PowerPoint is a presentation software program. Use it to create on-screen shows, 35mm slides, or posters. Do not use it to create flyers, brochures, term papers, booklets, or anything else that would work better in a word processing program.

Begin working in PowerPoint by first opening your program.

PowerPoint 97 and 2000 versions

The first dialog box that appears is the PowerPoint dialog box where you can open an existing presentation or start a new one.

See example of Dialog Box

From this dialog box, you can choose to start a new show or open an existing presentation to edit.

Creating a New Presentation using one of the following choices:

The next dialog box that appears is the New Slide dialog box. See example of New Slide Dialog Box.

Each template design has 24 Autolayout pages (different page layouts) to choose from. The title slide and the bulleted slide are the two most commonly use page layouts.

Choose Title slide from the New Slide dialog box and click OK.

You should now finally be in the PowerPoint program.

PowerPoint 2000 main window is broken up into 3 frames (Slide, Outline, and Notes Pages View) collectively called the Normal View. The three view areas are displayed in different panes. See example of Normal View.

The Slide pane view, where you can see how your text appears on the slide, is on the upper right. The slide pane displays the slide template you selected. The pane underneath the slide template replaces the notes pages view and is called the Notes pane view. You can add notes in that area and print them to use as speaker notes, if you want to. The pane on the left is the text outline area.

In PowerPoint 97, the view at this point is simply the Slide View.

You can change the dimensions of the panes by dragging the edges.

If you decide the template design or page layout you have chosen isn’t exactly what you want, you can always change it once in the program. Try to decide on the design before you enter lots of information. Changing design templates will usually change how things are laid out on the page....text can wrap differently, fonts will be different. So to make sure your pages turn out the way you intend, pick the design early on and stick with it unless you check each and every page for undesirable changes.

To change the look of your presentation, click on Apply Design... in the Common Tasks toolbar or click on the file menu commands Format - Apply Design and choose a new look. A file can have only one Template design.

Click on the Slide Layout button in the Common Tasks toolbar to choose a new page layout. Text that is on the page will be formatted into the new layout if it was created in a Click here box

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THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!

The first thing you need to do is set up what your final output will be: slides, computer screen show, paper printout, etc. Dimensions change depending upon the output selected so you have to know what you are going to be doing or your text will get cut off or shifted around when you switch outputs. PowerPoint defaults to on-screen show.

Choose File - Page Setup from the menu commands. See example of File - Page Setup dialog box.

(If the choice isn’t in the dropdown list, move the mouse on top of the down arrow at the bottom of the dropdown list to display commands not previously chosen yet.) See example of dropdown arrow.

In the Page Setup dialog box, under Slides sized for: there are several choices to choose from. On-Screen Show is the default setting.

Choose the output format you need. Custom setting is the one we use when setting up to create a poster.
For 35mm slides and On-screen shows, make sure the orientation is set at horizontal.

Choose several of the choices and accept them and see how your page dimensions change. This usually isn’t a problem but can cause problems if text wrapping a certain way is important as it may wrap differently based on the page dimensions. Also PowerPoint 97 had some problems with inserted images changing proportion in only one way when page setup was changed after the image had been inserted. This can create images that are severely distorted.

What's on the Page

Now let’s take a look at what is on the page. Familiarize yourself with page elements and working in PowerPoint will become easier. Try the features out in PowerPoint as you read through the descriptions below. See example of What's on the Page.

Mouse Button.On PC’s you can select the object by clicking on the left mouse button as you point at the object and then clicking the right mouse button on the selected object. A dialog box will appear giving you choices of what commands you can perform on that selected object.

Be sure that you do not move your mouse while you click on the right mouse button or you will get a MOVE dialog box instead.

The toolbars can be moved around on your screen and positioned wherever you want them. Position the pointer on the vertical parallel line on the left hand or top side of the toolbar, click and drag with the left mouse button, and move the bar to a new position. See what parallel line looks like.

