Here are some very valueable tips in PowerPoint...
Here is a collection of all the tips about Microsoft PowerPoint version 2002 that were past winners of the monthly Office XP "T-Shirts for Tipsters" Contest, which ended May 31, 2002. For tips about using Microsoft PowerPoint® 2000, visit the PowerPoint 2000 Tips & Tricks page.
Replace Fonts Globally in PowerPoint
From Tom Johnson, Tacoma, Washington
You can quickly perform a global replace of any font used in a Microsoft PowerPoint® presentation using the Replace Font dialog box:
On the Format menu, click Replace Fonts.
In the Replace Font dialog box, click the font you want to replace in the Replace list.
In the With list, click the font you want to apply.
Click Replace and review the font change. If you like what you see, click Close. If not, you can continue making choices in the Replace Font dialog box until you find what you want.
Show Your Slides out of Order During a Presentation
From Bryan Patterson Mount Pleasant, Iowa
If you are in the middle of a Microsoft PowerPoint® presentation and want to open a slide out of order, just type the slide number and press ENTER. This works best when you know the number of the slide you want. (Hint: It's a good idea to print out a copy of your presentation for reference.)
If you don't know the slide number, there's another method you can use: Right-click the slide, point to Go on the shortcut menu, point to By Title, and then click the slide title you want.
Create Bitmap Images of PowerPoint Slides
From Don Stuart, Yorktown, Virginia
Want a quick way to send a single PowerPoint slide to someone? Try this: Convert the slide into a bitmap image. You can resize, crop, and paste it into an e-mail message or an Office document. Here's how.
Open the slide you want use as an image.
On the View menu, click Notes Page. The slide will appear on the notes page as an image.
Right-click the slide image, and then click Copy on the shortcut menu.
The image is now stored on your Clipboard, and you can paste it as a resizable object into any Office document.
Write on a Slide During a Presentation
From Prashant Sood, Noida, India
As a presenter, haven't you wished you could write on a slide—to draw a diagram or underline a word, for example—in the middle of a slide show? Microsoft PowerPoint includes a virtual annotation pen that enables you to write on a slide while giving a presentation.
To use the annotation pen during a slide show:
Open the presentation in Slide Show view.
Right-click in the window, point to Pointer Options, and click Pen.
When you are done using the pen, press ESC.
Editor's Note: All annotation pen markings are cleared when you leave the slide, so don't use the annotation pen to make notes you'll use later. Use the Meeting Minder or Speaker Notes for any notes you want to save.
More Design Options for Your PowerPoint Presentations
From J. Stewart, location unavailable
A new feature of PowerPoint version 2002 is that you can use multiple slide masters in a single presentation. The slide master is an element of the design template that stores information, including styles, placeholders, and color schemes. With it, you can make global changes—such as replacing a font style—across all the slides in your presentation.
When using multiple slide masters, remember that if you want to make a global change to your presentation, you need to change each slide master.
To insert a slide master:
On the View menu, point to Master, and then click Slide Master.
Do one of the following:
To insert a slide master that uses the default styles in PowerPoint, on the Slide Master View toolbar, click Insert New Slide Master.
To insert a slide master by adding a new design template, on the Formatting toolbar, click Design, point to the design you want, click the arrow, and select one of the options on the shortcut menu.
To replace or add slide masters:
On the View menu, point to Master, and then click Slide Master.
On the toolbar, click Design.
If you want to replace selected, rather than all, masters in the presentation, select the masters in the thumbnails on the left.
In the Slide Design task pane, point to the design template you want, click the arrow, and then do one of the following:
To replace selected masters with masters for the new design template, click Replace Selected Designs.
To replace all the current masters with masters for the new design template, click Replace All Designs.
To add a new design template and its masters to the presentation, click Add Design.
Editor's Note: All the design templates you're currently using appear in the Slide Design task pane under Used in this presentation. You can apply them to slides when you're working in normal view.
Create a Photo Album Presentation in PowerPoint 2002
From Terry A. Austin, Temple, Texas
Did you know you could use PowerPoint version 2002 to create a photo album? Here's how:
On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and then click New Photo Album.
In the Photo Album dialog box, you can choose to add pictures from your hard disk or a peripheral device, such as a scanner or digital camera. To add a picture from a file or disk, do the following:
Under Insert picture from, click File/Disk.
Locate the folder or disk that contains the picture you want to add to your photo album, click the picture file, and then click Insert.
Repeat Step 2 for as many pictures as you want to add to your photo album. Or to capture them all at once, hold down the CTRL key, click each picture file you need, and then click Insert.
Next, specify the look of the album under Album Layout.
Then click Create.
Editor's Note: If you want to change or update your photo album after you have created it, use the Format Photo Album dialog box from the Format menu.
Get Flashy with PowerPoint Animations
From Jibran Syed, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi, Pakistan
Forget about learning complicated animation programs. In Microsoft PowerPoint® version 2002, adding animation for professional-looking presentations is not only easy, it's fun.
To apply a custom animation:
In normal view, display the slide that has the text or objects you want to animate.
Select the object you want to animate.
On the Slide Show menu, click Custom Animation.
In the Custom Animation task pane, click Add Effect, and do one or more of the following:
If you want to make the text or object enter the slide show presentation with an effect, point to Entrance and then click an effect.
If you want to add an effect to text or an object that is on the slide, point to Emphasis and then click an effect.
If you want to add an effect to text or an object that makes it leave the slide, point to Exit and then click an effect.
Cut PowerPoint Graphics Down to Size
From Daniel Jang, Vancouver, Canada
Add a few images—a photo here, an illustration there—and the size of your PowerPoint presentation can become huge. You could compress images manually, but there's a simpler way: PowerPoint 2002 can do it for you.
On the Picture toolbar, click the Compress Pictures button. If you don't see the Picture toolbar, point to Toolbars on the View menu, and then click Picture.
To compress all pictures in the presentation, click All pictures in document.
Under Change resolution, select how you intend to use your presentation by clicking either Web/Screen or Print.
To further reduce file size, select the Delete cropped areas of pictures check box.
Click OK.
Editor's Note: If you compress pictures or delete the cropped areas, you won't be able to restore your pictures to their original resolution or size. This tip also works in Microsoft Word version 2002.
Protect Your PowerPoint Presentations
From Darrell Livingstone, Hapeville, Georgia
Want to make sure your presentations are safe from changes by other users? With Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, you can help protect your presentations while you are working on them.
On Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Security tab.
Decide on a password, and type it in either the Password to Open or Password to Modify box, depending on whether you want to protect the document from viewing or from modification.
Click OK.
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Choosing the Most Readable Font
When mixing two different fonts, consider the x-height of the font. The x-height is the height of the lowercase x as well as of many lowercase letters, such as a, c, and e. Two fonts may be the same point size but have different x-heights. For example, Garamond has a much smaller x-height than Arial. As a result, the entire font looks smaller and is harder to read. To compensate, you could increase the font size of the Garamond text.
The following two lines are both 14-point text:
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Using Hyperlinks
When you add a hyperlink to a presentation, you must be careful that the target of the hyperlink is available. If you are giving the presentation offsite using a laptop, all the targets need to be on the laptop as well, unless your laptop is actively connected to the Internet. An alternative is to copy Web site documents you think you will need to your laptop and hyperlink to those documents. The advantage is that you don't have to depend on getting a good connection to the Internet at your offsite location.
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Backgrounds
Using Mid-Range Colors. Backgrounds that are neither very light nor very dark can work well for both onscreen presentations and overheads. A very dark background is usually used with white or yellow text for contrast, but the result can be harsh. When you want to create a softer effect, use a mid-range green or blue. However, be sure the text contrasts sufficiently with the background for good legibility.
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Rehearsing with Narration
One secret is to record narration for your entire presentation as if you were presenting. Then run your presentation, and sit back and listen. Choose Slide Show > Narration and follow the instructions. (You'll need a microphone attached to your computer.)
Then go into slide show view and play back the presentation. You get an entirely different perspective when you pretend to be the audience. Listening to your presentation enables you to pick up awkward moments, unclear passages, and boring spots much more easily. Then just turn off the narration before you deliver your presentation. (Choose Slide Show | Set Up show and check Show Without Narration. Click OK.)
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Designing Chart Titles
PowerPoint lets you create a title for a graph/chart, but for simplicity and to leave more room for the chart, omit it and use the slide title instead to describe the chart.
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Using Web Page Backgrounds in PowerPoint
Did you know that you can use web page backgrounds in PowerPoint? Web page background pictures are usually just a narrow strip or box. When placed on a web page, they are tiled, or repeated to cover the entire web page. PowerPoint creates a similar effect by stretching pictures to cover the entire slide. The advantage is that zillions of web page backgrounds are available for free download on the Internet. Here's a simple background that creates an area on the left for action buttons or other information. Right click on it and choose Save Picture As to save the picture.
Here's a different kind of background:
To use an image, choose Format>Background. From the drop-down box, choose Fill Effects and click the Picture tab. Click Select Picture to open the picture. Click OK in the Fill Effects dialog box and Apply or Apply to All in the Background dialog box. To quickly add the picture to all slides, open the Slide Master first. Try it out!
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Creating a Grid for Perfect Layout
For PowerPoint 97 & 2000: Professional graphic artists create light blue grids to help them lay out their art. You can do the same with your PowerPoint slides. Grids help you see the balance and symmetry of a slide. PowerPoint can display guides that you can use to create a grid.
Choose View>Guides.
To add additional guides, press CTRL and drag the vertical guide to the left or right. PowerPoint displays the distance between the guides as you drag, so you can set them up evenly.
Continue with up to eight guides.
Do the same with the horizontal guide.
For more control, you can create your own grid on the slide master using the Line tool on the Drawing toolbar.
Open the Slide Master.
Draw a line.
Press CTRL-D to duplicate the line.
Drag the new line to a new position.
Continue until you have a grid.
You can also use the Rectangle tool to create a frame around the edge of the slide so that you don't place text or graphics too close to the edge of the slide.
Select all the lines and the rectangle and group them. When you return to your presentation, you will see this grid on all your slides. Use it to help you lay out your slides.
When you're done, simply return to the slide master and delete the grid.
Tip on the Tip: Save this grid as a template and use it for all your presentations.
For PowerPoint 2002 and 2003: A new feature of 2002 lets you display a visible grid. Choose Draw > Grid and Guides. In the Grid and Guides dialog box, check Display grid on screen. You can also set the spacing of the grid. Then click OK. However, if you want a more customized grid, you can still use the procedure listed above.
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Importing Art into the Clip Gallery
For PowerPoint 97 & 2002: You can add all of your own clip art to the Microsoft Clip Gallery. Click Insert Clip Art on the Drawing toolbar. In the Gallery, click Import Clips. From the dialog box, find the graphic file, and double click it. Unfortunately, there is no preview feature to let you view the files. Instead, you can choose Insert>Picture>from File and start searching. Here you will have a preview box. Once you have found the file you want, remember its name and location. Then go back to the Clip Gallery and import it.
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Publishing a Presentation on the Web
You can place a PowerPoint presentation on your web site. It's a great way to deliver information systematically and powerfully.
Click here to see it for yourself! (Please be patient; it takes a while to load.)
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Organizing Content
First Step in Creating a Presentation. I firmly believe in starting your presentation with an outline. An outline helps you focus first on your content and how it's organized. After all, isn't what you're saying more important than how you say it?
To create an outline in Microsoft Word, using Heading 1 style for slide titles, Heading 2 style for first-level bulleted text, etc. Then choose File | Send To and choose Microsoft PowerPoint. Or instead, return to PowerPoint, choose File | Open, choose All Outlines from the Files of Type drop-down list in the dialog box, find your outline document and double-click it.
To create the outline in PowerPoint, click the outline pane (before PP 2000, click the Outline button first) and type the title of the first slide. Press Enter. Click Demote on the Outlining toolbar to type bulleted text on the same slide. See my book, How to Do Everything with PowerPoint 2003, for exact steps and details.
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PowerPoint and the Future of Education
Learn how PowerPoint is being used in class, for distance learning, and for web-based education.
Click here to view the presentation.
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Putting Flash Animation in PowerPoint
Follow these steps to put a Flash movie in your PowerPoint presentation for awesome animation. (Thanks to Rick Turoczy for the basics, which I've added to. See his version.)
Write down the location of the SWF file you want to use.
Choose View>Toolbars>Control Toolbox.
Click the Hammer button (More Controls).
Choose Shockwave Flash Object from the menu.
Drag a box across the screen to get the desired size and location.
