MS PowerPoint

(Windows)
HOW TO MAKE A POWERPOINT PRESENTATION

A presentation is made up of
multiple slides, and now that you
know how to make one, you can delve
deeper into PowerPoint's capabilities.
1. Open a blank presentation again or start from
one you've already created.

If you've already created a presentation, double

click the icon to open the existing file. Otherwise,
open Microsoft PowerPoint, click "File" in the top
left corner, and click "New Presentation." From
there, you can follow the prompts to set up a new
presentation.
2. Choose a "theme" or create your own.

Microsoft offers built-in themes and color variations

to help you design your slides with a
cohesive look. To
choose from these pre-built themes, choose the
"File" tab again, select "New", choose one
of the options, and
click "Create.
3. Create a variety of slides for different
purposes.

A title slide
An agenda or table of contents slide
A slide that introduces the speaker
Various content slides (create different layouts
considering what kind of multimedia you'll
use)
4. Use the Duplicate Slides feature to save you
time.

On the left pane, right click the thumbnail of the

slide you want to duplicate.
Choose "Duplicate Slide" from the pop-up menu
5. Add transitions to your slides (optional).

To access them, select the "Transitions" tab from

the top ribbon. From there, you can select
a transition for it to preview on your screen. To
customize it further, click "Effect Options" and
play with the features to find
something that suits your liking. To remove a
transition, select "Transitions" and click "None."
6. Add animations to your slides (optional).

Like transitions, animations can add movement, reveal

information, and help you underscore
the points you
want to hit during your speech.
Select the element you want animated by clicking on it.
Choose "Animations" from the top ribbon.
You'll have the option to choose from several effects displayed
in the ribbon.
Clicking on one will give you a preview.
To customize the animation, select "Effect Options."
To remove an animation, click "None" in the ribbon.
7. Save your presentation.

Click "File" and "Save", making sure to specify which

folder or destination you want your
PowerPoint to be stored.
8. Run your presentation.
It's always good to do a trial run to ensure that your slides
are set up properly and your
animations fire they
way you expect them to.
To present your PowerPoint, go to the "Slide Show" tab and
click "Play from Start". The slide
will cover your
whole screen, blocking out your desktop and PowerPoint
software. This is so your audience
(in this case, you
for the trial run) is solely focused on the visual elements of
your presentation.
9. Advance the slides.

When you're done with one slide and want to show

the next in your sequence, click your
mouse in
presentation mode. This will advance the slide.
PowerPoint Style
1. Don’t let PowerPoint decide how you use PowerPoint.
Microsoft wanted to provide PowerPoint users with a lot of
tools. But this does not mean you
should use
them all. Here are some key things to look out for:
• Make sure that preset PPT themes complement your needs
before you adopt them.
• Try to get away from using Microsoft Office’s default fonts,
Calibri and Cambria. Using
these two
typefaces can make the presentation seem underwhelming.
• Professionals should never use PPT’s action sounds. (Please
consider your audience
above personal
preference).
2. Create custom slide sizes.

While you usually can get away with the default slide size for most
presentations, you may
need to adjust it for larger presentations on weirdly sized displays. If you
need to do that, here's how.
• In the top-left corner, choose "File."
• Select "Page Setup
• Type the height and width of the background you'd like, and click "OK."
• A dialogue box will appear. Click "OK" again.
• Your background is resized!
Tip: Resize your slides before you add any objects to them or the
dimensions of your objects
will become
skewed.
3. Edit your slide template design.

Often, it's much easier to edit your PowerPoint template

before you start -- this way, you
don't have design
each slide by hand. Here's how you do that.
• Select "Themes" in the top navigation.
• In the far right, click "Edit Master," then "Slide Master."
• Make any changes you like, then click "Close Master." All
current and future slides in that
presentation will use that template.
4. Write text with your audience in mind.

A significant part of a PowerPoint's content is text.

Great copy can make or break your
presentation, so
evaluating your written work from a few different
angles could make you seem more
persuasive. Thinking
about how your text is received differentiates good
presenters from the best.
5. Make sure all of your objects are properly
aligned.

