you on a whirlwind tour of PowerPoint. By the time you finish reading this chapter, you will know what creating a PowerPoint presentation entails.

PowerPoint Slides

Figure 1-1 (top) shows the PowerPoint window. That thing in the middle is a slide, PowerPoint’s word for an image that you show your audience. Surrounding the slide are many tools for entering text and decorating slides. When the time comes to show your slides, you dispense with the tools and make the slide fill the screen, as shown in Figure 1-1 (bottom). Throughout this book, you will find instructions for making slides and for constructing a presentation, the PowerPoint word that describes all the slides, from first to last, that you show to your audience.

Figure 1-1: The PowerPoint window (top) and a slide as it looks in a presentation (bottom).

Some PowerPoint Jargon

To make PowerPoint do your bidding, you need to know a little jargon:

♦ Presentation: All the slides, from start to finish, that you show your audience. Sometimes presentations are called “slide shows.” Presentations are saved in presentation files (.pptx files).

♦ Slides: The images you create with PowerPoint. During a presentation, slides appear on-screen one after the other. Don’t be put off by the word slide and dreary memories of sitting through your uncle’s vacation slide-show. You don’t need a slide projector to show these slides. You can now plug a laptop or other computer into special monitors that display PowerPoint slides. (Book II, Chapter 1 describes how to create slides.)

♦ Notes: Printed pages that you, the speaker, write and print so that you know what to say during a presentation. Only the speaker sees notes. (Book VI, Chapter 2 explains notes.)

♦ Handout: Printed pages that you may give to the audience after a presentation. A handout shows the slides in the presentation. Handouts are also known by the somewhat derogatory term “leave-behinds.” (Book VI, Chapter 2 explains handouts.)

PowerPoint as a Communication Tool

PowerPoint isn’t just a speaker’s aid, but a means of communicating something to an audience — an idea, a business plan, a marketing strategy. PowerPoint has become so popular in part because it relieves the burden of public speaking. A nervous public speaker (and who isn’t a nervous public speaker?) can avert the attention of the audience to the slides and allow the slides to carry the day. But those slides in and of themselves can be great means of communication. PowerPoint offers numerous ways to communicate with an audience above and beyond what can be said in words:

♦ Colors: Your color choices set the tone and suggest what you want to convey in your presentation. Book II, Chapter 3 explains how to choose colors; Book VII, Chapter 2 describes how to incorporate a company’s colors (and logo) in a presentation.

♦ Photographs and other images: A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. Spare yourself from having to speak thousands of words by including pictures in your presentation. Book IV, Chapters 3 and 4 explain how to grace a slide with pictures and clip-art images.

♦ Tables: Support your proposal with table data. No one will be able to refute you. Book III, Chapter 1 explains how to create tables.

♦ Charts: For comparing and presenting data, nothing beats a chart. Book III, Chapter 2 explains charts.

♦ Diagrams: With diagrams, the audience can literally visualize a rela-tionship, concept, or idea. Book III, Chapter 3 explains how to create diagrams.

♦ Shapes and text-box shapes: You can use lines, shapes, and text box shapes (shapes with words on them) to illustrate your ideas. Book IV, Chapter 1 shows how to draw lines and shapes.

♦ Sound and video: Include sound and video to make your presentation a feast for the ears and eyes. Book V explains sound and video.

A Whirlwind Tour of PowerPoint

To help you understand what you’re getting into, the rest of this chapter provides a whirlwind tour of PowerPoint. It explains what creating a presentation entails, from inserting the first slide to putting on the finishing touches. Better fasten your safety belt.

Creating the slides

After you create a new presentation, your next task is to insert the slides (see Book II, Chapter 1). As shown in Figure 1-2, PowerPoint offers many preformatted slide layouts. These layouts are available on the New Slide drop-down list, the drop-down list you open when you want to insert a slide. Each layout is designed for presenting information a certain way.

Figure 1-2: Adding a new slide in Slide Sorter view.