Right click the box and choose Properties.
In the Properties window, click the top line, Custom. Then click the ellipsis at the right.
In the Property Pages dialog box, type the location of the SWF file that you wrote down earlier. Use the full path.
Set the other parameters, if you wish, for example, Quality: best; Scale: show all; Window: window.
Click Embed movie if you want to make sure it’s always included with the PP presentation.
Click OK.
Close the Properties window using its close box.
Choose Slide Show view to see the movie. If your movie didn’t appear in Normal view, it will appear when you return to Normal view after running the slide show.
Related Tips:
Match the movie background to the background of your PowerPoint template/presentation. Also, if the Flash movie doesn’t play, open the Properties window again and look at the Playing property. If it says False, click Playing, then the down arrow and change the Playing property to True. Files placed on master will play continuously from slide to slide to create an animated background (but that can get distracting). Note: PowerPoint can’t recognize any mouse clicks on top of Flash object, so don’t make the Flash object the full size of the slide so you have some area to click to the next slide.
Click here to download a PowerPoint presentation with a Flash player file in it. (Note: this is a shortened presentation to reduce download time. To see the entire presentation without the Flash animation online, click here. (The presentation with the Flash animation is too big for viewing online.)
Several visitors have noted that there is a bug that automatically changes the Playing property to False if the Flash movie is not set to loop. As a result of their contributions, I can now give you two solutions to this problem:
Save the presentation as a PowerPoint Show
This is the simplest method.
Reset the Playing property of the SWF file(s) to True. To do this, select the Shockwave Flash object, right click it and choose Properties. On the Playing row, click so you see a drop-down arrow, then click the arrow and choose True.
Save the presentation as a Show. First save your presentation, then choose File > Save As. From the Save as Type drop-down list, choose PowerPoint Show (*.pps). Keep the same file name and click Save.
From now on you can play the presentation by opening the .pps file and the Flash movie will always play.
Create some Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code to control the Playing property
This method is more complex but lets you present from the original presentation file. Use this method if others will modify the PowerPoint presentation.
Follow the same steps to insert the Flash movie. After step 10, uncheck the Loop checkbox. Now follow these steps to create the VBA code:
On the Control Toolbox toolbar, click the View Code button. The Microsoft Visual Basic window opens.
Choose Insert > Module.
In the main window, enter the following code, where the number in the 3rd line after the word "Slides" is the number of the slide containing the Flash movie. (Thanks to Christopher Contois at www.2cinteractive.com for reminding me of this point. Don't forget to customize the slide number!)
That's it! Return to your presentation and play it through in slide show view to test it.
Sub OnSlideShowPageChange()
Dim obj As ShockwaveFlash
Set obj = _ ActivePresentation.Slides(2).Shapes("ShockwaveFlash1").OLEFormat.Object
obj.Playing = True
obj.Rewind
obj.Play
End Sub
As you can see, the code simply sets the Playing property to true, rewinds the movie, and plays it.
Note: if you want more than one Flash movie in a presentation, I think you need to give additional movies unique shape names in the 4th line of the code. The 2nd one could be "ShockwaveFlash2" for example. Then, in the Properties window, give the object the same name in the Name row (which is just under the Custom row).
My thanks to the following people for the information about creating non-looping Flash movies: Jane Horb, who researched this issue and spent a lot of time going over this issue with me, Paul Hewitt, who came up with the technique of saving the presentation as a PowerPoint show (.pps file), Meg Wyrwas, and the following Support people at Microsoft: John Slack, Rich Porter, and Jeff Qiu.
Christopher Contois notes that you should be careful about the 4th line of code because it hard codes the slide number (2 in the example). Therefore, if you move that slide or add or delete slides before it, you need to remember to change the slide number.
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Designing a Web-Style Presentation
Most presentations are linear and give viewers no choice about what they see. Web sites have accustomed people to choosing what they see from a vast amount of hierarchically arranged information. You can create a presentation that functions like a Web site. This style is ideal for presentations to small groups of clients -- you can let them choose what information they want to see. Start with a title page -- in Web jargon this is called a splash page. Then create a home page with your logo, a brief explanation of the what you are offering your audience and a menu. Turn each menu item into a hyperlink. Here's how:
Select a menu item (some text or even a graphic) and press Ctrl + K or choose Insert > Hyperlink. (You can choose the "Place in This Document" button in PowerPoint 2000 and choose a slide. In PowerPoint 97, click Browse in the Named Location in File section and choose any existing slide.) Do this for each menu item. To create the hierarchical structure, create a menu on each of the second tier slides and link to yet more slides. Finally, create links on each of the slides to return to the tier above and to the home page, just like on a Web site. In addition, you can create links to other presentations or files, by typing the URL. Just be sure you have those files with you if you travel to give your presentation.
Tip: Choose Slide Show > Action Buttons to insert pre-made Web-style buttons on your slides, such as this one to go to your home page.
When you give your presentation, you can then present your home page and explain the information available using the menu. If your prospective clients indicate an interest, go that way. If not, you can use the links to direct the presentation yourself.
Why not just present your company's Web site? There are many reasons:
The Web site probably doesn't contain all the specialized information you want to present and probably contains lots of information your audience doesn't need.
Getting a fast, reliable Internet connection is tricky. You don't want prospects to have to wait for pages to download (or worse, not download at all).
Web sites limit graphics and colors for downloading speed and consistency over various platforms and browsers. In PowerPoint, you can create the compelling look you want.
Hierarchical presentations take some getting used to for both the presenter and the audience, but you'll soon find that they offer incredible flexibility and power.
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Complete Set of powerpoint tutorials
The Maharishi University of Management Help Desk has a complete set of PowerPoint tutorials, about 20 pages in all. You can find detailed steps for most common tasks in PowerPoint.
Click here to go there.
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Managing Graphics to Reduce Size
Paul Jordan wrote in the following tip: "At my previous job I was always taking extremely large presentations that engineers put together and reducing them down to a workable size. Engineers love pictures of buildings they are working on. That fine, only they always put them into the slides as .BMP files. Here is where the problem lies. BMP files are very large compared to .JPG files. The first thing I would usually do was to take the picture out of the slide and open it up with a program called ACDSee or something equivalent that converts images. Once converted to a .JPG, I re-insert it back into the slide. One area that's often overlooked is the slide master. A lot of organizations will put their logo on the master and it's repeated however many times they make a new slide. Make sure this logo is changed to a .JPG also. This technique has taken slide presentations that were 30-50 MB in size and reduces them down to 2 or 3 MB...The next time you see a really large presentation (+10 MB), take a look at those nice pictures."
PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 include a new image compression feature that compresses images from within PowerPoint.
Select the image.
Usually the Picture toolbar displays, but if not, right-click any toolbar and choose Picture.
Click Compress Pictures on the Picture toolbar.
In the Compress Pictures dialog box, choose whether you want to compress the selected image or all images in the presentation. You can also change the resolution and delete the cropped portion of pictures. (PowerPoint usually stores the cropped portion of pictures in case you decide to restore them.)
Click OK.
You see a message warning you that compression can reduce the quality of your images. (If you want to play it safe, don't compress all your images at once.)
Click Apply.
Photo Editor, which comes free with Microsoft Office (but is often overlooked) offers two handy features for reducing the size of a file. Open the file in Photo Editor and choose File>Properties. There you can reduce the resolution (72 is usually enough for an on-screen presentation) and the number of colors used. To find Photo Editor, choose Start>Programs>Microsoft Office Tools>Photo Editor.
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Importing a PowerPoint presentation into Flash
Earlier we explained how to bring a Flash movie into PowerPoint, but how about bringing a PowerPoint presentation into Flash? You can't do it directly, but you can save the files in WMF format and import them into Flash. Here's how:
In PowerPoint, choose File > Save As.
In the Save as type drop-down list, choose WMF (a vector format) and click Save.
When asked if you want to save all the slides, say you do (if that's what you want). PowerPoint saves all the slides in a separate folder.
Open your Flash movie and click the first keyframe where you want to start.
Choose File > Import. Find the files in the folder and click the first one. They'll be named slide1.wmf, slide2.wmf, and so on. Click Open.
When Flash asks you if you want to import the entire sequence, click Yes. Flash imports each slide onto consecutive frames.
Because you're importing a vector format, you can edit all the objects and the text in Flash!
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Creating Multiple Slide "Masters"
PowerPoint 2000 only allows one slide master per presentation. Often that's a good thing, because the slide master gives coherence to the entire presentation. But sometimes you want to think outside the box. Here's how to create the look of multiple masters if you haven't yet upgraded to 2002.
Create a set of slides based on the real master, one for each new "master" you want. Let's say you want one new "master" to use at the beginning of each section in your presentation. So you would create one slide, which you can do by choosing Insert>New Slide.
The most common way to change this new slide is to change the background. Choose Format > Background and change the color of the background, use a picture, or create a gradient.
To change any background graphics that are on the slide master, check Omit background graphics from master. Now you can add your own.
For a nice touch, go to the master (View>Master>Slide Master). Copy graphics on the master to the Clipboard (select them and click Copy on the Standard toolbar). Return to your new slide and click Paste on the Standard toolbar. You can now edit these graphics by changing their color or size to create a variation on the original master.
Switch to Slide Sorter view and copy your new slide "master" (click Copy on the Standard toolbar). Click the location you want for another copy of your "master" and click Paste on the Standard toolbar. Continue to do this until you have all the copies of your new master that you need.
Here's a PowerPoint example of a slide "master" based on PowerPoint's Bold Stripes design template. The background has been changed to blue and the text to light gray. The stripes in the original master were recreated using rectangles (because the rectangles were not individual graphics on the master). This "master" can now be used for the title slide (first slide of the presentation) and one the first slide of each of four sections. All the other slides will use the standard master.
Note: Multiple slide masters is a feature of PowerPoint 2002.
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Formatting Bar Charts
Charts are a great way to visually present complex data. However, the default chart is never, I repeat, never acceptable. You need to format the chart. Here are some simple steps you can take to format a bar chart:
Double-click the chart so you can edit it.
Click one series of bars once to select the series. (All the bars in a series have the same color.)
Right-click and choose Format Data Series. The Format Data Series dialog box opens.
On the Patterns tab, click Fill Effects. Then choose a gradient or a picture to fill in the bars. The Diagonal Up gradient style is often effective.
On the Shape tab, you can choose a shape other than simple bars. However, make sure the chart is still easily legible.
On the Options tab, adjust the gap depth, gap width and chart depth. These little known adjustments can make a big difference in the clarity of your chart. They affect the spacing between the sets of bars and the depth of a 3D chart. Gap width also affects the width of the individual bars (a smaller gap means more room for bars). As you change the numbers the preview shows the results.
Click OK when you're done.
Thanks to Claudyne Wilder (http://www.wilderpresentations.com/) for some of these ideas.
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Resizing Your Presentation
Often, resizing your presentation presents no program. Choose File > Page Setup and choose the new size. But sometimes, especially between 35mm and other settings, your graphics get distorted and misplaced. Here's how to solve the problem.
If you've already changed the page size, change the size back to its original setting.
Choose File > Save As and make a copy of the presentation.
In the copy, Choose File > Page Setup and change the page size as desired.
Re-open the original presentation.
Choose Window > Arrange All.
Find a slide in the new presentation containing a distorted graphic and find the matching slide in the original presentation.
In the original presentation, copy the graphic to the Clipboard.
Click in the new presentation and delete the distorted graphic.
Paste the graphic from the Clipboard.
Repeat steps 6-9 for all the distorted graphics. (Thanks to Steve Rindsberg for this tip.)
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Controlling Text Shadows
You have great control over object shadows. You can change their color, length, and direction. If you're not familiar with the Shadow controls, create any drawing object and click Shadow Style > Shadow Settings on the Drawing toolbar. The Shadow Settings toolbar opens. Have fun playing around with the settings!
However, no such toolbar exists for text. You can simply turn shadows on or off. The workaround, from a Microsoft Knowledge Base article, is as follows:
Create an AutoShape, such as a rectangle and immediately (while the shape is selected) type some text.
With the shape still selected, right-click and choose Format AutoShape (or choose Format > AutoShape from the menu).
In the Format AutoShape dialog box, on the Color and Lines tab, in the Fill section, choose No Fill in the Color drop-down list.
In the Line section, choose No Line in the Color drop-down list.
Click OK. The AutoShape is now invisible; only your text appears.
With the AutoShape selected, click Shadow Style > Shadow Settings on the Drawing toolbar and modify the settings as you wish in the Shadow Settings toolbar.
