PowerPoint 2007

  1. Electronic resources related to this training session:
  1. Public Resources
  2. Microsoft’s site for Win users:

•Select: Office => Office Online Training and Demos

–Type search keywords: “powerpoint overview” and select Create Your First Presentation

–Type search keywords: “interactive reference guide” to find Flash demonstrations that illustrate tool locations in the new version.

•Or, select any Office product in the “Browse by program” section in the middle of the page.

–Direct link to: PowerPoint 2007 Training.

  1. Microsoft’s site for Mac users, Mactopia:
  1. Campus Resources

•Select: Online Resources => Web-based Training

•VTC.com and lynda.com (University email is required)

  1. IT-Help Center: or 831-6000

Let’s Answer Your Questions

Q1Request that the instruction stay basic so that some of us at zero experience and exposure can move toward preparation of a talk. I have heard that there are a lot of advanced things that can be done with this program. Suggest this be done at a later advanced class. Some of us even have limited experience with computers [a generational and career thing].

A1This 2-session workshop is designed to address everyone’s needs, regardless of prior experience. The first session will contain an overview sample and introduce fundamental concepts, during the second session participants will be guided through the creation of their own presentation. Attendees who want to increase their skill before the second session are encouraged to pursue Microsoft’s self-paced tutorials:

Win: PowerPoint 2007 Training.

Mac :PowerPoint 2008 Training

Q2Need help in how to actually show the PowerPoint presentation. Would like instruction on how to show it to an audience. Master Gardeners have a laptop and a projector to loan to MG's.

A2I’ll share some tips during the workshop. Consider watching the “Prepare to present” videos at the Win link noted above.

Q3Would like to know 1) how to import photos to use within PowerPoint and 2) how to set up a presentation for a workshop (please see previous response).

A3Illustrations are an important part of PowerPoint presentations and we’ll spend a considerable amount of time discussing how to incorporate them, either directly into your presentation or by linking to online galleries. We’ll be using these free resources during the workshop:

Q4I'm interested in pain-free incorporation of publicly available pictures from the Internet and using my own pictures that are sitting in a drawer, and for which I have no negatives or CDs. Also, incorporating a little action into the presentation instead of just humdrum text.

A4I love this question! Regarding the images in the drawer, you may want to invest in an all-in-one printer scanner, or a photo scanner with a feeder if you really have a lot of images to digitize. There are scanning services if you want to pay a professional; search keywords “photo scanning service.”

We’ll explore animations to control content delivery or add a little pizzazz to a presentation.

Q5Is it possible to incorporate about 5 minutes from an existing VCR or DVD in a PowerPoint presentation?

A5Copyright Fair Use considerations must be made for licensed media. For a more information see: There are tools that allow you to create media clips or screen capture portions of your own video.

Create your own video using your pictures:

Win: PhotoStory 3 or MovieMaker.

Mac: iPhoto or iMovie

Screen capture software:

people what's on your screen...instantly.
images from videos yourself today.

Main tabs

Home: Copy, paste; add slides; format text and paragraphs; work with shapes; find and replace text.

Insert: Insert slides, tables, pictures, Microsoft® SmartArt™ graphics, charts, shapes, hyperlinks, movies, sounds, files from other programs, and other things.

Design: Apply background design, colors, fonts, and special effects to the whole presentation.

Animations: Apply simple and custom animations and slide transitions.

Slide Show: Do pre-show preparation. Run through slides, set up a custom show, record narration.

Review: Check spelling, use Research service or thesaurus, add review comments.

View: Switch to all views including Notes Page and Master view, show grid, arrange windows.

Temporarily hide Ribbon commands

Double-click the currently displayed tab. To show the full Ribbon again, click any tab.

Contextual tabs

These colored tabs appear when you're doing a certain type of task. Your pointer must be within the element the tab supports, such as a picture. Examples are:

Drawing Tools (Format tab): For shapes, placeholders, and text boxes, change style, shape choice, and position. Apply WordArt and other formatting to text.

Picture Tools (Format tab): For pictures, add effects such as a shadow or glow; crop; compress; and resize.

SmartArt Tools (Design and Format tabs): Change the layout for SmartArt graphics such as org charts, and format individual shapes in the graphic.

Similar tools are available for charts, tables, movies, and sounds.

See more options

Click the small diagonal arrow in the bottom right of a group. It appears when something on the slide is selected that you might want more options for, such as text or a placeholder.

