Getting started with PowerPoint 2010

Transcription

1 To start PowerPoint, select Start/All Programs/Microsoft Office/Microsoft PowerPoint PowerPoint opens to a new presentation. A presentation consists of one or more slides. The window has three parts, by default. The left side shows a thumbnail view of the slides as you create them. The main centre part is the area you use to work on a slide. The top part is the Ribbon, which contains all the tools you use to work with slides. PowerPoint gives you a lot of defaults. You can either use the defaults or choose from a huge selection of options to make your presentation more individual and suited to its purpose. Start making a basic slide presentation Text is entered on a slide using text boxes. You click on the box and type in the text. Then you can drag the box around to position it. The default slide has two text boxes, one for the slide title and one for the body text. To type in a title, just click in the box and type it in. Same with the text box for the body text. You don t need to have a title on each slide. Just delete the title text box if you wish, (point to the edge of it, click once to highlight it, then press the Delete key on the keyboard). To add a new text box, click on the Text box tool on the Insert ribbon. Next, move the mouse down to the slide, click and drag a text box about the size you need. The text box can be resized later. Changes you make to the slide are shown on the thumbnail of the slide on the left side of the window. Getting started with PowerPoint 2010.doc 1

2 Formatting text in text boxes When a text box has this kind of border (dashed), it is in edit mode. You can see the cursor and type directly in the box. You can format individual words and sentences by highlighting words and using the font formatting tools on the ribbon. When a text box has this kind of border (a solid line), you can apply formatting to the whole text box at once, without first highlighting the text. To change between these modes, click the border of the text box, or click inside to go to edit mode. You can also use the paragraph formatting tools to align text the way you want, and to apply bullets or numbering. Inserting a new slide To add a new slide, click the New Slide button on the Home ribbon. You can also right click in the slide summary bar on the left and choose New Slide. Notice that once you have more than one slide, you can click between each slide on the Slide Summary bar. This puts the cursor in that position. If you choose New Slide now, the new slide will be inserted where the cursor is. You can also create a new slide by clicking the mouse in the Slide Summary bar at the place you wish to insert the slide, then pressing the Enter key. Organising slides Use the Slide Sorter at the left side of the window to move between slides by clicking on the one you want to edit. Once you have several slides, you might want to re-order them. You can do this easily in the Slide Summary bar on the left by dragging them up and down. The cursor moves with the slide as you drag it, showing you where to drop it. Getting started with PowerPoint 2010.doc 2

3 Using Slide Layouts Layout is the way text boxes and images are arranged on the slide. There are many layout templates to choose from, and it s a good idea to use the templates because it saves you quite a bit of work, and at the same time keeps your slides looking consistent. A layout provides placeholders for text or images (only one type of thing per box). To change the format of the slide you are currently viewing, click the Layout tool on the Home ribbon. You ll see a range of formats, with combinations of text boxes, image placeholders, etc. Click the layout you want and the slide will change. Note that you can remove any textboxes (or image placeholders) that you don t need on a slide formed by a layout template, or add new textboxes if you need them from the Insert ribbon. Using Themes By default, PowerPoint opens with a slide that has a plain white background. The easy way to make the general appearance of all slides look the same is to use Themes. A Theme is a collection of colour, background image and fonts that look good together. Themes are shown on the Design ribbon. If you use a Theme, it is usual to apply it to all of the slides in a presentation, to ensure consistency. There is a large number of Themes available. Scroll down using the scroll bar on the right to see them all. When you move the mouse over a Theme, a preview of how it will look on your slide will show up, but it won t be applied unless you click on the Theme. To impose a Theme for all your slides, click on one of the templates. If you only want the Theme for the slides that are highlighted, right click the Theme and choose Apply to Selected Slides. You can apply a style to one, some or all of your slides. Note that from the right click menu you can also set the default style for all future presentations if you wish, though this is unlikely to be appropriate. Getting started with PowerPoint 2010.doc 3