Deselect the AutoShape to see the results.
Here's an example. And no, I'm not suggesting that you use this effect for all your text.
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Expanding One Slide into Two
If you can't make text fit properly on one slide without squeezing it in too tightly, split the text into two slides. If the text is in a text placeholder, this is easily done using the Outline toolbar. To display the OUtline toolbar, right-click any toolbar and choose Outline.
Place the cursor in the Outline tab of the Outline pane (not on the slide) at the end of the last line of text that you want on the first slide.
Press Enter.
On the Outline toolbar, click Promote until a New Slide icon appears in the Outline pane.
Type a title for the new slide.
Adjust the rest of the text as needed by clicking Demote or Promote on the Outline toolbar.
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Using a Summary Slide for a Question & Answer Session
A summary slide creates a slide listing the slide names of selected slides. Besides using a summary slide for summaries, you can use it to create agenda slides.
A nice use for the summary slide is for a question & answer session. Here's how:
Select all the slides you want to include. You might want to leave out the first slide, for example, because presumably no one will ask you any questions about it.
Click Summary Slide on the Outlining toolbar.
PowerPoint places the summary slide before the selected slides. Go into slide sorter view and move the slide to the end of your PowerPoint presentation.
Hyperlink each slide title back to its slide. (Select the text and choose Insert > Hyperlink.)
Be sure to add hyperlinks on each of the slides back to the summary slide. If you attach the hyperlink to an image or AutoShape, it will be invisible.
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Animate Text on Top of Text
Sometimes, you just have too much information to display on a slide, but you don't need all of it there at one time. An interesting use of the Hide on Next Mouse Click feature, one of the After Animation options, is to display text, hide it, and then display new text in the same location. You get to use the same "real estate" twice.
The easiest way to do this is to create separate text placeholders for each group of text. You place some text in a placeholder and animate it to appear on a mouse click, with the Hide on Next Mouse Click option for the after animation effects. Another text placeholder is right in the same location and is animated to appear second on a mouse click. Here's what happens:
The first text appears when you click the mouse.
When you click the mouse again, the first text disappears and the second text appears in its place.
You can also create a heading/subheading effect where the subheadings appear automatically after a set number of seconds, then on your mouse click, they disappear and a new heading appears where the subheadings were.
I've created a one-slide PowerPoint example. It only uses one effect unique to PowerPoint 2002, as far as I know, so most of it should work in earlier versions. (The 2002 effect is to add two animations to the last grouping of text; the second animation makes it disappear after 3 seconds.)
Download it.
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Fit More Text in a Placeholder or AutoShape
How much time do you spend trying to fit text into a placeholder or AutoShape? One option is to reduce the font size or try a different font that takes up less room. But sometimes, you want consistency of font and font size and don't have room to expand the placeholder or AutoShape. Another option is to split one slide into two or reword the text. If you only need a little extra space, I have found the following solution very helpful:
Right-click the placeholder or AutoShape and choose Format Placeholder or Format AutoShape.
In the resulting dialog box, click the Text Box tab. In the Internal Margin section reduce the numbers for the left, right, top, and bottom margins. I often set the margins to zero in placeholders with no visible border.
Click OK.
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Nudging Objects Slightly
Are you frustrated when you try to move an object on a slide just a little bit? Objects on a slide snap to a grid, but maybe you find it difficult to move them the small amount needed. Here are some techniques:
Choose Draw>Nudge on the Drawing toolbar, then choose Up, Down, Left or Right to move the selected object one grid unit.
Press Ctrl with one of the arrow keys to move the selected object in increments of .02 inches.
Press Alt while you drag an object to disable the grid completely and allow total control.
In PowerPoint 2002 and later. you can make the grid visible and control its spacing. Choose Draw>Grid and Guides and then change the settings in the Grid and Guides dialog box. Click OK when you are finished.
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Making Great Handouts
You can make handouts in PowerPoint by formatting the Handout Master. Choose View>Master>Handout Master. To print them, choose File>Print and choose Handouts in the Print What drop-down list. Change the settings in the Handouts section of the Print dialog box and click OK.
But, these handouts are basically just a copy of your presentation. What if you would like to add additional text or images? Change the layout? You have the most flexibility by sending the presentation to Microsoft Word, where you can add or delete anything you want and change the layout to suit your needs. Choose File>Send To>Microsoft Word. In the Send To Microsoft Word dialog box, choose one of the options and click OK. You even have the option to create a link (choose Paste Link) so that the Word document is updated if you change your presentation.
For example, you could add text to thank your audience for attending, give them contact information and your web site URL, add a price list, delivery schedule, your resume, your company's history, even fabric swatches. You can also provide a means for your audience to give your feedback on your presentation with a postage-paid mailer.
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Mind Mapping® to Organize Your Presentation
Mind Mapping®, developed by Tony Buzan, is a visual method of taking notes and developing concepts. You can use mind mapping to organize your presentation. Mind mapping works especially well for hierarchical presentations. (See my tip on Creating a Web-Style Presentation.) Here's the basic process:
At the center of a large sheet of paper, write the main topic and circle it.
In different colors, make branches off the center topic. At the end of each branch, briefly write topics (also called "chapter headings"). If possible, add images to these topics.
Branch off sub-topics from each of the topics.
Draw lines to connect sub-topics with each other.
The result is a visual representation of the ideas you want to convey. Mind mapping can also be used for planning, teaching, and problem-solving. You can also use software to create mind maps. Here are some helpful mind mapping links:
www.mind-map.com
www.conceptdraw.com/en/products/CDPMindMap
www.mindmapperusa.com
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Colorize a Photo for a Background
A colorized, softened photo is a common background for a PowerPoint presentation. For example, a presentation may use a photo that is entirely blue. You can create that same effect using Microsoft Photo Editor, which comes free with Microsoft Office. (However, it is not installed by default. If you don't have it, insert your Office CD and use the Setup program to install it. Photo Editor is part of Office Tools. To open Photo Editor, choose Start>Programs>Microsoft Office Tools>Photo Editor.) Find a photo that you would like to use (you can use one of the photos in the Office clipart collection) and follow these steps:
Open Photo Editor.
Choose File > Open and navigate to your file. Click Open. In this example, I take this family photo (which I call 4 generations) and color it blue.
Choose Image > Balance.