As you create slides, you can jot down notes in the Notes pane. You can use the notes later on to formulate your presentation and decide what you’ll say to your audience while each slide is on-screen.

To help complete tasks, you can change views. Figure 1-2 shows the PowerPoint window in Slide Sorter view. This view is best for moving, copying, and deleting slides. PowerPoint offers the View tab and View buttons for changing your view of a presentation. The program offers many different views, each designed to help with a different task.

Designing your presentation

The next step is to think about the appearance of your presentation (see Book II, Chapter 3). Figure 1-3 shows the Design tab, where you make most of the decisions that pertain to the presentation’s look. Starting here, you can change the slides’ colors and backgrounds. You can also choose a new “theme” for your presentation — an all-encompassing design that applies to all (or most of) the slides. If you’re the type of person who doesn’t run with the herd, you can overhaul one of these themes and in effect redesign it by switching to Slide Master view and tinkering with the master slides (see Book II, Chapter 2).

Figure 1-3: Go to the Design tab to design the look of your presentation.

Choose a design for your presentation early on. The fonts, graphics, shapes, tables, and charts you put in your presentation have to fit the design. If you change designs after you’ve created the majority of your slides, you may have to choose new font colors and graphics. You may have to redesign your tables, charts, and diagrams as well because they don’t fit into the new design you chose.

Inserting tables, charts, diagrams, and shapes

A PowerPoint presentation should be more than a loose collection of bulleted lists. Starting on the Insert tab, you can place tables (see Book III, Chapter 1), charts (Book III, Chapter 2), and diagrams (Book III, Chapter 3) on slides. You can also adorn your slides with text boxes, WordArt images, and shapes (see Book IV, Chapter 1). And when you include a bulleted or numbered list, you can employ nonstandard bullets and numbering schemes to make your lists a little different from everybody else’s (see Book II, Chapter 5).

Use your imagination. Try to take advantage of all the features that PowerPoint provides for communicating with an audience.

“Animating” your slides

As I mentioned earlier, PowerPoint slides can play video and sound (see Book V). You can also enliven a presentation by “animating” it (see Book V, Chapter 1). Starting on the Transitions tab, you can make slide items — bulleted lists, shapes, and clip art — arrive and leave the screen from different directions. Starting on the Animations tab, you can make the items on a slide move on the screen.

Showing your presentation

During a presentation, you can draw on the slides, as shown in Figure 1-4. You can also blank the screen, show slides out of order, and detour your presentation into a customized slide show (see Book VI, Chapter 1). Most presentations are made to be delivered in person by a speaker, but you can deliver presentations from afar by choosing commands on the Slide Show tab. These kinds of presentations can run in your absence:

♦ Self-running presentation: A presentation that runs on its own and can be exhibited at a trade show or other public place (see Book VI, Chapter 3).

♦ User-run presentation: A presentation that others can run. Special buttons permit individuals to go from slide to slide (see Book VI, Chapter 4).

♦ A handout: A printed copy of a presentation (see Book VI, Chapter 2).

♦ A CD: A packaged CD copy of a presentation that others can show on their computers (and you can take on the road). People who don’t have PowerPoint can view presentations after they are packed for a CD (see Book VI, Chapter 5).

♦ A video presentation: A presentation recorded in a video that others can play in their video players (see Book VI, Chapter 5).

Figure 1-4: Draw on slides to add a little something to a presentation.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of PowerPoint. Before you disembark, please check your surroundings to make sure you haven’t left anything on the bus. Enjoy your stay in PowerPoint Land.

Chapter 2: PowerPoint Nuts and Bolts

In This Chapter

Starting PowerPoint

Creating a PowerPoint presentation from a template

Saving presentations

Saving presentations for earlier versions of PowerPoint

Opening and closing a presentation

Entering the document-property descriptions

Undoing and repeating actions

The purpose of this chapter is to launch you deep into PowerPoint Land. This chapter describes tasks that you do almost every time you run the program. It explains how to start PowerPoint and create, save, open, and close presentations. You also find out what document properties are. Throughout this chapter are tips, tricks, and shortcuts for making basic PowerPoint tasks go more smoothly. Finally, I offer some shortcut commands that you will find extremely useful.