See galleries

Click the scroll arrows or More button to the right of the group to see full galleries of themes, shape styles, colors, fonts, animation effects, and so on.

Customize the Quick Access Toolbar

  1. To add a command or button, do one of the following:
  2. Click the arrow on the right end of the toolbar, and click any button on the menu to add it to the toolbar. Click More Commands on the same menu for additional button and command choices.
  3. On the Ribbon, right-click the button or command that you want, and click Add to Quick Access Toolbar.
  4. To remove a command or button from the toolbar:
  5. Right-click it on the toolbar, and click Remove from Quick Access Toolbar.
  6. To put the toolbar on its own row:
  7. Click the arrow on the right end of the toolbar, and click Show Below the Ribbon. Or, right-click any button or command on the toolbar, and click Show Quick Access Toolbar Below the Ribbon.
  8. To put it back above the Ribbon, either click the arrow on the right end of the toolbar, or right-click any button or command on the toolbar, and click the option to move the toolbar above the Ribbon.

Benefits of the new file format

Safer presentations Embedded code— for example, OLE objects or Microsoft Visual Basic® for Applications code— is stored in a separate section within the file, so it can be easily identified for special processing. IT administrators can block presentations that contain unwanted macros or controls, making presentations safer for users to open.

Reduced file size Presentations are automatically compressed— up to 75 percent smaller in some cases.

Transparency and improved information security Presentations can be shared confidentially because personally identifiable information and business-sensitive information— user names, comments, tracked changes, file paths— can be easily identified and removed.

Improved damaged-file recovery The modular data storage that's possible in the new format enables files to be opened even if a component within the file is damaged— a chart or table, for example.

Easier integration Specific content within the presentation, like charts, comments, and presentation metadata, is more easily shared with other types of files.

Saving in the new or old format

For new presentations, PowerPoint 2007 uses the new format, PowerPoint Presentation (*.pptx) (how it appears in the Save As dialog box).

If you open a presentation that was created in the old format but want to save it in the new format, you need to select the new format.

To save a presentation in the old format for someone who doesn't have PowerPoint 2007 or required software for opening PowerPoint 2007 files:

  • Click the Microsoft Office Button, click Save As, and in the Save as type box (in the Save As dialog box), select PowerPoint 97-2003 Presentation (*.ppt).
  • You can also just point to Save As on the Microsoft Office Button menu, and click either PowerPoint Presentation, to save in the new file format, or PowerPoint 97-2003 Presentation, to save in the old format.

Note For someone who's using PowerPoint 95 or earlier and who needs to work on the presentation, save it in the PowerPoint 97-2003 Presentation (*.ppt) format.

Add slides

To add a slide without selecting the layout first, do one of the following:

  • On the Home tab, in the Slides group, click New Slide.
  • Right-click a slide thumbnail, and click New Slide.

The first slide after the title slide gets the Title and Content layout by default. After that, a new slide gets the same layout as the slide that precedes it.

Choose and change layouts

To insert a slide with a specific layout:

  1. On the Home tab, in the Slides group, click the arrow on the New Slide button.
  2. Click a layout.

Tip Any layout that has "content" in its title includes icons that you can use to insert non-text items such as pictures, charts, and tables.

To change the layout of an inserted slide, do one of the following:

  • Right-click the slide that has the layout you want to change, point to Layout on the shortcut menu, and click a layout.
  • Select the slide or slides whose layout you want to change (press CTRL as you click to select multiple slides). On the Home tab, in the Slides group, click Layout, and then click a layout. If you have selected multiple slides, they all get the same layout.

Insert slides from other presentations

  1. Open the presentation that you want to add slides to. Make sure you're in Normal view.
  2. On the Home tab, in the Slides group, click the arrow on the New Slide button.
  3. Click Reuse Slides.
  4. In the task pane, browse to either a slide library or a presentation file that has the slides you want to use.
  5. If you want to keep a slide's original look, select Keep source formatting, at the bottom of the task pane.
  6. Click each slide that you want to insert into your presentation.

Insert slide elements

Insert from within a slide placeholder Apply a layout that has a content placeholder, such as this one:

Click an icon to insert a table, chart, SmartArt™ graphic, picture file, clip art, or video file.

Use the Insert tab This tab has the most comprehensive collection of things to insert, including shapes, hyperlinks, headers and footers, and sounds.

