Microsoft PowerPoint: Unleash Its Power and Wow Features

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2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Microsoft PowerPoint: Unleash Its Power and Wow Features by Melissa P. Esquibel Certified Microsoft Office Master Instructor Editor Editorial Director Associate Publisher Publisher Kathy A. Shipp Patrick DiDomenico Adam Goldstein Phillip A. Ash 2010, Capitol Information Group, Inc., 7600A Leesburg Pike, West Building, Suite 300, Falls Church, VA Phone (800) ; All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher. Printed in U.S.A. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other expert service. If you require advice, please seek the services of an attorney or other professional. BMSP

3 Introduction T here is a seldom-used, but really effective way to fast-track PowerPoint presentations so that you can really unleash the power of PowerPoint to give your presentations much more impact. Too often, we spend hours just trying to get the content typed in and looking right. We then lack the patience and time to enhance the presentation with PowerPoint s wow factor features. That s why we ve compiled this executive summary of our popular PowerPoint webinar presented by Melissa P. Esquibel, a Certified Microsoft Office Master Instructor. Melissa combines her 25+ years of experience in information technology with a background in training, technical writing and business risk analysis. Her goal is to cut in half (at least!) the time you now spend in PowerPoint creating a presentation. In Microsoft PowerPoint: Unleash Its Power and Wow Features, you ll learn about these must-know tool sets for delivering powerful presentations: Starting out in Word: You ll learn how to start your PowerPoint project by creating an outline in Word. This session will be taught from Microsoft Office version 2003, but you ll notice that there are tips for 2007 throughout the presentation. Just to set expectations, Melissa will be running both versions on her computer. Design and Formatting: We will then show how to quickly apply designs and formatting to create the look and feel you d like for your presentation and how to change your mind as easily as you try on different pairs of shoes in a store. Believe it or not, the way you begin crafting your presentation will have everything to do with how easily you can change design and formatting. If you begin your presentation in Word, you will be able to stay as flexible as Gumby with regard to design and formatting. The Magic of Picture Graphics and Animation: Once we have our presentation built, we ll explore how to add and manipulate pictures and other graphic elements, and then how to apply animation. More important, we ll discuss the right places to use these features and how abusing the fun stuff can just make your presentations distracting and amateurish. Use these tips to fast-track your own productivity and wow your audiences with every presentation. Table of Contents Starting in Word...3 Choosing a Design...6 The Magic of Picture Graphics...9 Shapes...11 Sizing...12 Animation...13 Appendix: PowerPoint Q & A s

4 Starting in Word by Melissa P. Esquibel Why an outline is best One of the hardest places to think and create is in PowerPoint. In fact, a blank slide is one of the worst places to begin a presentation. Many of us use old presentations to create new presentations and end up spending hours tweaking and modifying fonts, colors and graphics to get them to work. If we look at this Word document (see Figure 1), it is the result of a brainstorming session I did for this presentation. I just started typing a list of all the things I wanted to cover. Of course, it didn t come out of my head in this exact order, but after moving things around and creating new items that would eventually be slide headers like after typing all the subtopics of working in Word first I added this line, Starting in Word, as a potential slide topic. So, after all that typing and rearranging (which by the way is a breeze in Word and much clunkier in PowerPoint), I ended up with this raw list below. Let s look at how to make this an outline or multilevel list and open it in PowerPoint. Creating an outline in Word 2003 After brainstorming and rearranging my topics, bullets and content, I would take these steps to create my outline in Word 2003: Figure 1 1. I would first clear any formatting I might have inadvertently applied, by selecting all text and clicking Edit-Clear-Formats (see Figure 2). (In 2007, this operation is on the Home tab on the far right and looks like a little white eraser. Just drop down the arrow and choose Clear Formats.) Edit Drop-down Menu Figure 2 3

5 2. Next, I would apply the Title style to the title of my presentation (see Figure 3). In the Style field, look for something called Title. Don t worry about fonts in Word you won t be controlling that here. If you don t see Title, you may have to turn on the All Styles feature by choosing More in the Styles drop-down menu and changing the Show option at the bottom to All Styles. 3. Then I would select the rest of the text (I did this with Ctrl-Shift-End) and click on Format, Bullets and Numbering, and choose the Outline Numbered tab. I ve had the best luck by then choosing the classic style of outline numbering. It s what most of us learned in school, and it makes thinking through organizing our presentation easier and more intuitive (see Figure 4). Figure 3 Figure 4 4. Now I can start separating bullets from topics by selecting the bullets and pressing the tab key. When it s all done, it looks like this (see Figure 5). You can see here, where I have sub-bullets, that it automatically creates the next outline level. If you make a mistake, use Shift-Tab to back up a level. Tab --> Figure 5 4

