MVS110L.

Session #6: Effective Presentations: Using PowerPoint Page 1

MVS 110L: Session #6

Effective Presentations: Using PowerPoint

Background Notes

In this exercise you will learn how to:

 Enter information onto slides
 Insert graphics to illustrate your slides
 Animate your slides
 Format text, bullets, and the background of slides
 Arrange slides for a slide show
 Print different presentation layouts
To successfully go through these practice examples you will need to view
(and download) via the web
([Link] or FTP
(/afs/[Link]/group/acadaff/exphysio/Public/html/mvl110L/) the
following three files:
1. [Link]
2. [Link]
3. [Link]

Creating a New Presentation File and Saving your Presentation

Go to Start and Programs and find Microsoft PowerPoint.

1. You will now see a gray box that asks you whether you want to create
a new presentation or open an existing file. Let’s begin by creating a
new presentation file. When creating a new presentation, you have
three options: (1) Use the AutoContent Wizard, (2) use an existing
Design Template, or (3) use a Blank Presentation. For now, let’s choose
Design Template (select Design Template and click on OK at the
bottom of the box). The Templates menu has three tabs. The "General"
tab has a plain blank presentation without any design applied.
"Presentations" has ready-made outlines of presentations for different
types of talks. “Design Templates” has ready-made background
designs for you to apply to your presentation. Whichever tab you
choose, you must still move between slides and type in the content
once your selection has been made. Choose Design Templates and
pick High Voltage for this exercise.
MVS110L. Session #6: Effective Presentations: Using PowerPoint Page 2

2. A gray box titled New Slide will appear. Near the bottom of the right
side of the gray box you can see the name of the slide layout, which
will change depending on which slide you have highlighted. For the
first page of your presentation, double click on Title Slide. You should
see a sky-blue colored slide, which contains two boxes: "Click to add
title" and "Click to add subtitle," respectively. These are called "text
boxes". Whenever you want to write something in a slide you have to
use these text boxes.
3. Put your mouse on “Click to add title” and press the left button
once. The outline of the box becomes thicker and the words will
disappear. If you look at the box carefully, you will find that the prompt
is flickering. Now you can edit the content of the text box. Type "My
First PowerPoint Presentation” then press Enter. The line you just
typed will move upward so that you can write another line in the same
text box. We don't want another line here, so press the Backspace
button on the keyboard. Now put your mouse outside of the text box
and click. The thick line surrounding the first text box will disappear.
Now, type your name, the name of your hometown, and today's date in
the “Click to add subtitle” box. Each piece of information should
occupy one line. Now, get out of the edit mode by clicking somewhere
on the slide outside of the text box.
4. Don’t forget to save the file, after you have finished editing it. When
saving the file for the first time, it’s a good idea to use the Save As
command. Save this presentation to your location of choice (hard
drive; class folder, etc.) and call it "[Link]". Make sure you have
"Presentation" in the Save as Type box. Exit PowerPoint.

Opening Existing Files and Viewing Slides in Different Modes

1. For the next step, I have prepared a ready-made PowerPoint

presentation titled “[Link]”. If you click on this file it
will download to your hard drive. You can also FTP it to you hard drive
via the following path:
</afs/[Link]/user/v/k/vkass/Public/html/vlk/MVSLab/
[Link]>
FTP this file onto your hard drive (or wherever you want it.) Now once
again open PowerPoint. You will see the same gray box asking whether
you want to create a new or open an existing file.
2. This time select "Open an existing presentation." (If you have
accidentally pressed something other than that, don't worry. Just go to
File and select Open.) Locate the file you just copied,
[Link]. Make sure you have "All PowerPoint
Presentations" in the Type of Files box near the bottom; otherwise
MVS110L. Session #6: Effective Presentations: Using PowerPoint Page 3