Choose Red from the drop-down list at the lower-left corner of the dialog box. Using the slider control, set the brightness to 0 and the contrast to 30. Leave the Gamma setting unchanged.
Choose Green from the drop-down list and set brightness to 30 and contrast to 30.
Choose Blue and set its brightness to 80 and contrast to 20. As you work, you immediately see the change in the image behind the dialog box. Of course, you can use any values that fit your needs.
Now choose All Colors from the drop-down list. If you want, make slight adjustments in the overall brightness and contrast.
Click OK to close the dialog box.
To soften the image, choose Effects > Soften.
In the Soften dialog box, drag the slider to the right (Strong) and click OK. You can repeat this process several times, further softening the image each time.
Choose File > Save As and save the file. Click Save. Here you see the result.
To insert this image as a background, return to your presentation. Choose View > Master > Slide Master.
Choose Format > Background.
From the drop-down list, choose Fill Effects to open the Fill Effects dialog box.
Click the Picture tab and choose Select Picture.
Locate your new image file and click Insert.
Click the Normal View icon at the lower-left corner of your screen to return to your presentation. The background now appears on your slides.
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Creating a Slide List
A printed list of slides is very helpful when you present. You can use the list to move quickly to a specific slide (in Slide Show view, just type the number of the slide and press Enter). To create a slide list, follow these steps:
Display the Outlining toolbar. (Choose View > Toolbars > Outlining.)
In Normal view, click the Collapse All button on the Outlining toolbar. All you should see in the Outline pane are the slide numbers and titles.
Choose File > Print to open the Print dialog box.
From the Print What drop-down list, choose Outline View.
Click OK.
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Copying Colors from a Web Site
You can easily take colors from a Web site. Perhaps you want your presentation to use the same colors as your company's Web site. Or you might simply find a color that you like on a Web site. HTML uses hexadecimal codes to define colors, but these codes are still in the familiar Red-Green-Blue (RGB) format that PowerPoint uses. All you need to do is to change the hexadecimal codes to decimal equivalents. Here are the steps:
1. Open the Web page.
2. From your browser’s menu, choose View>Source (or the equivalent in your browser). The HTML source code opens in Notepad.
3. From Notepad’s menu, choose Edit>Find.
4. In the Find What text box, type color. Click Find Next. You’ll see a code segment that looks something like this: bgcolor="#E1EAF3". Write down the 6 characters between the quotation marks. (Bgcolor stands for “background color.”)
5. Click Find Next again to find other instances. If you don’t know HTML, you may have trouble figuring out which code relates to the color you want, so just write down all the hexadecimal codes you find.
6. Now go to http://www.dtp-aus.com/hexadeci.htm, which is a hexadecimal to decimal conversion table.
7. Look up the first two characters of your color code and write it down. In the example above, look up E1, which is 225. This is the red value.
8. Look up the second two characters and write it next to the red value, leaving a space. In our example, this is 234, the decimal value for EA. This is the green value.
9. Look up the last two characters and write it next to the green value, leaving a space. In our example, this is 243, the decimal value for F3. This is the blue value. So the result would be 225 234 243.
10. In PowerPoint, insert any shape. Right-click the shape and choose Format>AutoShape.
11. Click the Color drop-down list of the Fill Section and choose More Colors.
12. On the Custom tab, make sure that the Color Model is set to RGB . Then enter the red, green, and blue colors.
13. Click OK twice to return to your slide. Your AutoShape now has the color you saw on the Web site. If that’s not the color you want, retry with the other hexadecimal codes you wrote down.
You can use this color as a background, to fill an AutoShape, or to color your text.
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Creating Soft Edges
If you use a busy photo as a background for your slides, text may not show up clearly. One way to improve legibility is to put the text in front of a separate solid background. You can fill in background of the text placeholder or add a separate text box or other AutoShape. You can add some interest to the text background by using transparency to create soft edges. Partial transparency also lets your background show through slightly. Full control over the level of transparency is available in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003. In this example, I give the instructions to create an AutoShape with soft edges and partial transparency.
The basic idea is to create four or five copies of the AutoShape, each one slightly bigger than the previous one. Then you increase the transparency for each AutoShape so that the last two are mostly transparent. This gives the appearance of soft edges. Here are the steps:
1. Insert the shape that you want. It should be big enough to hold your text, because it will be the innermost of the five shapes.
2. Select the shape. Copy it to the clipboard and paste it three times to get a total of four AutoShapes.
3. Move the shapes away from each other. They can overlap, but you want to be able to select each one easily. You can move them off the slide if you want.
4. Right-click the first shape and choose Format AutoShape.
5. Click the Size tab and note the height and width. Write down the desired height and width for the other four shapes, adding .05 inches to each dimension for a smaller area of softness or .1 inch for a wider area of softness. For example, if your first AutoShape’s height is 4.86 and width is 8.84, the rest would be 4.91 x 8.89, 4.96 x 8.94, and 5.01 x 8.99, using a .05 inch differential.
6. On the Colors and Lines tab, change the transparency of the first shape to 35%. Of course, you can use your own numbers. I chose 35% because I wanted the background photo to show through a little.
7. Choose the second AutoShape. Change its size according to the dimensions you wrote down and change its transparency to 55%.
8. Do the same with the last two shapes, changing their size and setting their transparency to 75% and 95% respectively.
9. Select all the shapes. From the Draw toolbar’s Draw menu, choose Align or Distribute> Align Center .
10. With the shapes still selected, choose Align or Distribute>Align Middle. These two commands center all the shapes on top of each other.
11. With the shapes still selected, from the Draw toolbar’s Draw menu, choose Group.
12. You might need to change the order of the set of shapes. For example, if you’re creating them on the slide master and want them behind the text placeholder, you’ll need to move them back. Right-click the shapes and choose Order>Send Backward, until you get the result you want.
Here you see an example. Can you see the effect of the soft edges?
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Changing the Default for New Objects
If you have a certain fill or line that you would like for all the graphic objects you draw in the current presentation, you can set that formatting as the default for new objects. Create a drawing object and format it the way you want. If you use the Format AutoShape (or Format Text Box) dialog box, check the Default for New Objects check box in the dialog box. Otherwise, right-click the object and choose Set AutoShape Defaults.
