PowerPoint 97 Essentials
Is this course for you?
This course is intended for anyone wishing to use Powerpoint 97 to create their own 'slide show' presentations.
It covers the essentials of using PowerPoint for simple presentations,
and goes on to cover intermediate skills such as outlining, fine-tuning
slide appearance, using drawings and pictures, master slides as well as
notes, handouts and animation.
You don't need previous experience with presentation software, but
basic familiarity with Windows will be helpful.
The course includes the following elements:
| Lesson 1: Running a Presentation |
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Start PowerPoint
Find and open a presentation
Control the PowerPoint work area
Display toolbars
View a Slide Show
Use Slide Sorter view
Start a new presentation
| Microsoft PowerPoint enables you to create and run visually interesting presentations on screen.
In this lesson we look at how to open a presentation and control the PowerPoint work area.
We see how to view a slide show and switch views on the presentation. Finally we look at how to start a new presentation using the File menu. |
| Lesson 2: Blank presentations |
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| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Create a blank presentation
Add a new slide
Add text to a box
Hide spelling errors
Resize and move a box
Use the Common Tasks toolbar
Save and view a presentation
View a slide show manually
| The simplest form of presentation you can create is using the Blank Presentation option from the opening dialogue box.
In this lesson we look at how to create slides by selecting one of PowerPoints AutoLayouts. Each AutoLayout has a number of 'boxes' which you click on to add text to the slide and we see to move and resize them.
Finally we look at saving the presentation and viewing the slide show. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Select a template
Add slides in the template layout
Apply a Design
Change the text alignment
Use 'Save As'
| Here we look at selecting the Template option from the opening dialogue box to determine how the text will appear on a slide.
We look at how to apply a Design to a slide to give it a coloured background and change the appearance of the text.
Finally we look at how to change the text alignment and save the presentation using another file name to give you two copies of the presentation, each with a different design. |
| Lesson 4: AutoContentent Wizard |
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Start the AutoContent Wizard
Select a presentation type
Control the output options
Select a presentation style
Control the presentation options
Switch from Slide Sorter view to Slide view
Switch to Outline view
| Instead of using the blank presentation option and adding slides one by one, you can use PowerPoint's AutoContent Wizard to create a series of slides automatically, ready for you to fill in the details. |
| Lesson 5: Editing slide text |
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Switch to Slide view
Select and delete words
Undo an action
Change alignment using the mouse
Add bullets to a line of text
Customise bullets
Select the Wingdings font
Change font colour and size
Apply bullets to selected text
| How the slide text appears is controlled by the slide AutoFormat but you don't have to stick with that. In this lesson we look at selecting and deleting text, and using the Undo feature.
We see how to customize the slide text by changing the alignment, how to add 'bullets' to lines of text and how to change the font colour and size.
Finally we see how to add special graphic characters to a slide using the Wingdings font. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Use the What's This? feature
Display the Office Assistant
Change the Office Assistant appearance
Change the Office Assistant options
Display PowerPoint tips
| PowerPoint has a vast range of features but you don't need to memorise everything though, because it will normally show you the information you need, either with on-screen prompts, or with the ScreenTips.
PowerPoint also has a comprehensive Help system as well as a selection of topical tips for the day. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Identify menu options
Show ScreenTips to identify buttons
Using the Office Assistant
Get Help through the menus
Search for a Help topic
Use the Help button to access the Office Assistant
Get hints and tips
Display help for a dialogue box
| As you would expect from any good Windows application, PowerPoint comes with very detailed Help information, which is available to you at any time while you have PowerPoint on screen. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Switch to Outline view
Reposition a slide
Move slides with Drag-and-drop
Undo changes
Promote and demote text
Show and hide slide formatting
Expand and collapse all slides
Expand and collapse slides
Move collapsed text
| How you organise the text in a presentation is just as important as the visual appearance. PowerPoint gives you some very powerful tools for organising your presentation.
You can simply drag slides into the order you want, or for more control you can use the Outlining feature.
If you have used Microsoft Word, then you may already be familiar with outlining, but it is especially useful in PowerPoint for quickly re-organising your presentations. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Add a slide using the Promote button
Add slides to collapsed text
Delete a slide
Create a Summary slide
Insert a duplicate slide
| With PowerPoint, you can create slides one by one in Slide view and type in your text directly. You can also switch to Outline view and edit and add slides from there. But if you are working on a longer presentation, it is very often easier to create the basic text with a word processing program such as Word. Of course, you could cut-and-paste the text, but there's a much faster way to do it, and that's what we look at in this lesson. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Make font changes using the toolbar
Change part of a title
Increase and decrease font size
Use different fonts
Use the Format Painter
| Just like a word processor, you can dramatically change the appearance of your presentation by changing the appearance of the text characters - the fonts - and font effects. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Select a slide colour scheme
Create a custom colour scheme
Customise slide background
Use colour gradients
Add backgrount textures and patterns
Add pictures
Customise a preset design
| When you build your presentations based on one of the preset designs your colour scheme is set for you. Sometimes however you want something other than a default colour scheme. So in this lesson we look at how to customise your slide design. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Display the Slide Master
Display the Title Master
Use slide placeholders
Delete a placeholder
Insert the date
Move master items
| In other lessons we've seen how to create your own designs and apply them to just the current one or all of them. Another way of customising designs is by using master slides.