you may not see the file. Open [Link]. You should see
the first slide with the title: “Carbohydrates”
3. To move between slides and to view different slides in a presentation,
you can use the scroll bar on the right hand side of you window. Take a
look at what you have in this presentation file [there are 19 slides in
this presentation (by the way, you may be interested that this is part of
a slide presentation I use for MVS241- Exercise, Nutrition, and Weight
Control).]
4. PowerPoint has five different view modes. They are: Normal, Outline,
Slide View, Slide Sorter View, and Slide Show. You have to select
which best fits your work. Near the bottom left of the screen are five
small icons representing the different viewing modes. Click on each
and see how it changes your view (hit Escape to get out of the Slide
Show mode). Now, go back to Normal mode (it’s the choice furthest to
the left at the bottom left side of the screen). These icons can be used
for changing the view mode, or you can use the menu bar at the top of
the screen (the outline mode does not appear at the top, however.)
5. What you are in now is "Normal" mode. Go to the menu bar at the top
of the screen, press View and see that Normal is whited out, which
means you are in this mode. Normal mode is a combination of Outline
mode and Slide mode. It allows you to edit the existing content of a
specific slide and change the order of slides within your presentation.
But, you cannot add an additional text box or a graphic file into a slide.
Outline mode allows you to edit and change the text and order of
slides, but not to insert graphics or animation. In Outline view, you can
also add notes to yourself about the slide, in case you forget the little
details of what you’d planned to say. Most of the time, you will either
work in Normal Mode or in Slide mode. Suppose, however, that you
want to change the order of your slides? In order to do this you will
need to see the whole sequence, right?
6. Slide Sorter View allows you to do this easily. The only downside
here is that you cannot edit the specific content of a slide in this view.
Make sure you understand how these modes are different. In short,
Slide View or Normal view are better for typing and entering the
content of each slide while Slide Sorter or Outline view are best for
editing your presentation.
7. The last mode is Slide Show. Click on this and see what happens. The
entire screen is filled with each completed slide. You won't see any
menu or tool bar in this mode. This is the mode you use for the actual
presentation. Press the Page Down and Page Up buttons on the
keyboard. Do you see how the pages change? You can also use the
mouse to advance slides.
MVS110L. Session #6: Effective Presentations: Using PowerPoint Page 4

8. Now save this file with another name. Go to Save As in the menu bar
and navigate to the location where you saved this ppt presentation.
Save the file using any name you wish (you could title this
“[Link]”.

Playing with PowerPoint: Editing

1. Text box: Put your mouse on the title of the 1st slide and click the left
button. Now you will see the title “Carbohydrates”, nested within a
dash-lined box with the prompt flickering within it. You are now able to
edit the content of the text box. If you put your mouse on the outline of
the box you will have either a four-way or a two-way arrow. At the
same time the flickering cursor will disappear. Now you can enlarge or
shrink the size of the text box by clicking on one of the white boxes
that rest on the outline of the box and dragging it in the direction you’d
like to have enlarged. When you shrink the text box you also have to
change the size of the font otherwise, part of the text will show up
outside the box. This will cause a problem especially when you want to
put fancy borders on your text.
2. Inserting a new slide: If you want to add a new slide between two
existing slides, go to the Insert menu and New Slide. You will see the
same gray box that you saw when you first started the program asking
which layout you want. Suppose you want to create a title slide for our
presentation. Choose the Title slide option (Hint: it’s the first layout
with two lines). Type, “Everything you wanted to know about
Carbohydrates”. You will have to resize the text box to allow this title
to fit.
3. Applying a different layout to your presentation : You can change the
basic layout of the presentation by going to the Format menu and
choose Slide Layout. Do you see the box with many layouts? Choose
the one with the chart on the right and text on the left. Its name is
Text & Chart. Press Apply and it will automatically change the layout
for you without distorting any other property of the slide.
4. Applying a different design to your presentation : Now let’s say you
decide that you don’t like the design or the background (plain white),
go to Format and select Slide Design. The right side of the gray box
shows you a preview of the design. Choose the one with the name
Dad’s Tie and press Apply. This will change the design for your entire
presentation. Check your slides - make sure that you don’t need to
change a slide’s font size now that you have applied a new design to
your presentation.
5. Changing the background color: Move to the slide titled: What are
Carbohydrates? Go to Format then Background. Press the downward
arrow under the box that contains a simple chart, and then choose the
MVS110L. Session #6: Effective Presentations: Using PowerPoint Page 5

color you want. Pick one you think best matches the design. Then
press Apply (NOT “Apply to all”).
6. Bulleted lists and adding clip art: Activate the large text box under the
title in the second slide. Select all the points by pressing and dragging
your left mouse button. Then go to the Format menu and Bullets and
Numbering. Choose a different bullet design, a color and size, and
then apply your changes. Remember to choose a color that will
contrast nicely with the background color. But wait, we found a snazzy
graphic from Clip Art that we want to add to this slide. Using the Insert
menu, choose Picture, then Clip Art. Scroll through the images until
you find a picture that you like. Insert the Clip Art image by left clicking
and then choosing the icon at the top of the small menu called Insert
clip, now close the Insert Clip art box. Your picture will pop up on your
slide. Use the tic marks at each corner to adjust its size and then place
it in the lower left-hand corner of your slide. Fantastic! (Just remember
to use Clip Art sparingly—a little goes a long way.)
7. Moving slides and changing the order of slides in a presentation : You
can reorder slides easily. In View, choose the Slide Sorter option. You
will see small miniature versions of your slides arranged along the top
of your screen. Select the slide you would like to move and drag it to
the front of another slide. Arrange these slides logically, so that you
are able to make a coherent presentation in your opinion