View buttons are located in the lower left of the screen. Choose Normal View, Outline View, Slide View, Slide Sorter View or Slide Show View by clicking on the corresponding button. See View Buttons.

Add notes to your slides by clicking in the bottom right pane and typing your information. Notes are useful in helping you remember what you need to say while giving a presentation or they can be printed along with the slides to give your audience extra information you may not discuss in the presentation.

Slide 1 of ? - This tells what slide page you are on in your presentation.

Filename - This tells what master template design you are using. Master Templates have a filename extension of .POT. POT may or may not be shown with file name.

Click the up and down arrow keys to change the page you are on or move the vertical bar (also called Elevator button) up and down. As you drag the Elevator button up or down, a small box will appear that will tell what page you are scrolling to. Another way to change pages is to go to Slide Sorter view and select the slide you want. You can also do click on the particular slide you want in Outline View.

Select all objects on a slide
On the Edit menu, click Select All or CTRL+A.

Select an object hidden behind another
Press the TAB key to cycle forward (or SHIFT+TAB to cycle backward) through the objects until sizing handles appear on the object you want to select.

To select multiple objects, hold down SHIFT while you click each object. To cancel one of the selected objects, click the object again while holding down SHIFT.

Rulers are at the top and left side of the page area. You can use the horizontal and vertical rulers to move and align objects precisely. When displayed, the rulers appear in the slide pane at the top and left side of the slide window. When you move the pointer or a drawing tool, its movement traces on the rulers to show you precisely where you are on the slide. The rulers are needed to do many hands-on formatting issues such as setting indents and tabs.
The appearance of the ruler changes depending on what you select on the slide. When you select a picture or an Autoshape, the ruler's origin is at the center. When you select text, its origin is at the left or top of the text box. When you select text inside a text box, the ruler displays the indent markers and tabs for the text. Each text box has its own ruler and its own indentation and tab settings.

See View-Ruler and View-Guides

Guide lines help you line things up and can be moved around on the page. Simply point on a guide and drag it with the left mouse button to the desired location. When an object gets close to a guide, the object snaps to the guide. If the grid is on, a guide moves from grid line to grid line and may appear to jump. If you want a guide to move smoothly, one pixel at a time, hold down ALT key as you drag.

To add a guide, press CTRL while you drag an existing guide.

There are 13 toolbars as well as a customizable one. Toolbars are either turned on or off, making them visible or not. The toolbars contain icons for the various commands that are most commonly used in PowerPoint. To turn them on or off, go to View - Toolbars. A check in front of the Toolbar name means it is on and should be visible somewhere on your screen. No check in front of the toolbar means it is turned off and not visible.
Toolbars can be positioned anywhere on the PowerPoint screen you would like them. To move them, point with the Pointer tool at the two vertical bars on the left side of the toolbar. Click and drag these two bars (which will move the entire toolbar) to the position you want it to go. It will snap into place at the perimeters of the page. It can also be free floating on the page.

See Dropdown list of Toolbars.

The Zoom feature is in the Standard toolbar (square with a number percentage (# %) and a down arrow) or in View-Zoom. Click on this to change the magnification of the page.

1. Select the object, placeholder, multiple selection, or group you want to move.
2. Click and drag on the object(s) to move to new location.
To constrain an object so it moves only horizontally or vertically, press SHIFT as you drag the object.

PowerPoint can reverse up to 99 of your most recent operations. The default is set at 20. To change the number of operations Undo will reverse, select Tools-Options, and then select the Edit tab. Remember that the more undos you set, the more memory is required of your computer to remember all of them.

You can convert any color presentation to black and white by clicking on the Black and White View button (looks like two triangles, one a shade of colors and the other shades of gray) on the Standard toolbar. When you click on this button, the presentation screen changes to black and white. You can toggle back and forth between color and black and white views.

PowerPoint Lessons Table of Contents

Last updated January 2002. These courses are copyrighted by the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Communications and Information Technology. Contact Lana Johnson at ljohnson1@unl.edu