PowerPoint Tips
by Peter Larsen

Prepared for the NWIC Oksale Virtual Library
23 April 2001

Disclaimer: This handout consists of my opinion. These instructions and tips work for me. Use them as guides, but don’t let them get in the way of how you feel your presentation should look or flow. You know your audience much better than I do. Generally, material in this font is more opinion than the larger text. These tips and directions have been constructed using PowerPoint 2000. Earlier editions may work slightly differently. Practice and experiment to see what works for you.

The symbol >> indicates a path through pull-down menus, select the first term from the row at the top of the screen, then select the next term on the menu that appears, and so on.

Before You Open PowerPoint: Decide what you want to say. I find it very useful to draw up an outline -- it gives me an idea of how long the presentation will be, how many slides it will require, and what the key points are. It also makes sure that my presentation flows smoothly from beginning to end, building a chain of ideas and slides one link at a time. This outline is not a straight jacket -- if you come up with a new idea, use it! You will find that you have to modify the outline in most cases -- you will find an illustration that explains things, a new organization will be clear, or some other chance will help you out.

Open PowerPoint: It will ask you what kind of presentation you want to make. I almost always use "blank presentation," but you might want to check out the other options. It will ask you to select a slide type. The first choice is good for a title, subtitle, and introductory information. I usually start with that, and use the second choice for most other slides.  You can select a pre-made background from Format>>Apply Design Template. Each edition of PowerPoint has different background options, so it’s worth checking them all out. You may have to search a little to find the templates.

Construction Tip: Try out various backgrounds. Be sure to check each slide to make sure the text does not overlap backgrounds. Remember, you can change the background for all the slides in your show at any time; you aren’t stuck with your first choice.

Construction Tip: Keep the slides relatively simple. 3-5 "points" and  25-30 words per slide are good maximums.

Start Making Slides: Add new slides by using Insert>>New Slide, Control+M, or the "New Slide" button on the tool bar. Many of PowerPoint’s functions have several ways to use them. It’s worth experimenting with the program to see what works for you. As you make slides, go back and look over the presentation and your outline to see if you are on track. You can add slides between earlier slides and rearrange what you already have by selecting a slide’s text in the sidebar and moving it to its new location or using the View>>Slide Sorter and selecting and moving them there.

Once you have a few slides, look at them and decide if you need to makes changes. Under Format>>Slide Layout and >>Slide Color Scheme are options for changing (or setting, if you aren’t using a premade background) the colors on your slides. You can change your whole show or just one slide. You can also change the color of individual letters, words, and text blocks by selecting the desired characters and using Format>>Font. This is also a way to change the size, font, or style of the text (although the buttons on the tool bar are handier for most functions).

Format>>Bullets and Numbering lets you customize the symbols that appear before each "point" on a slide. This can be tricky if you are presenting on a different machine than the one you use to create your slide show. Not all functions and features of PowerPoint are supported by earlier versions of the program. If possible, test your presentation on the machine you will use before you actually present. That will give you a chance to make necessary changes.

You can control slide transitions and how text appears on the screen by selecting the appropriate slide or text and using Slide Show>> Slide Transition or >>Preset Animation

Construction Tip: Don’t go overboard. Backgrounds with moving elements, fancy slide transitions, text animation, and sound have their place but think about your audience and what you want to say. Your presentation should be directed, at least in part, by your time limits -- don’t try to rush through too many slides. You’ll just make the audience dizzy.

Images, Sounds, and Movies: You can add many features to your presentation. Illustrations are easy. Insert>>Picture will give you the option of using clip art, images from files (pictures you have scanned or copied from the web), or other images such as organizational charts, simple shapes, and charts.

Copying images from the web is pretty easy. Select the image that you like and either right-click your mouse (for PCs) or double-click (for Macs). This should open a menu to save the image to your computer or a disk. You can then select that image from the place you saved it, and insert it into a slide. You can stretch the image by clicking on an edge and "pulling" with the mouse. You can also resize the image by clicking on a corner, holding the shift key, and pulling. This makes the image larger or smaller, but keeps its proportions. You can also move the image by clicking anywhere on the image that isn’t an edge and moving it with the mouse or the direction arrows (good for very small adjustments).

Construction Tip: You can insert images into text, and use Insert>>Text Box to put text onto images.

Sounds and movies can be placed into a slide show using the Insert menu. Sounds can be fun, but they are also distracting, and some computers may not have sound cards or speakers, so I recommend that you use sound sparingly. Movies can be very dramatic, but they require a lot of memory and may not run smoothly on all machines. If you are using sound or movies, it would be a very good idea to test your presentation on the machine it will run on to make sure it will run smoothly.

Presentation Tip: Remember, the PowerPoint presentation is a tool; the real presentation is what you say and how you say it.

Presentation Tip: Make sure your presentation gives the audience enough time to read each slide. Don’t dawdle, but don’t include so much information that you have to rush through your slides.

Notes: PowerPoint allows you to attach notes to slides. These can be reminders for your presentation or even a complete script. They will not appear during the slide show. You can look at them and add to them by selecting View>>Notes Page or simply typing in the notes box at the bottom of each slide. There is an option to print the notes under Edit>>Print. Notes are also a handy place to jot ideas while you are constructing the presentation.

Additional Suggestions: PowerPoint has a spell checker in Tools>>Spell Checker. Using it, proof reading your presentation, and getting a colleague or fellow student to look over a presentation is a good way to avoid embarrassing mistakes.

PowerPoint presentations can be installed on web sites. While this function is outside of the scope of this handout, it is worth knowing about.

Presentation Tip: Try not to read every word on every slide. Expand on important elements, present but don’t linger on secondary information.

Making a Handout: It’s easy to make handouts from PowerPoint. Select File>>Print, then set the "Print What" box to the format you want. "Handouts" with 2 or 3 slides per page will give you a ruled "note" area for each slide, which is nice if your audience wants to take notes. 6 slides per page is the most space efficient. It is smart to make at least one copy of all your slides. You never know if there will be a power failure, a computer problem, a lost disk, or some other calamity. It’s always good to have a back up plan.

Tip: The way to master PowerPoint is to practice, practice, practice. Try making up slide shows just for fun; practice inserting art, experiments with new backgrounds, colors, slide layouts. Each time you make a presentation, try something new. You’ll surprise yourself with how easy it is to make a polished and professional-looking slide show.

Other Resources -- Web & Print

Microsoft has a very fancy tutorial focussing on using the whole Office 2000 suite in the classroom (http://www.actden.com/o2k/HTML/index_h.htm). Search their site (http://www.microsoft.com) for tutorials for older editions of PowerPoint.

I found this PowerPoint 2000 Basics Tutorial (http://www.iupui.edu/~webtrain/tutorials/ powerpoint2000_basics.html) very helpful.

Considering how fast the web changes, trying "PowerPoint tutorial (plus the version date)" in your favorite search engine may be your best course of action for up-to-date help.

I liked Using Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 (Indianapolis, IN : Que, 2000. ISBN: 0789719045), but any of the many books on Office and PowerPoint are likely to be handy.

©This page is copyright 2001 by Peter Larsen. All rights reserved. The use of this page on the LIS 386.13 Website is with the kind permission of Mr. Larsen.