Having properly aligned objects on your slide is the

key to making it look polished and
professional.
How to align multiple objects:
• Select all objects by holding down "Shift" and
clicking on all of them.
• Select "Arrange" in the top options bar, then
choose "Align or Distribute."
• Choose the type of alignment you'd like.
6. Use "Format Menus" to better control your objects' designs.
Format menus allow you to do fine adjustments that otherwise seem
impossible. To do this,
right click on an
object and select the "Format" option. Here, you can fine-tune shadows,
adjust shape
measurements, create
reflections, and much more.
Although the main options can be found on PowerPoint’s format
toolbars, look for complete
control in the format window menu. Other examples of options available
include:
• Adjusting text inside a shape.
• Creating a natural perspective shadow behind an object.
• Recoloring photos manually and with automatic options.
7. Take advantage of PowerPoint's shapes.

Today’s shapes include a highly functional Smart

Shapes function, which enables you to
create diagrams and
flow charts in no time. These tools are especially
valuable when you consider that
PowerPoint is a visual
medium. Paragraphing and bullet lists are boring --
you can use shapes to help express your
message more
clearly.
8. Create custom shapes.

When you create a shape, right click and press "Edit

Points." By editing points, you can
create custom shapes
that fit your specific need. For instance, you can
reshape arrows to fit the dimensions you
like.
9. Crop images into custom shapes.

Besides creating custom shapes in your

presentation, you can also use PowerPoint to crop
existing images
into new shapes. Here's how you do that:
• Click on the image and select "Format" in the
options bar.
• Choose "Crop," then "Mask to Shape," and then
choose your desired shape. Ta-da!
Custom-shaped
photos.
10. Present websites within PowerPoint.

Third party software that integrates fully into

PowerPoint’s developer tab can be used to
embed a website
directly into your PowerPoint using a normal HTML
iframe. One of the best tools is LiveWeb,
a third-party software developed independently.
11. Try Using GIFs.

GIFs are looped animated images used to

communicate a mood, idea, information, and
much more.
Users add GIFs to Powerpoints to be funny or quickly
demo a process. It's easy to add GIFs
to your slides.
12. Keep it simple.
PowerPoint is an excellent tool to support your presentation
with visual information,
graphics, and
supplemental points.
Nothing in your slides should be superfluous! Keep your
presentation
persuasive by keeping it clean. There are a few ways to do
this:
• Limit bullet points and text.
• Avoid paragraphs and long quotes.
• Maintain "white space" or "negative space".
• Keep percentages, graphs, and data super basic.
13. Embed your font files.

One constant problem presenters have with

PowerPoint is that fonts seem to change when
presenters move
from one computer to another. In reality, the fonts
are not changing -- the presentation
computer just doesn’t
have the same font files installed.
14. Save your slides as JPEGs.

If you want your presentation to appear "animated,"

you'll need to do a little tinkering. All you
need to do is
save JPEGs of each "frame" of the animation. Then,
in your final presentation, you'll just
display those JPEGs in
the order you'd like the animation to appear.
15. Embed multimedia.

PowerPoint allows you to either link to video/audio files

externally or to embed the media
directly in your
presentation. You should embed these files if you can, but if
you use a Mac, you cannot
actually embed the
video (see note below). For PCs, two great reasons for
embedding are:
• Embedding allows you to play media directly in your
presentation. It will look much more
professional
than switching between windows.
16. Bring your own hardware.

Between operating systems, PowerPoint is still a bit

jumpy. Even between differing PPT
versions, things can change. One way to fix these
problems is to make sure that you have the right
hardware --
so just bring along
your own laptop when you're presenting.
17. Use "Presenter View.“

In most presentation situations, there will be both a

presenter’s screen and the main
projected display for
your presentation.
For many presenters, this tool can help unify their spoken
presentation and their visual aid.
You never want to
make the PowerPoint seem like a stack of notes that you use
a crutch. Use the Presenter
View option to help
create a more natural presentation.
Prezi (Web)
Most types of presentation software use a slide-based
approach, where you move back and
forth between
individual slides, kind of like pages in a book. Prezi,
however, uses a canvas-based
approach. Instead of using
slides, Prezi has one very large canvas that your presentation
moves around on, zooming in
and out to view
various frames.
Document Encoding Tools