Starting PowerPoint

Unless you start the PowerPoint program, you can’t construct PowerPoint presentations. Many have tried to construct presentations from mud and paper-mâché without starting PowerPoint first, but all have failed. Here are the various and sundry ways to start PowerPoint:

♦ The old-fashioned way: Click the Start button and choose All Programs⇒Microsoft Office⇒Microsoft PowerPoint 2010.

♦ The Start menu: Click Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 on the Start menu, as shown in Figure 2-1. The Start menu is the menu you see when you click the Start button. By placing a program’s name on the Start menu, you can open the program simply by clicking the Start button and then clicking the program’s name. To place PowerPoint 2010 on the Start menu:

Figure 2-1: Three of several ways to start PowerPoint.

1. Click the Start button and choose All Programs⇒Microsoft Office.

2. Move the pointer over Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 on the sublist, but don’t click to select the program’s name.

3. Right-click Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 on the sublist and choose Pin to Start Menu on the pop-up menu that appears when you right-click.

To remove a program’s name from the Start menu, right-click the name and choose Unpin from Start Menu.

♦ Desktop shortcut icon: Double-click the Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 shortcut icon, as shown in Figure 2-1. A shortcut icon is an icon you can click to do something in a hurry. By creating a PowerPoint shortcut icon on the Windows desktop, you can double-click the icon and start PowerPoint in a hurry. To place a PowerPoint shortcut icon on the desktop:

1. Click the Start button and choose All Programs⇒Microsoft Office.

2. Move the pointer over Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 on the sublist, but don’t click the program’s name.

Starting PowerPoint when you start your computer

Yet another way to start PowerPoint is to make the program start automatically whenever you turn on your computer. If you’re the president of the PowerPoint Fan Club and you have to run PowerPoint each time your computer starts, create a PowerPoint shortcut icon and copy it into the Startup folder. Note which Windows operating system you have, and copy the PowerPoint shortcut icon into the Startup folder in one of these locations:

Windows 7 and Windows Vista: C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

3. Right-click Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 on the sublist and choose Send To⇒Desktop (Create Shortcut) on the pop-up menu that appears.

To remove a desktop shortcut icon from the Windows desktop, right-click it, choose Delete, and click Yes in the Delete Shortcut dialog box. Don’t worry about deleting a program when you delete its shortcut icon. All you do when you choose Delete is remove the program’s shortcut icon from the desktop and make your desktop a little less crowded.

♦ Pinned to taskbar (Windows 7 only): Open the program you want to pin to the taskbar, right-click the program’s button on the taskbar, and on the Jump List, choose Pin This Program to Taskbar.

♦ Quick Launch toolbar (not available in Windows 7): Click the PowerPoint 2010 shortcut icon on the Quick Launch toolbar, as shown in Figure 2-1. The Quick Launch toolbar appears on the Windows taskbar and is easy to find. Wherever your work takes you, you can see the Quick Launch toolbar and click its shortcut icons to start programs. Create a PowerPoint shortcut icon on the Windows desktop and follow these steps to place a copy of it on the Quick Launch toolbar:

1. Click the shortcut icon on the desktop to select it.

2. Hold down the Ctrl key.

3. Drag the shortcut icon onto the Quick Launch toolbar.

To change an icon’s position on the Quick Launch toolbar, drag it to the left or the right. To remove an icon, right-click it and choose Delete.

Creating a New Presentation

When you start PowerPoint, the program creates a new, blank presentation just for you. You can make this bare-bones presentation the starting point for constructing your presentation, or you can get a more sophisticated, fully realized layout and design by starting with a template.

A template is a starter file for creating a presentation. Each presentation is founded on a template. Each presentation inherits its colors, designs, fonts, and slide layouts from the template on which it was founded (the blank presentation gets its design from a simple, bare-bones template). When you decide between creating a presentation from the blank presentation or a template, you’re really deciding what your presentation will look like.