To set the default for text in text boxes, you need to use a different method. Click anywhere on your background or off the slide to make sure that no objects are selected. Then use the Format menu to make the desired settings. For example, you can set the alignment (left, centered, etc.) and the font style (for example, italic). Now, if you create a text box, the text will follow these defaults. These settings don't affect text in title and body text placeholders which are controlled by the slide master.
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Going to the Previous Slide When You Have Text Animation (Builds)
If you have text animation that displays one bullet of text at a time, you may have noticed that if you right-click and choose Previous in slide show view, you just go to the previous animation step, rather than the previous slide. If someone in the audience asks about the previous slide, it's pretty annoying to have to click through all the steps of animation to get to the previous slide. Right-clicking and choosing Go to Slide is better, but still two clicks. If you feel that you may want to navigate to nearby slides, you can add an Action button to each slide, which will jump to the previous or next slide. On the Drawing toolbar, choose AutoShapes>Action Buttons and choose the Back or Previous button to go one slide back. Choose the Forward or Next button to go to the next slide. Alternatively, you can add a hyperlink to any AutoShape or text to go to the previous or next slide.
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Creating a Compact List of Notes
If you have added notes to your slides that you want to print out to use while you present, using the Print feature (choose File>Print and choose Notes Pages from the Print What drop-down list) creates a separate sheet for each slide. It's a big waste of paper and awkward to handle during your delivery. Here's another method that will fit 5 slides per page if you want to see the slide and much more if you can work without the slide image.
Choose File>Send To>Microsoft Office Word.
In the dialog box, choose the Notes Next to Slides option and click OK.
Wait while Word opens and imports the presentation into a table. Note that there's a lot of space below each slide and you have only 3 slides per page.
In Word, with the cursor anywhere in the table, choose Table>Select>Table to select the entire table.
Choose Table>Table Properties and click the Row tab.
Uncheck the Specify Height checkbox in the Size section of the dialog box.
Click OK. You now have 5 slides per page.
If you want to remove the slide images, you can get much more on a page, of course. Click in the column containing the slide images and choose Table>Select>Column.
Choose Table>Delete>Columns. You're left with the slide numbers and their notes.
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Playing Music Continuously in a Web-Based Presentation
You can play music continuously during a presentation that you have posted to a Web site. The effect is quite striking. Because you usually are not narrating, the music doesn't interfere, as it would if you were delivering a presentation live. Here's the technique:
Choose File>Save as Web Page. In the Save as Type drop-down list, make sure that the type is Web Page (*.htm; *.html), not Single File Web Page.
Click Publish. Click Web Options and choose the settings that you want.
Click Publish again to publish the presentation.
Find the frame.htm file in the folder that contains all the presentation files. Shift+right-click and choose Open With to open it with Notepad. You'll see the HTML code for the file.
After the tag but before the tag, add the following. Within the quotes, put the name of the music file you want to use. I've successfully tried MID, MP3, and WMA files.
Save the file and close Notepad.
Copy the music file to the same folder as the presentation. The folder is called [filename]_files.
Open frame.htm in Internet Explorer and the music should play and loop continuously.
Upload the files to your Web site!
To see an example in action go to my Quarterly Sales Report sample presentation. The music takes 36 seconds to complete one run-through and the presentation is only 4 slides long, so give the music a chance to loop. This presentation is from the tutorial at the beginning of my book, How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003.
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Save Your Fonts with Your Presentation
If you're preparing a presentation that you plan to distribute to others, be sure that you check this option by clicking on the Tools button in the File/Save As dialog box. This will work for most TrueType fonts on the Windows platform.
Saving Your Toolbar Configurations
If you like to customize your UI, move toolbars around, configure toolbars, etc, then you'll want to know that all this information is stored in c:\windows\application data\microsoft\powerpoint\ppt.pcb
By copying this file, you can move your customizations to other machines.
Displaying Keyboard Shortcuts in Tool Tips
If you'd like to see the available keyboard shortcuts for menus, commands, and toolbar buttons, go to Tools/Customize, click on the Options tab, and click on "show shortcut keys in screen tips".
Getting Rid of Short Menus
Forgetting user reaction to this feature when it was introduced in Word years ago, the Office team decided to try it again. Unfortunately, it's still annoying. To see all of your options when you click on menus, go to Tools/Customize, click on the Options tab, and uncheck "menus show recently used commands".
Preview Fonts in the Toolbar
If you'd like to see previews of the actual fonts in the font selection of the formatting toolbar, go to Tools/Customize, click on the Options tab, and click "List font names in their font", click Close.
Making Auto-Fit Text Stop Auto-Fitting
Turn this feature off by going to Tools/Options, click on the Edit tab, and uncheck "autofit text to text placeholder", click OK.
Getting Rid of Tri-Pane View
Unfortunately there is no way to permanently avoid this improvement, but you can quickly get rid of it by holding down the CTRL key when you click on the Slide View button.
Using Ctrl-Drag to Copy
You can quickly make a copy of any object by holding down the CTRL key while you drag on the object. You will then "drag off" a new copy.
Making Slides Print Correctly
PowerPoint has certain defaults to determine how it prints each object on the page. You can see over-ride these defaults. Go to View/Black and White; this will show you a gray-scale preview of how your slide will print. To change the print settings for any given object, right-click on it, then click "Black and White", and then choose the appropriate print option for that object. Master objects can be selected by going to the Master page View.
Preview Slide Show Effects
While editing a presentation, hold down the CTRL key while clicking the slide show view button; this will open a tiny preview window showing that slide in slide show mode.
Setting the Default Text Style
If you want to change the style of the text that appears when you type things that aren't the title or the slide body, do the following:
Make sure no objects are selected.
From the Format menu, select Font. Make all the changes that you want there, and click OK.
From that point on, new text will be created in that style.
To Set the formatting for the title or slide body objects, go to the Slide Master and format these objects on the master.
Using Different Backgrounds within one Presentation
Users of PowerPoint 2000 and lower will only have two background designs automatically supplied with the Masters (counting both the Slide Master and the Title Master). However, you can have any design you want on any slide. From the Format menu, select Background. Check the box that says "omit background items" and this will make the slide ignore the Slide Master's design. You are now free to add whatever design you want to this slide. If you want to do this to many slides at once, go to the Slide Sorter, select the slides, and then use the Format menu command. Remember though that if you choose to do something like put a photographic background on many of your slides instead of doing it once on the Master, that your file size may increase dramatically.
PowerPoint 2002 supports multiple background masters.