6 5. Once you see it in this format, you might choose to add some more bullets or take some away. Where you don t have any bullets, these may be slides that will have graphic elements, like charts or pictures. You can decide later not to even include the slide, but at least you will have a placeholder for the content. Save and close your outline as a Word document. It s called a Multi-level List in Word 2007 The process is very similar in Word You will find your Multi-level List icon on the Home tab in the Paragraphs Group (see Figure 6). Then, you ll be choosing this outline style from the drop-down list. Be careful not to choose just bullets or numbers; be sure to use the Multi-level List button. Figure 6 Opening an outline in PowerPoint The Open dialog box is relatively the same in both versions. So, you ll either do File Open in 2003 or Office Button Open in Then on this Open dialog box screen, change Files of type: to All Outlines (see Figure 7). Navigate to your outline and click Open. Notice that although it s in plain black and white, your topics are slide titles and that your bullets and sub-bullets are laid out properly. All I have to do now is choose my backgrounds, insert any graphic elements I d like to use, maybe tweak the content a little and apply animation. Figure 7 5

7 Let me walk through those steps again: 1. Brainstorm in Word. 2. Rearrange and tweak content. 3. Apply Title Style to title. 4. Apply Outline formatting to everything else. 5. Tab to create bullets and sub-bullets. 6. Save, close and open in PowerPoint. 7. Design and Formatting. Choosing a Design Now that we have our presentation basically set up in PowerPoint, it s time to let PowerPoint do what it s best at: making our ideas and content come to life. To create a basic background in PowerPoint 2003, you will work in Format-Background (see Figure 8, left) and work with the colors and fill effects to get the look you want. In 2007, it will be on the Design tab in the Background Group (see Figure 8, right). Figure 8 You can also use Slide Design, which I recommend to get a design that governs all the colors of backgrounds, fonts, bullets and other slide elements (see Figure 9). This opens up your choices in the Task Pane. In 2007, you ll find your choices on the Design tab and they are called Themes. We now notice that all our slides fall in line with fonts, colors and bullets. You can change presets by clicking Color Schemes in 2003 or Colors in Figure 9 6

8 Adjusting the Slide Master Now, if you like the color scheme but not the fonts or bullets, for example, do not start changing these elements here. By working in the Slide Master, you can apply the change to all slides at one time. Let s see how that s done. In 2003, you will choose View-Master-Slide Master (see Figure 10). In 2007 on the View tab, in the Presentation Views group, choose Slide Master. Now that I m in the master, I can choose to change the fonts for the slide title and bullets by selecting the placeholder for each element; I ll choose the Slide Title placeholder and change the font to Verdana 40 point. Then I can change the bullets by selecting the Object area placeholder, right-clicking and selecting Bullets and Numbering. If your bullets appear too small, you can adjust this number here: Size to % of text (see Figure 11). Figure 10 Right Click Figure 11 7

9 I can select Close Master View here on the floating toolbar (see Figure 12). Notice those changes have been applied to the whole presentation! Figure 12 If any don t quite change to represent the new style, you can reapply the Slide Layout, like this (see Figure 13). Format, Slide Layout, click the drop-down arrow next to the layout you want and choose Reapply. In 2007, you just need to right-click the slide in the Navigation area. Figure 13 Changing layouts Notice that all our slides have the same layout: title and bullets. We can change a layout by right-clicking the slide in the Navigation area and choosing Layout, then selecting our desired layout. Let s do that with our title slide (see Figure 14). Look through your own presentation and see if you want to make any more changes to your layouts. Figure 14 8

10 Cleaning up an ugly presentation By the way, you don t have to throw away all those presentations that you ve been using as go-bys or templates. Think about doing this: Save as an RTF Outline (see Figure 15). Clean up content in Word. Reapply the above steps to clean up formatting in PowerPoint. The Magic of Picture Graphics Let s take a look at some common graphic elements we might use in our presentation. Screen captures Figure PrtSc button: Sometimes we want to explain how to use a system or application in our presentation. So screen captures become important. The screen shots in this document were captured with the same method. Take a moment to locate the button on your computer that says PrtSc or Print Screen (see Figure 16). On a Mac, I understand the command is Control-Command-3. Now it s in your clipboard. Figure 16 9

11 2. Paste: When you then paste it in your slide, it may have more information than you might want to use. 3. Crop: On my Picture toolbar, I have this tool called Crop. Use it to trim off the extra area of your picture (see Figure 17). 4. Size: Then size it to fit your slide content. Figure 17 Photos The process is very similar with photos, but you have a few more tools to use. You use the Color icon to make this grayscale, black and white, or washout (see Figure 18). Color Contrast Brightness Figure 18 In 2007, you have many more options. When you select a picture object, you ll notice a contextual tab called Picture Tools (see Figure 19). Click on it and choose Recolor. You can choose Sepia tones here and two color schemes other than black and white. Picture Tools Contextual Tab Figure 19 10