Master slides are different from ordinary slides - they're templates on which other slides are based. There are two types of masters for each presentation; on for the title slide and one for the other slides. |
| Lesson 13: Speakers notes and handouts |
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| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Create speakers notes
Create audience handouts
Print notes and handouts
| Often you'll want to make your own notes to refer to when you make the presentation. Similarly, you'll often want to give your audience printed handouts for them to take away.
PowerPoint makes this very easy to do - and automatically adjusts your notes if you change the presentation.. |
| Lesson 14: Slide transition effects |
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Set slide transition effects
Control how a slide advances
Add sound
Edit slide transition effects
Rehearse the timing
| Once you have set up your slides you need to decide how you are going to move from one slide to another. Do you want to move on automatically or do you want to control it your self?
You can set special effects, add sounds and so on to make the presentation more entertaining. |
| Lesson 15: Slide animation effects |
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| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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View preset animation effects
Customise animation effects
Animate an object
Use animation effects
Change the animation order
Set custom text animation
| Slide transition effects control what happens when each slide appears. However, you can also add animation to each individual slide, so you can add movement or other special efects. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Draw an AutoShape
Insert text in an AutoShape
Add fill and line colour
Select a Shadow effect
Select a 3-D effect
Change direction of text in an AutoShape
Rotate an AutoShape
| PowerPoint presentations look much more professional when they include simple pictures and diagrams. There is a simple way to do this, using AutoShapes, which gives you a choice of pre-set shapes. It won't give you the power of a proper graphics program, but it will help you to produce effective results quickly and easily. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Display the AutoShapes toolbar
Display an AutoShape menu as a toolbar
Draw a basic shape and add text to it
Copy a shape
Line up a shape using the arrow keys
Draw lines
Draw curves
Draw freeform line
Draw scribble lines
| If you've ever had to draw diagrams or flowcharts for a project or report you'll have some idea of how long this can take. PowerPoint's AutoShape feature does much to speed up the process, giving you a quick and easy way to produce simple diagrams. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Display the Clip Art Gallery
Insert a picture from a file
More and resize a picture
Adding a text box
Overlapping text and pictures
Picture AutoLayouts
| So far you've seen how to add graphics and drawings to enhance a presentation. In this lesson we start looking at how to add pictures for more interesting visual effects. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Change Contrast and Brightness
Use the Image Control options
Reset changes to a picture
Create a watermark
Add and remove a line round a picture
Crop a picture
Control Picture Format
Change the slide layout
| Pictures are very important components of many presentations, but sometimes you need to modify the original picture to get the best effect. And you can do that direct from PowerPoint. Unless you want to make sophisticated changes, you can do most things without needing separate picture editing software. |
| Lesson 20: Drawing objects |
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Create drawing objects using the Drawing toolbar
Change line and fill colour
Overlap drawings
Create semitransparent shapes
Send a drawing behind text
Group and ungroup drawings
Flip and rotate drawing objects
Nudge drawing objects
| You've seen how to add graphics using the AutoShapes feature. However, PowerPoint's Drawing feature allows you to take control and create your own graphics. In this lesson we look at the basics of creating and editing drawing objects and how to enhance them and group them to build up your own images. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Insert a WordArt object
Change shape and style
Rotate text
Add special effect
Edit the WordArt format
| PowerPoint has a special program called WordArt, which allows you to create special text effects, which you can edit and enhance in the same way as other graphic objects. |
| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Select a chart AutoFormat
Edit the chart datasheet
Close the datasheet
Change the chart type
Select a 3-D view
Change the chart sub-type
| Any presentations which involve figures or statistics are much easier to understand if they are shown as a chart. PowerPoint makes it very easy to incorporate charts. |
| Lesson 23: Stand-alone presentations |
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| Learn how to... | Tutor's summary |
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Run Pack and Go
Select a file to pack
Select a destination
Use Links
Include Viewer
Unpack a presentation
| In other lessons of this course, we've concentrated on creating presentations and running them with PowerPoint. And that's fine if you are making presentations to use on your own computer. But what if you want to show a presentation somewhere else, on a computer that isn't equipped with PowerPoint? You can do that by creating a stand-alone presentation. |
Pre-defined curricula
Like all courses at the Reeltime College this course comes supplied with a number of predefined curricula designed
to help you go straight to the subjects you're most interested in. Curricula supplied with this course include:
- Standard curriculum (all lessons)
- Presentation essentials
- Help
- Outlining
- Slide appearance
- Notes and handouts
- Animation
- Drawing and pictures
- Pack and Go
- Personal curriculum (designed by you)
What will I need to enrol?
This is what you need to get the most from the course:
- A Pentium-class PC with Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000 or XP.
- Sound card and loudspeakers or headphones
- A CD-ROM drive (or DVD drive) either on the PC or accessible over a
local network.
- Approximately 10 Mb spare disk capacity. If you have another 30 Mb
spare, you can choose to copy introduction movies onto the hard disk.
- If you download the course handbook, you'll need approximately 2 Mb
spare for the download.
- The course assumes you have a copy of the target software
(PowerPoint 97) correctly installed on your computer. If not, you'll be
able to watch the movie segments, but not complete the hands-on
segments.
You can enrol on the course by using the Reeltime software, which also
allows you to preview the course content off-line. For more information,
go to the How to join Reeltime College
page.
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