Using More than One Guide
If you like using guides, but wish there were more, you can create additional Guides by simply holding down the CTRL key while dragging on an existing Guide. This will create a new guide. To get rid of guides, just drag them off the edge of the slide.
Using Guides to Measure
Make the Guides visible by using View/Guides. Then, hold down the SHIFT key while you click-and-hold a guide; the tooltip for the guide will display 0:00. As you move the guide, the distance the guide covers from the beginning of the drag will be displayed in the units of your ruler. In this way you can measure distances between objects, place guides at specific places, etc.
Creating Pages with Slides and Descriptive Text
If you want to create printable pages that have notes or descriptive text associated with each slide, PowerPoint has a feature designed to do just this called Notes Pages, or Speaker's Notes (depending on which version you're using). To view the Notes page for any slide, go to the View menu and select Notes Pages. You will see an image of your slide there, and a placeholder for adding your script, notes, or any other text you wish. You can cut-and-paste text from Word here if you like. To print these pages, bring up the Print dialog, and at the bottom of the dialog where it says "Print What:", select Notes Pages. These pages were originally designed to be used as audience hand outs (with space for the audience to take notes) but were also used by many as speaker's notes: the text block would have the script of the presentation, to be used by the speaker, or for sales binders to educated sales people.
Making Presentation Files Smaller
Prior to PowerPoint 97, there was no internal file compression code inside of PowerPoint, and files could get pretty big quickly. The most common cause of large files is the addition of large bitmaps. PowerPoint 97 compresses these bitmaps, but previous versions do not. To keep your presentations as small as you can, try reducing the resolution of your bitmaps, which will bring their size down tremendously. For viewing on screen, the bitmaps don't need to be more than 96 dpi; they won't print nicely until they're up around 150 or higher, but the screen always displays at 96 dpi, so if the primary viewing medium is the screen, there's no point in having the bitmaps be a higher resolution. Also, the bitmap format can make a big difference to your file sizes. JPEG and PNG both have good internal compression code. GIF has some, but not as good as JPEG. BMP files are the largest; TIFF files will also be very large.
Sometimes, as you're working on a presentation, you'll notice that the file seems to get bigger for no reason. To get rid of this "bloating", save the file using "File/Save As" and give the file a new name. This can reduce the file size up to 50%.
Building Presentations for Distribution to Others
If you're making a PowerPoint presentation that you intend to distribute to lots of different people, here are some important things to watch out for that will cause problems:
1. Stick with the fonts that come installed with Windows; Fancy fonts that appear on your machine will cause problems if everyone else doesn't have them.
2. Avoid embedding sounds and videos: these will not go from Mac to Windows gracefully, and you have to be very careful about how you insert the files in order to get them to "travel" properly. See the FAQ section for more information on this.
3. Try looking at the presentation on a different platform (Mac vs Windows); be prepared for some visual changes in your file--the version or platform may not support some of the features you've put in, so be sure to sanity check your file on several different machines and versions BEFORE you distribute it!
Easily Changing from Caps to Lower Case (or Vice Versa)
If you have text that is in the wrong case, select the text, and then click Shift+F3 until it changes to the case style that you like. Clicking Shift+F3 toggles the text case between ALL CAPS, lower case, and Initial Capital styles. You'll be surprised how often you use this once you get the hang of it!
Nudging Objects
You can use the arrow keys to move objects very small distances. This is a big win for those laptop users who no longer have mice. Select the object, then use your arrow keys. Each press of the key will move the object on "grid unit" (1/12th of an inch, don't ask why); if you hold down the ALT key while nudging, or if you have the grid turned off, you can move the objects one pixel at a time.
Saving Across Multiple Diskettes
From the File menu, select Pack and Go. This wizard will compress your PowerPoint presentation and copy the file onto as many floppies as are necessary. Be sure to format a bunch of floppies BEFORE you start the process, and make sure they are empty. This feature requires PowerPoint 95 or higher.
Subliminal Messages
These can be pretty hysterical in the right circumstances. Create a text object. With the text object selected, click on the Animation Effects button on the tool bar (the one that looks like a yellow star), and then click on the "flash once" button. Go to slide show and see the message quickly flash and then disappear.
Editing Drawings
Anything you draw with the pencil tool, you can edit. To get the object into "points mode", either double-click on the object, or select it then hit the Enter key. You will then see points at every vertex, which you can move. You can add points by holding down the shift key and clicking, you can subtract points by holding down the ALT key while clicking, and you can of course just drag points around.
Soft Shadows
You can create "soft" shadows for square or round objects that sit on a solid color background. Make a copy of the object, then change its fill to be shaded from black to the background color, with the shading set with black going from the center out to the background color at the edges. Make this object about 150% bigger than the original object, and put it behind the object. This will give you the effect of "soft" shadows.
Selecting Small Objects
Hit the ESCAPE key to insure that nothing is current selected, then repeatedly hit the TAB key, which will toggle you through a selection of all of the objects on a slide. This is useful for selecting very small objects, or objects that are covered up by other larger objects.
PowerPoint System Requirements
Mac PowerPoint 1.0
Original Macintosh or better
System 1.0 or higher
512K RAM
Mac PowerPoint 2.0
Original Macintosh or better
System 4.1 or higher
1 MB RAM Windows PowerPoint 2.0
286 PC or higher
Windows 3.0
1 MB RAM
Mac PowerPoint 3.0
Macintosh Plus or better
System 7 or higher
4 MB RAM Windows PowerPoint 3.0
286 PC or higher
Windows 3.1
2 MB RAM
Mac PowerPoint 4.0
68020 Mac or better
System 7 or higher
8 MB RAM Windows PowerPoint 4.0
386 PC or higher
Windows 3.1
8 MB RAM
Windows PowerPoint 95 (7.0)
386 DX PC or higher
Windows 95
6 MB RAM
Mac PowerPoint 98 (8.0)
PowerPC or better
16 MB RAM Windows PowerPoint 97 (8.0)
486 PC or higher
8 MB RAM
Mac PowerPoint 2001
(9.0)
Power PC or better, at least 120 MHz
48 MB RAM minimum
Mac OS 8.5 or higher Windows PowerPoint 2000 (9.0)
Pentium, 75 MHz+
Windows 95 or higher
20 MB RAM
Windows PowerPoint 2002 (10.0)
Pentium III processor
Windows 98 or higher
40 MB Ram