Figure 2-2 shows a slide created from the blank presentation (left) and a slide created from a template (right). Notice that the blank-presentation slide isn’t really “blank.” As Book II, Chapter 3 explains, you can redesign a blank presentation very easily. You can choose a theme, a background color for the slides, and fonts, and you can fashion your own slide layouts. When you create a presentation with a template, all design decisions are made for you. You get ready-made background colors, fonts, and slide layouts.

Figure 2-2: A slide made from the blank presentation (left) and a template (right).

Deciding between the blank presentation and a template

Templates are a mixed blessing. They’re designed by artists and they look very good. Some templates come with boilerplate text — already written material that you can recycle into your presentation. However, presentations made from templates are harder to modify. Sometimes the design gets in the way. A loud or intricate background may overwhelm the diagram or chart you want to put on a slide. For example, the clip-art image on the blank-presentation slide in Figure 2-2 looks out of place on the template slide because the image and the template background are incompatible.

Starting from the blank presentation means doing the design work on your own, although, as I mentioned earlier, designing presentations isn’t as hard as most people think because you can choose ready-made themes and background styles for a blank presentation. Sometimes simpler is better. By starting from a blank presentation, you aren’t locked into someone else’s design choices, and you have more creative opportunities.

The difference between a template and the blank presentation is similar to the difference between a tract house and a house you build on your own. Buying the tract house is less work. You can move right in. But if you build a custom house, you can build it to your taste and specifications, and it’s unique. No one has a house quite like yours. Your house looks different from the neighbors’ houses.

Creating a blank presentation

PowerPoint shows you a blank presentation each time you open the program. You can save this presentation and start to work or, if you’re working on another presentation already and you want to create a new, blank presentation, you can follow these steps to create it:

1. Go to the File tab.

2. Choose New.

You see the Available Templates and Themes window, shown in Figure 2-3.

3. Click the Blank Presentation icon.

4. Click the Create button.

A new presentation appears. You can also create a new blank presentation by pressing Ctrl+N. Try visiting the Design tab and choosing a theme or background style to get a taste of all the things you can do to redesign a presentation.

Creating a presentation from a template

The Available Templates and Themes window (refer to Figure 2-3) offers many opportunities for finding a suitable template. To open this window, go to the File tab and choose New.

As you employ the following techniques to find a template, remember that you can click the Back or Forward button in the window to retreat and advance during your search. When you find the template you need, double-click its icon or select its icon and click the Create button.

Figure 2-3: The Available Templates and Themes window is the starting point for creating a new presentation.

Here are all the ways to search for a template in the Available Templates and Themes window:

♦ Use a template on your computer: Click the Sample Templates icon. Templates that you loaded on your computer when you installed PowerPoint appear in the window.

✦ Use a theme: Click the Themes icon. A theme is a fully realized slide design and is an excellent choice for creating a PowerPoint presentation. Moreover, you can exchange one theme for another very easily. (Book II, Chapter 3 explains themes.)

♦ Search online at Microsoft: Make sure your computer is connected to the Internet, enter a search term in the Search box, and click the Start Searching button. For example, enter marketing to search for templates suitable for presentations about marketing products.

♦ Use a template you created (or downloaded earlier from Microsoft): Click the My Templates button. The New Presentation dialog box appears. Select a template and click OK. (Book VII, Chapter 2 explains how to create your own templates.)

Click the Recent Templates icon in the Available Templates and Themes window to see templates you chose for presentations you recently worked on.

Starting from another presentation

If you can use another presentation as the starting point for creating a new presentation, more power to you. By clicking the New from Existing icon in the Available Templates and Themes window, you can nab slides from another presentation and make them the foundation for a new one. Follow these steps to commandeer another presentation:

1. Go to the File tab and choose New.

You see the Available Templates and Themes window (refer to Figure 2-3).

2. Click the New from Existing icon.

The New from Existing Presentation dialog box appears.