MS Word (Windows)
Microsoft Word is the most ubiquitous word-processing
program on the market; it's intuitive
even for the
most technologically illiterate computer users and is backed
by the powerful Microsoft Office
suite.
Highlight a Square Field of Text
If you hold down the Alt key in Windows, or the
Option key on a Mac, while you click and drag your mouse,
you will be able to draw a box
within the
document that will highlight all the characters in that box. If
you ever wanted to create a
perfect square of
purple text in the middle of a chunk of text, that's how you'd
go about it.
Generate Random Text
If you need to add Lorem Ipsum into your document as a
placeholder, Word has you
covered. Just type:
=lorem(p,l) and replace the "p" with the number of
paragraphs you want, and replace the "l"
with the number
of sentences you need. You can also just include one number
in the parentheses and it will
create that many
paragraphs. When ready, place the cursor at the end of the
equation and hit Enter to
generate your text.
Add a Calculator to Word
Word has a built-in calculator that can help you solve equations right in
your document. First,
add it to the Word menu by navigating to File > Options > Quick Access
Toolbar and selecting All
Commands from the
drop-down menu. Locate Calculate, and click Add to move it to the
Quick Access Toolbar
column. Click OK to
return to your document.
You will notice that a small gray circle has been added to the top of your
Word document.
Now you can type
math equations, and if you highlight them, that icon will change color.
Press the icon and
Word will calculate
the answer
Highlight a Sentence With a Click
To quickly highlight an entire sentence, hold down the Ctrl
key in Windows, or Command key
on a Mac, and
click the beginning of the sentence. Word will take care of
the rest.
Hop Around to Editing Hotspots
Hitting Shift-F5 will allow you to cycle through the parts of
your document you've recently
edited. This trick
will even remember where you were editing last after you
re-open a document.
Write Text Anywhere
You can use Word as a whiteboard of sorts and easily place
text anywhere on the page. Just
click twice on any
place on the page and Word will allow you to start typing
there. Word automatically inserts
hard returns and
tabs to allow you to enter text. Avant garde poets, this
function is for you.
Auto-Update Date & Time
Under the Insert tab, click the Date & Time button and a
pop-up window will appear. Click the
date format
you want and then be sure to click the "update
automatically" box in the bottom-right corner.
Now the date
will automatically be updated every time you open (or print)
the document.
Convert to a PDF and HTML Doc
Word makes it easy to convert your doc to a PDF or HTML file. When you
"save as" a file,
you'll see a "Save as
type" pull-down menu, which will provide a bevy of options including PDF
and Web Page.
Note that the Web Page function can include a lot of extra code. This
won't necessarily affect
the page, but
can make things a little messy if you need to change anything. Another
option is to use a
free conversion site
like Word to Clean HTML, which—as the name implies—will create HTML
code from text
that is directly
copied and pasted from a Word doc.
Change Capitalizations the Easy Way
You can easily change the capitalization of any text with a
click of a button. Highlight a
selection and click on
the "Aa" pull-down menu to alter your text between
sentence case, all uppercase, or all
lowercase. You can
also make every word start with a capital letter and toggle
between cases.
Show Hidden Characters
If you are working on a complex document with different
styles, columns, and formats,
editing can quickly
become a tedious exercise. The best way to see what's going
on with your document's
formatting is to make
all the invisible marks (hard returns, soft returns, tabs,
spaces) visible. Press Ctrl-Shift-8 in
Windows or
Command-8 on a Mac.
Replace Invisible Characters and Formatting
The Find and Replace tool in Microsoft Word is a lifesaver.
You can quickly and easily make
mass changes
without having to hunt and peck for every instance of
something you need changed. But you
can also do a
Find and Replace for the hidden characters in your
document.
Click on the Find and Replace button in Word, then click
More in the dialogue box. Click on
Format to search
for formatting in your document—the pull-down menu
includes margins, font, styles, and line
spacing.
Insert Objects into Word
If you ever feel like your document could use a little
something added to the body copy,
Word allows you to
insert objects directly onto the page. Click Insert > Object to
open a dialogue box that shows
you what you can add. This is how you would add a chart to
your doc, but you can also
embed a PDF or an Excel
spreadsheet as well.
Insert Equations
You can add complex math equations into Word by click
Insert > Equation, and then
selecting the equation
you wish to add. Once it has been inserted into your doc,
you are free to change formatting
or replace letters
with numbers.
Protect Your Document
Word has a fair amount of built-in protection that will
encrypt your writing. Click File > Info to
manage
viewing and editing permissions, enable password
encryption, and create a password for the
Doc
The Search Box Is Your Friend