Viewing Your Presentation

1. Go to Slide Show on the menu and press View Show. Or, press Slide
Show in the View menu. Or, you can even click on the Slide Show
icon at the bottom of your screen.
2. You can proceed with the slide show (and view earlier slides) in a
number of ways:
 PAGE UP/DOWN button
 Space bar and backspace
 Left mouse button/right mouse button to select Previous
3. After the last page, PowerPoint will default to a black screen. Once you
exit, you will be returned to the previous View mode. If you want to
get out of Slide Show in the middle of your presentation, just press
ESC.
4. If you press the letter “B” it will temporarily make the screen black; if
you are giving a presentation, this will permit you to make the screen
blank while you talk to your audience.
MVS110L. Session #6: Effective Presentations: Using PowerPoint Page 6

5. After reviewing your presentation as it would appear to your audience,

go back and make changes to typeface, point size, bullets, background
colors, and border/formatting designs and edit this presentation
according to the principles of good graphic design. Save your work.

Special Effects and Hyperlinks

1. Now let’s return to Normal view mode so that we can give a fancy
touch to your presentation. First, select an object that you would like to
animate and left-click once on the item (for example: the chart,
bulleted list etc.). Then go to the Slide Show menu and choose
Preset Animation, a menu provides you with a fan-out list of format
options to the right of the arrow. You will see styles like "drive-in",
"flying", "flash once", "laser text" etc. Pick an option that sounds fun.
You can see the result of this animation setting only in Slide Show
mode. Choose an animation style and see how it changes your
presentation by running the Slide Show once more.
2. More advanced skill: Suppose you are on the last page of your
presentation and suddenly you want to refer to an early slide. Will you
just press Page Up/Down and move between slides confusing your
audience? NO. Use a hyperlink! First go to the last slide in the
presentation, once there choose Insert then Picture. Select Clip Art
and find an image that you would like for your hyperlink icon and insert
it onto your last slide (if you have found a terrific image on some web
page, all you have to do is save that image on a floppy disk or on your
C drive and click on import clips when you are in Clip Art).
Now the icon appears somewhere on your slide. Do you see it? Move
that icon to the corner of the page or wherever you want it. Click the
image once to select it, and then select Slide Show on the menu bar
then Action Settings. Go to the Mouse Click tab and select
Hyperlink To. In the drop down menu choose SLIDE; this setting
allows you to view each slide before deciding which one to link to.
Go to the Slide Show menu and View Show. Click on your hyperlink
icon (it will change into a pointing hand) and watch the presentation
reference the slide you chose to hyperlink to.

Printing

To print do the following:

1. From the View menu, select Master then Handout Master and see
what your handout will look like.
2. From File menu, choose Print and a new menu will appear. Find the
Print what: option (in the bottom left corner); instead of the Slides
MVS110L. Session #6: Effective Presentations: Using PowerPoint Page 7

option that is already selected, choose Handouts, then select 6 slides

per page. You should also tick scale to fit paper and the frame slides
options. Click on OK and your handout is on its way to the printer!
3. You can print out the slides, handouts, notes and an outline of the
presentation.
4. If you don’t have a color printer, or you do not want the printouts in color
be sure to select black and white, or gray scale under the color option
from the print dialog box. [NOTE: it is always a good idea to print in black
and white, as this will make printing faster.]

Inserting Charts, Graphic Files, and Linking

1. The easiest way to include graphic files, charts, or tables, is to use the
layout option. Open the “[Link]” file. Navigate to the last
slide; insert a new slide (Insert and New Slide. Pick Clip Art & Text,
which has a small picture on the left and another small box with three
lines on the right.) Now you should have a new (last) slide on your screen.
2. Single-click with your mouse on the picture icon, this box will now be
activated. Since we have already rehearsed putting a piece of clip art in a
slide we will now insert a picture. You can browse, find and use any
picture you choose. For your convenience I have put a picture named
[Link] for you to use if you do not have one of your own
(you will need copy (from the WEB - you have my permission) or FTP the
picture to the hard drive of your computer
</afs/[Link]/user/v/k/vkass/Public/html/vlk/MVSLab/[Link]
[Link]>.
I think you’ll like this picture. Choose Insert, Picture, then From
File, find the file on your hard drive after having FTPing it and press
Insert, it will now appear on your slide. Be creative and put a title in
the title box, and two lines of comments in the box on the right side
of the picture.
You can also link a chart from an Excel file to your presentation. In
order to link the file, we will need to insert another new slide with
Title Only layout (NOT Title layout! Title Only layout is the one with a
single thick line). Go to the Insert menu and choose Object. Select
Create from File and locate an Excel file using Browse (it will have the
extension .xls at the end). If you don’t have a file I have one (name:
[Link]) for you to use.
3. Don't forget to check the Link button. Now you should see your Excel
table on the slide. Change the size of the table/chart to fit the page.
Add some text explaining what this table is all about (these are sample
data from assignment #3.)