Size and align pictures and text boxes

  • With the picture selected, Picture Tools are available. On the Format tab, use commands in the Size and Arrange groups.
  • With the text box or shape selected, Drawing Tools are available. On the Format tab, use commands in the Size and Arrange groups.
  • The Arrange commands are also available on the Home tab.

Work with notes

  • On the View tab, in the Presentation Views group, click Notes Page. In Notes Page view, you can see and revise the notes formatting for the currently selected slide. Make sure the notes fit into the placeholder, as any text that doesn't fit will not be printed.

Get ready to print

  • Click the Microsoft Office Button, point to Print, and click Print Preview.
  • To select a type of printout, click the arrow in the Print What box (in the Page Setup group) and select from the list.
  • To set color options for printing or to access the Header and Footer dialog box, click Options in the Print group.
  • To print, click Print in the Print group.

Package to CD or folder

Use the Package for CD feature to bundle all your presentation files and then copy them to a folder or a CD.

To package and then copy to a CD from PowerPoint, you must be running Microsoft Windows® XP or later and you must have a CD burner. If you are running Microsoft Windows 2000, you can still use this feature to package the presentation files to a folder, but you must then use a third-party program to burn the folder to a CD.

Important: Options for when you're packaging

There are a couple of ways you can have your file packaged, depending on the environment in which you'll present it. You can:

  • Package it in the Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 Viewer, which enables you to show it on a computer that doesn't have PowerPoint. OR:
  • Package it just as it is, to be presented within PowerPoint.

Note that when files are packaged for the viewer, they are converted to older file formats, such as .ppt, .pot, and .pps. This is to enable them to run automatically, if you choose, within the viewer.

If you don't want to show your presentation in the viewer but plan to show it within PowerPoint, choose the Archive Package (do not update file formats) option when you're making selections in the Package for CD dialog box. To get to that option, click Options.

Final note of advice

A must before you present: Go to the room where you'll be presenting, make sure that you can access your presentation from the computer you're using, and run through the slide show. Take your printed notes with you so that you can practice referring to them while you practice clicking through the show. You might also ask someone else to go along, listen, and give feedback.

Familiarize yourself with the PowerPoint workspace

Do one of the following:

  • If Office PowerPoint 2007 is already running, save and close any open presentations, and then exit and restart PowerPoint 2007.

Find links to information about saving presentations in the See Also section.

  • If Office PowerPoint 2007 isn't already running, start it now.

When you start PowerPoint, it opens in the view(view: A way of displaying the contents of a presentation and providing the user with the means to interact with it.) called Normal view, where you create and work on slides.

In the Slide pane, you can work directly on individual slides.

Dotted borders identify placeholders(placeholders: Boxes with dotted or hatch-marked borders that are part of most slide layouts. These boxes hold title and body text or objects such as charts, tables, and pictures.), where you can type text or insert pictures, charts, and other objects(object: A table, chart, graphic, equation, or other form of information. Objects created in one application, for example spreadsheets, and linked or embedded in another application are OLE objects.).

The Slides tab shows a thumbnail(thumbnail: A miniature representation of a picture.) version of each full size slide shown in the Slide pane. After you add other slides, you can click a thumbnail on the Slides tab to make the slide appear in the Slide pane. Or you can drag thumbnails to rearrange the slides in your presentation. You can also add or delete slides on the Slides tab.

In the Notes pane(notes pane: The pane in normal view in which you type notes that you want to accompany a slide. You print these notes as notes pages or have them display when you save a presentation as a Web page.), you can type notes about the current slide. You can hand out your notes to your audience or refer to your notes in Presenter view when you give your presentation.

NoteBy default, Office PowerPoint 2007 applies the Blank Presentation template(template: A file or files that contain the structure and tools for shaping such elements as the style and page layout of finished files. For example, Word templates can shape a single document, and FrontPage templates can shape an entire Web site.), which appears in the preceding illustration, to new presentations. Blank Presentation is the simplest and most generic of the templates in Office PowerPoint 2007. Blank Presentation is a good template to use when you first start working with PowerPoint because it is straightforward and can be adapted to many presentation types. To create a new presentation that is based on the Blank Presentation template, click the Microsoft Office Button, click New, click Blank and recent under Templates, and then double-click Blank Presentation under Blank and recent.

After you open the Blank Presentation template, only a small portion of the Notes pane is visible. To see a larger portion of the Notes pane so that you have more room to type in it, do the following:

  1. Point to the top border of the Notes pane.
  2. When the pointer becomes a , drag the border up to make a little more room for your speaker notes, as shown in the following illustration.