3. Locate and select the presentation whose slides and design you covet.

4. Click the Create New button.

I hope you shoplifted that presentation from yourself, not from a convenience store.

Swapping one template for another

Suppose you decide on the blank presentation or a certain template when you create a presentation, but you regret your decision. You want a different template. As long as you already created a presentation with the template you want, you can impose its template design on your presentation. If necessary, create a presentation using the template you want, and then follow these steps to swap another presentation’s template for your presentation’s template:

1. Select the last slide in your presentation.

2. On the Home tab, open the drop-down list on the New Slide button and choose Reuse Slides.

The Reuse Slides task pane appears.

3. Click the Browse button and choose Browse File on the drop-down list.

You see the Browse dialog box.

4. Locate and select the presentation with the template you want; then click the Open button.

Slides from the presentation appear in the Reuse Slides task pane.

5. Click the Keep Source Formatting check box.

You can find this check box at the bottom of the Reuse Slides task pane.

6. Right-click a slide in the task pane and choose Insert All Slides on the shortcut menu.

All slides from the other presentation arrive in your presentation with their formatting intact.

7. Go to the View tab.

8. Click the Slide Master button.

You land in Slide Master view. Book II, Chapter 2 explains what master slides are and how you can use them to format slides.

9. Scroll to the top of the Slides pane, right-click the first slide (the Slide Master), and choose Delete Master on the shortcut menu.

All the slides take on the formatting of the new Slide Master.

10. Click the Close Master View button on the Slide Master tab to leave Slide Master view.

You likely have to delete the slides that arrived along with the new template, but that’s a small price to pay for being able to commandeer an entirely new template.

Saving Your Presentation Files

Soon after you create a new presentation, be sure to save it. And save your presentation from time to time as you work on it, as well. Until you save your work, it rests in the computer’s electronic memory (RAM), a precarious location. If a power outage occurs or your computer stalls, you lose all the work you did since the last time you saved your presentation. Make it a habit to save files every ten minutes or so or when you complete an important task.

Saving a presentation

To save a presentation, do one of the following:

♦ Click the Save button.

♦ Press Ctrl+S.

♦ Go to the File tab and choose Save.

Saving a presentation for the first time

The first time you save a presentation, PowerPoint opens the Save As dialog box and invites you to give the presentation a name and choose the folder in which to store it. Enter a descriptive name in the File Name text box. To locate a folder for storing your presentation, see “Navigating the Save As and Open Dialog Boxes,” later in this chapter.

Telling PowerPoint where you like to save presentations

When you attempt to save a presentation for the first time in the Save As dialog box, PowerPoint shows you the contents of the Document folder (in Windows Vista and Windows 7) or the My Documents folder (in Windows XP) on the assumption that you keep most of your presentations in that folder. The Documents (or My Documents) folder is the center of the universe as far as PowerPoint is concerned, but perhaps you keep the majority of your presentations in a different folder. How would you like to see your favorite folder first in the Save As and Open dialog boxes?

To direct PowerPoint to the folder you like best and make that folder’s name appear first in the Save As and Open dialog boxes, follow these steps:

1. Got to the File tab and choose Options.

You see the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

2. Select the Save category.

Figure 2-4 shows the topmost options in this category.

3. In the Default File Location text box, enter the address to the folder where you prefer to keep your presentations.

For example, if you are fond of keeping presentations in the My Stuff folder on the C drive of your computer, enter C:\My Stuff.

4. Click OK.

Figure 2-4: The Save Presentations options in the PowerPoint Options dialog box.

Saving presentations for use in earlier versions of PowerPoint

Not everyone is a proud owner of Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2010. Before you pass along a document to a co-worker who has PowerPoint 2003, 2002, 2000, or 97, save your document so that your co-worker can open it. People with versions of PowerPoint prior to PowerPoint 2010 and 2007 cannot open your PowerPoint presentations unless you save them for earlier versions of PowerPoint.

Saving a presentation for use in PowerPoint 97–2003

Presentations saved in the PowerPoint 97–2003 format have the .ppt, not the .pptx