4 Background styles If you don t want to use the Themes, but still want to impose some background colour, you can format the background of your slides yourself. This can be an effective way of making slides attractive without being too busy. Click the Background Styles tool on the Design ribbon. You can choose an effects type of background, or if you just want a simple colour, click the Format Background link, and you will be able to select exactly the colour and texture of background you wish. By default, the background is applied to all slides, so if you only want it on the selected slide, right click the background you want and choose Apply to selected slides. (If you are working in the Format Background dialog box, the default is to apply to just the selected slide.) Animation Animation is the behaviour that is imposed on the text and objects on your slides. (Don t confuse this with Transition, which is covered later). Choosing an Animation scheme makes the text or images on each slide appear in a particular way. To apply animation, choose the Animations ribbon. You must select the text box or image you want the animation applied to (to select everything on a slide, press the Ctrl A key combination, or hold the Ctrl key while you individually click on the objects you want included). Now select the animation style you want. You can customise the effect with the Effect Options button. To achieve advanced animation, you use Custom Animation, which is not covered here. Please note that you should not use animation effects just because you can! This is often distracting for the audience and can detract from the presentation. Use animation only if it directly benefits what you want to achieve. Inserting images You can insert images into your slides from either clipart or your own picture files. There are two ways to insert images using the placeholder provided in the layouts (the easiest way) inserting into an empty slide Getting started with PowerPoint 2010.doc 4

5 Using an image placeholder By far the easiest method is to use a slide layout that already has a picture placeholder in it. This also controls the size so that the image can be no larger than the placeholder box. With very large image files this is a big help, otherwise you have to find the edges of the image and resize it down. Choose the Insert Picture from File option in the placeholder box. You will be able to browse to find the image you want. Inserting an image using the Insert Ribbon On the Insert ribbon, Illustrations group, choose Picture and browse to find the image you want. For very large image files, you may need to resize it down a lot to fit the slide. Your picture appears in a picture box, and you will see an extra ribbon called Picture Tools. This ribbon has tools specific to images and only appears when you have an image highlighted. You can use the tools on this ribbon to format the picture and wrap text around it the way you choose. Note that graphics are placed in their own box and can be moved around the slide and resized as with any object. Slide transition Transition is how the slides move from one to another. Transition tools are on the Transitions ribbon. Manual transition - When the slide show is running, by default each slide follows on from one to another when you decide it should happen. You can use the following methods to manually move to the next slide: Left mouse click Down arrow on keyboard (Up arrow moves back a slide) Right arrow on keyboard (Left arrow moves back a slide) Page Down key on keyboard (Page Up moves back a slide) Enter key on keyboard Experiment with different transition behaviours by moving the mouse across the transition options (there are more available if you click the down arrow at the bottom right of the display). The selected behaviour will be previewed on the slide that is currently selected. By default the transition Getting started with PowerPoint 2010.doc 5

6 applies only to the selected slide, or you can opt to apply the transition to all slides by clicking Apply to All to the right of the transition list. Making the presentation To show your PowerPoint presentation to an audience, you will probably do so using a data projector. Normally the computer should be connected to the projector. However, if the projector has a USB port capable of taking a memory stick, you can run the show directly from the memory stick (assuming the PowerPoint file is saved on the memory stick!) To make the presentation, click on the Slide Show button at the bottom right of the screen, or click From Beginning on the Slide Show ribbon. The presentation will start full-screen. Use the mouse or keyboard to progress the slides or, if you have set automatic timings, these will do the work for you. Printing slides WARNING! If you just click the Print button without setting options, you will get one slide printed per page. This can be very wasteful of paper and your print budget! Click the File Menu, and select Print. You will see print options. You can print your PowerPoint presentation in different ways. It s sometimes a good idea to give your audience a printed copy of the slideshow if you want them to be able to make notes. By default, slides are printed one per page. You can select different options and a preview shows at the right: Full page slides this prints the slides one per page. Handouts this prints slides with several per page (you specify how many) and leaves space for notes beside each slide. Getting started with PowerPoint 2010.doc 6

7 Notes pages this prints one slide per page with room for notes below. Outline this prints a table of contents for the slides. Getting started with PowerPoint 2010.doc 7