Using Powerpoint to Your Advantage

by Trudy Levy
Image Integration

PowerPoint provides several automatic features which can save you time and more importantly establish time tested standards which can benefit your presentation's visibility.

When you create a new document you will be presented with these features.

While Auto Content Wizard will create the entire show for you, setting format, graphic standards and even including content, going through it may take longer than doing it yourself. It is, however, a good tutorial.

Templates are however invaluable as they establish graphic standards for a presentation, such as the background, font type, size and color which

• allows you to make Global changes to the whole presentation.
• gives a consistency to the presentation and reduces reinventing the wheel.
• and in the sample presentations gives some ideas of possible conten.t

Once you have created a successful show it can be used as a template.

This is not to say that the available templates are beauty incarnate, especially some of the backgrounds which should not be used with images. They are a reflection of experience in terms of color relationships and font size for visibility in a projected presentaion.

Automatic Format allows you select one of their 8 layouts for presenting different information as the default one. Choose bulleted text, unless you know for sure another layout will work best for your presentation.

A presentation should not act as your crib notes. The best way to accomplish this is to carefully map out your important points, both in order of importance and in order of hierarchy - or - OUTLINE your presentation.

As a PowerPoint presentation can be viewed in four ways: Outline view, Slide view, Slide Sorter view, and Notes view, choose to begin in Outline view.

This will allow you to compose your context without being distracted by the composition.

Text editing at this point is simple word processing and thus more efficient.

• To create new slide Select Bullet button use both the CTRL & ENTER keys
• To indent to a sublevel, use the TAB key or the DEMOTE * button in the tool bar.
• To return to the prior level USE both the SHIFT & TAB or PROMOTE * Button.
• Slides ( or points) may be reorganized by drag and drop

Okay so while you are composing, you think of all these great ways to say something or conclusive examples. How do you remember to use this dynamite stuff? Use the Notes View.

This view has a view of the slide and a space for a speaker to write prepared notes to be used for the slide presentation. Some projectors can even be set up to show Notes view on your lap top while projecting the show.

Once your thoughts are well organized you can change to Slide View to add the eye candy or meat of your presentation

Before you do anything, check your content in slide view. Does it fit within the layout area?

If not, resist the urge to change the layout or font size. Disregarding the readability of the font size for an audience, there is also the rule of thumb of 3-5 points per slide.

More than that and your audience will be too busy reading the slide to listen to you.

Still in slide view decide

• What points would be reinforced with images

• Do they require big images.

In which case you may want to add new slides formated for only an image.

• Is there room for an image in addition to the content.

To see if there is room, change the slide layout to one with image and text.

Now select the images which further your argument.

TIPS for PLACING IMAGES

1. If you check link, anytime the file is modified, the image will be updated in the show, but then you must "Pack & Go" the show to compile these linked files.

INSERT>Picture >From file

• Image size should reflect the resolution of your equipment. If you are using a projector and laptop with a display of 1024 x 800, then your images should be about that size in pixels or smaller.
• In the INSERT menu you will find other Images which you can place, such as clip art. MS provides an extensive clip art library.
• You can also launch a graphic application from within Powerpoint and create NEW Objects or organization charts to place in your presentation

There are two aspects to transitions:

• Timing - how long an effect will occur.
• Effect - usually movement of some sort or fading in or out. While they may be effective, they can also produce headaches for your audience. Chose wisely with the KISS* principal in mind.

* Keep It Simple Stupid

SLIDESHOW>Slide transition

TIP:

One aspect of timing is how long each slide is viewed. While you can set advance to manual, in which situation you control when a slide changes, you can also set an automatic time. This is an excellent way to practice your presentation so that you stay on message and on time. You can always switch to manual before the show.

Custom Animation sets up an order and duration for items to appear on the slide. This allows each point or image to have its own time in the sun.

Bulleted lists - built one bullet at a time, fading out the prior items is a common use, but you can also have an image come up after the content or replace an image.