PowerPoint
Effective learning using a structured approach

This PowerPoint tutorial is part of our learning time management series.  This series is designed to give you skills in various commonly used computer programs.

Often when people start to use computer programs they dive straight in.  They don’t take the time to learn how to use the program.   They assume that they'll be able to figure it out.

People succeed with this approach since most of the programs are fairly intuitive.  However this approach takes a long time.  If you follow this approach you can take three or four times longer to learn how to use a program than if you learn it through training.

Spend a short time following a tutorial and you’ll pick up the features of the program more quickly.  By understanding the features more quickly you’ll save yourself lots of time.

Getting the Basics Under Control

This tutorial covers the basics of PowerPoint.  It shows you how to set up a slide using the predefined page layouts and how to enter and edit text in the slide.  I’ll also explain how to change colour and add some images.

Shown below is the basic screen.  We are going to look at it in five sections which are highlighted in the diagram.

• Tool bar and menu

• Slide sorter

• Main editing area

• Layout change

• Notes pages

Tool Bar and Menu

This is located at the top of the screen and contains the tool bar and various menus such as File and Edit.  From these menus you can access all the features of PowerPoint.  In addition to the text based menus you’ll notice that there are a number of pictures or icons.

The icons together form tool bars.  For example if you click the printer icon you’ll be able to print the PowerPoint slide show that you are currently editing.  There is also a save icon (a floppy disc picture) and an open icon (a yellow folder).  If you hover your mouse cursor over each of the icons some text (called a tool tip) will appear telling you the purpose of the icon.

For this tutorial we are going to use the File menu only.  In this menu you’ll find: Save, Save As, Print and Open menu options.  These work in the following way:

Save

This saves the current PowerPoint file being edited.  If there is no name currently assigned then you are prompted for a new name.

Save As

Unlike Save, this option will always prompt you for a name.  Using this option you can easily create a copy of a presentation.  You simply open up an existing presentation and save it with a new name.  The existing presentation will remain saved, allowing you to create a new presentation.  This is a great way to quickly create new presentations.

Print

Print allows you to print the current document.  Using this option you are able to print the entire presentation.  Alternatively you can select a number of individual slides to print. You can also select whether to print the slides only, the slides and notes or the notes pages only.

Open

Open allows you to find and open a PowerPoint presentation.  This works in a similar manner to the other windows programs.  You can browse to a particular location and select a file.

Slide Sorter

The slide sorter is shown on the left hand side of the image (shown at the top of this tutorial).  The Slide sorter shows all of the slides contained in the presentation.

You can easily move between the slides by simply clicking on them in the slide sorter.  Using the slide sorter you can adjust the position of the slides in the slide show.  Simply click on a slide.  Don’t release the mouse button and drag the slide up or down.  You’ll see the slide moving up and down.

This area is the area you will use to add new slides to your presentation.  Simply click where you want to insert a slide.  Next right click and select the insert slide option.  PowerPoint will insert a new slide for you.

You can enlarge the size of the thumbnail view, of the slides, by making the slide sorter area larger.  You do this by moving your mouse to the boundary between the slide sorter and the main editing screen.  At this boundary the mouse cursor will change.  Holding down the left mouse button, you can drag the slide sorter area to make it bigger or smaller.

The next part of this tutorial continues in this PowerPoint page.