12 Make background transparent Another trick you can do that can be very effective is to set a transparent background. The tool looks like this on the Picture toolbar (see Figure 20). It works best with photos like this that have a solid background. Just click on the color you want to get rid of. Now it appears to float on the slide. Shapes Shapes are what I use to create those circles around things and arrows on my presentation. In 2003, these appear on your Drawing toolbar. Very simply, choose the shape, then right-click it to change any colors or outlines (see Figure 21). You ll notice that there is a whole category of shapes for flowcharting, as well as cartoon balloons (actually called callouts ). In 2007, you ll find shapes on the Insert Tab, Illustrations Group and the Shapes button. Figure 20 Figure 21 11

13 Rotate You can rotate any graphic object by the handle. So, for example, if you wanted to mimic a cursor you would see on a computer screen, you could use a block arrow drawing object and rotate it slightly to the left so it looks like your computer cursor (see Figure 22). Sizing Figure 22 Start big, go small One key tip about graphics, especially imported photos, is to start big and go small. The quality of your graphics will depend on following this basic tenet. If you are using photos from your camera phone or the Web that are less than 300 dpi, if you try to make them bigger, they will go fuzzy or blurry. However, if you start with a highquality graphic of 300 or 600 dpi, you can always go smaller. Think of a nylon stocking. When it s not stretched out, the color is darker. As you start to stretch it, the color becomes lighter and transparent. Starting out with a 72 dpi Web photo is like stretching a nylon stocking. Compress AFTER you like the cropping Another issue in using photos and screen captures in PowerPoint is the size of the presentation. You can compress all the pictures by choosing one and using this tool basically to permanently clip off the excess and reduce the overall size of your presentation file. It may reduce the quality of some photos, so I recommend saving a backup of the presentation and testing out the compressed one before deciding which to use. Once you decide, you can delete the one you are not using (see Figure 23). Figure 23 12

14 Animation To make your presentations more interesting and effective, you can apply animation. Slide transitions Choose Slide Show and Slide Transition to see the various types of animation you can use (see Figure 24). You can apply either to all slides or just one. As a general rule, you want to use the same transition throughout your presentation, unless you need to capture your audience s attention as a topic changes, or if you have been delivering a long set of data and now need them to refocus. The Covers are good for that. Figure 24 Bullet animation Bullet animation is found in Custom Animation (see Figure 25). You will find this under Slide Show as well. I like to animate bullets if I will be covering the topics individually and don t want my audiences moving ahead without me. In 2007, Custom Animation appears in the task pane as it did in Figure 25 Object animation A place I like to use object animation is to demonstrate a mouse click (see Figure 26, page 14). For that I would create a block arrow and apply a motion path. 13

15 Figure 26 Use purposefully There s nothing more distracting than a slide that bounces, weaves and spins its content for no apparent reason. So, please use your animations purposefully. If you ve never used animation before, I recommend that you go on your computer and create the most obnoxious presentation possible, using every conceivable animation type you can find, just so you know how to use them. Then never do that again! Why? (1.) It will get it out of your system and (2.) you ll have a sample file to remind you how you accomplished a certain animation effect. 14

16 Appendix: PowerPoint Q & A s Q. How can you achieve a hanging indent on a bulleted list inside a Text Box? A. I was not able to find an automatic way to do this. However, the workaround is to manually break the lines where you like them using Shift+Enter. Then you can use the space bar to move each line over to the location you like. It s not ideal, but it will achieve the end result. Figure 27 Q. How can you quickly go to a particular slide during a presentation? A. While in the presentation, type the slide number and press Enter. It will take you directly to that slide. Q. What s the best way to do an organizational chart in PowerPoint? A. Insert Diagram. In 2007, use Smart Art. Figure 28 Q. Is there a standard for font sizes on a presentation? A. Choose your fonts with respect to how your presentation will be seen. If it will be projected onto a screen in a conference room or auditorium, I like to keep 32 points as my standard size, with a floor of 28 points if absolutely necessary. This will keep the slide to about four to six bullet points. You may 15

17 have a bigger size range if your presentation will be viewed on a monitor at a kiosk, for example. Too much text in too small a font will disconnect your audience. The other thing to keep in mind is that if your presentation is designed to be presented by a speaker, the slides should be a secondary focus. If a slide presentation can stand without the speaker, you don t need to have the meeting, just send the slide presentation. Q. In a sales presentation is there a right place to put calls to action? A. The most powerful place on a slide is the lower right-hand corner. The eyes naturally make a backward S pattern when viewing a slide, landing them in the lower right-hand corner. Figure 29 16