Rexy's Blog: POWERPOINT: THE EASIEST WAY TO GO ABOUT IT

Intro:

My friend actually requested this tutorial, so I felt it could probably serve a good purpose for those whose knowledge of Microsoft PowerPoint is still limited to just its name. So without further excitement, let us get going.

What is Microsoft PowerPoint?

This is simply an application that is used to make slideshows or presentations for pictures and texts. It is one of the applications that are packaged with the Microsoft Office suite. The version of this product is dependent on the release of any new office suite. So, at the time of writing this article, the Microsoft office 2013 version is the most stable and functional suite.

What You Do With Microsoft PowerPoint

As powerful as it may sound, PowerPoint can be used for the following:

· To create superb and eye-catchy presentations with text, graphics, photos, video, animation, and much more.

· You can then deliver your presentation in person, present it over the web, or share the PowerPoint files with people.

· You can also design customized logos using advanced features. (not recommended)

Requirements

Ok, we are making progress!

Now, it is expected that you satisfy some pre-requisites before you begin this precise PowerPoint process. Let us work with the minimum requirements below:

· Computer/Laptop: Anyone will do.

· Operating Systems: Windows Xp/Vista/7 or 8

· Package: Microsoft Office PowerPoint

· Version: 2007/2010 or 2013

· Computer Know-How: Basic

· And please do have enough pictures on your computer so we could work with multimedia files (like; images, audio, videos and animations).

Time to Kill Ali-Baba

At this moment you are going to get busy with Microsoft Office PowerPoint and setup real slides and presentations. This is what I mean by killing alibaba. So we are going to assume you have satisfied the requirements above. If you haven’t, go back now.
Note: These notes are going to be in phases. So don’t expect to learn everything in one go. It’s not done.

Get Started:

The following are the objectives to achieve at the end of this lesson

1. You should be able to create and save a blank PowerPoint presentation

2. You should be able to create slides and add texts

3. Insert objects (such as text, images) in your slides and run it.

CREATING AND SAVING YOUR PRESENTATION

From my instance, I am using Microsoft PowerPoint 2010. So if you have the same version, good for you. But this tutorial applies to the 2007, 2010 and 2013 PowerPoint versions. No sweats.

Let’s begin.

Now open PowerPoint from your system. I don’t think I need to teach you how to do that, do I?

The first page you should see (if you’ve not done any tampering) is the one shown below:

The window above shows the first page you will see when you open PowerPoint. By default, the ‘Blank presentation’ has been highlighted for you to begin with.

Other objects you are seeing on the screen are several templates you could work with on PowerPoint. So at this point, you should ignore these templates and go straight to the right corner of this open window and click on the ‘create’ button.

When you click the ‘create’ button, the next window that should appear(under normal condition) is the one shown below.

This is the main document window of PowerPoint. I call it the workspace. So before we go any further, you should save your presentation, even though it’s still blank. Saving your document at this early stage is useful and necessary for safe caution (applicable to those of you using laptops with dead batteries and desktops without UPS), and for easy ctrl and s saving shortcuts.

So, let’s save our document. Press ctrl and s on your keyboard and choose a name for your document. In our case, am naming it Lesson1. Just look at the screenshot below to help you.

When you click save, the document should change from ‘presentation1’ to ‘Lesson1’ on the title bar (details on the title bar is explained next).

Congratulations, you have successfully created and saved your first PowerPoint presentation. Yes of course, I know it is empty but not to worry; you shall populate it with contents soon.

Let’s Move on.

CREATING SLIDES

By default, when you open PowerPoint, Microsoft has generously set up a slide with sample objects for you to work with. Though this does not do much, but it is a good way to start. The screen shot below explains the various section of the PowerPoint window.

Let’s explain the screenshots above.

Title Bar: this holds the name of the PowerPoint document you are currently working with. The red colour does not apply to the lesson; it’s just a sign that I have not taken time to activate my office product.

Tabbed-tool Bars: The word tabbed in this context, is an indication of having hanging separate contents in one window or frame, as the case may be. So, the tabbed-tool bars are the toolbars you are seeing with separate labels (e.g. Home, Insert, Design, etc.) flowing across beneath the title bar of the window.
Microsoft has decided to use this design framework to reduce package size and easy accessibility of tools and features.

Current Slide: This is the thumbnail view of the slide you are presently working with on the workspace. The number of slides increases as you had or create more of it.

Slide Panel: This is where all the slides in your PowerPoint presentation rest. The slide panel increases in length as your slides multiplies.

Workspace: This is where your work begins and most of where your concentrations will be.

We are progressing. Now, let us do something fun. We are going to do a simple text presentation about animals.

Follow these steps:

1. Click on the first box in the workspace that says ‘Click to add Title’. Type this title “All about Animals”. You can type anything if you like, but just behave yourself and follow my instructions.

2. Click on the second box that says ‘click to add Subtitle’ and type your name.

3. When you are done, press f₅on your keyboard to run your slide in full screen mode. For those of you that may have the HP series, you might want to press fn (the key after ctrl at the bottom left corner on your keyboard) before pressing f_5.

Congratulations again, you have just created your first PowerPoint slide.

Now let us add interesting contents about animals. The next thing you will do is to create more slides, and you will do that in the slide panel.

Next Step: right-click on the slide panel and click on New Slide. This will create another plain document on the slide panel.

Next step: Click on the ‘add title’ as you did earlier and add “Animal Overview”.

Before you move any further, you will see 6 faint looking icons in the middle of the second box. These were placed by Microsoft to help you easily insert tables, charts, smart arts, pictures, clip arts and videos respectively.

Next Step: click to add text, and start adding bullet points about animals. Press enter on every point you have finished typing.

Next Step: Now let us add a visual content to this presentation. Create a new slide and click on the title and add “Images of different Animals.”

Next Step: click on the picture icon in the slide workspace, as circled above and select pictures in your computer directory. In my case, I have selected 3 funny pictures of animals, a human inclusive.

Next step: run the presentation by pressing f5 or fn+f5 (for certain computer keyboards). Now we have more than 1 slide in your presentation. Since we haven’t done some auto-settings yet, we will have to move the contents ourselves. Just press the navigation buttons on your keyboard to move between forward and backward.

If you have followed the instructions correctly, you presentation should be something close to what is shown below:

First Slide:
Showing the Title of my presentation