Advanced course to acquire the basics of PowerPoint 2016
Advanced course to acquire the basics of PowerPoint 2016
...
Design Considerations
When planning a presentation, it is important to note design considerations relating to the environment, target audience, assimilation of information and delivery. Let us look at these four aspects in turn. Part of the planning impact relates to the environment, in particular audience size, room and facilities provided. A large audience means an impersonal presentation, however a small audience implies a more personal presentation with more individual attention. The room is important too. In a large lecture theatre, you will probably require a microphone and sound system to ensure, that you can be heard.
The lighting may have an impact on the choice of colour scheme and contrasts for your presentation. It is also important to know about computer facilities, projectors and electrical power points. Do you need to provide a laptop? If not, does the PC have PowerPoint software and if so, which version? Is there a projector? Where are the electrical power points located? (You do not want to be rummaging about a semi-dark room looking for power points!) If possible, the moral is to check out the room BEFORE you give the presentation, else liaise with the organisers. You need to ask yourself lots of questions about the audience.
Who are talking to? What is the age and gender? Are there any cultural issues? Be careful of misunderstandings and different symbolism. What is the educational level/technical background of the audience? You may need to avoid jargon and technical terms. It may also be useful to know their likes and dislikes. People may assimilate most information from pictures, images or charts. Any text used on slides should support the graphics. Please do not put too much detail on the slide, as it may be distracting. Use the 7±2 rule. Stick to no more than 7±2 lines and words within a line. With regard to slide design, you need to be mindful of fonts, font size, colours and have a consistent design by using templates. Sans serif fonts, such as Arial and Verdana are easier to read than serif fonts like Times Roman.
The font size depends on the room size and distance of the audience from the screen. If in doubt, go large. When considering colours for a slide, a fair choice is blue background and gold text. Do not use too many colours, as it may be distracting. Stick to two or three colours mainly. Be aware of cultural implications associated with colours and symbols. Be aware of different emotional effects, for example red stimulates and blue calms. Avoid green - due to colour blindness problems. Finally, we consider delivery. The presentation needs to follow a logical sequence and should be tailored to time available. Bear in the mind the attention span of your audience too. Consider the time interval for each slide. For example, for a thirty minutes talk, allow twenty minutes for the talk itself with a minute per slide and allow ten minutes for questions.
2 Slides and Presentations
In this section, we focus on slide and presentation setup. In particular, we shall look at creating a template with special features, such as custom fill effects, logo and line spacing. We shall also look at custom fill effects later for individual slide(s). We shall merge presentations from either a complete separate presentation or a word processed outline. Finally, we shall save a slide(s) in a different format, such as Tagged Image File Format (tif), Graphical Image Files for Line drawings (gif), Joint Photographic Experimental Group for photos (jpeg) or, Windows Paint’s BitMaP (bmp).
2.1 Setup
2.1.1 Template creation with special effects.
You may create and save your own templates with a designed background, logo and different line spacing for your bulleted slides. Other ideas, which are not included in this section, are 1) altering placeholders’ sizes, 2) different fills for different parts of the slide and 3) having a separate Title Master. For successful creation of a template, you need to open a blank presentation and work in the Slide Master rather an individual bulleted slide. Exercise. Follow the instructions in these notes for all parts a) to d) First, open a blank presentation and work with the Slide Master View Menu => Master => Slide Master
… … ..
- b) Inserting a Logo Note. The logo will appear on all slides including the Title Slide. Insert the QMUL logo. On the Slide Master Insert Menu => Picture => From File… Navigate to the appropriate folder and file called QMUL_crown.gif . Click on the Insert button and position the logo.
- c) Changing the spacing between bullet points On the Slide Master Insert the cursor after the first level bullet point Select all levels by either Edit Menu => Select All or CTRL and A Format Menu => Line Spacing… => Line Spacing section For example, increase from 1 to 2 and the gap between the first and second point is increased. Hit the OK button. Close the Slide Master View
- d) Saving the Template File Menu => Save as … Change the File Type to Design Template (*.pot). Supply a name, for example, Apex211.pot and hit the OK button.
…
2.1.2 Merge slides, a complete presentation with an existing presentation
In PowerPoint, highlight the current slide after which the new slide(s) will be inserted. Open File called Apex212.ppt and in outline view click after the second slide. Insert Menu => Slides from Files… => Find Presentation tab. Use the Browse… button to navigate to the required slide(s), for example Communicating Bad News.ppt or BadNews.ppt .
Either select an individual slide(s) by clicking and then hit the Insert button
OR, click on Insert All to include all.
Note.
Either Check the Keep Source Formatting box, if the original imported schema is required
OR Untick the box and the imported slides have the current presentation characteristics.
Click on Close to complete the action.
2.1.3 Merge a Word Processed Outline into a Presentation.
Here a RTF (Rich Text Format) document created in Word is incorporated into the Presentation. Please see the Warning at the end of this section. In PPT, highlight the current slide after which the new slide(s) will be inserted. Insert Menu => Slides from Outline… In the dialog box, navigate to appropriate folder and file called Apex213.rtf All slides are incorporated.
Aside. In Word.
Carefully create a Rich Text Format (RTF) File. The Slide title is Heading 1 style and centred with Font 22 Points. The Bullet points are Heading 2 style and left justified with Font 16 Points. End line with the ENTER or Return key.
Note. Numbering is lost and replaced with Bullet points.
2.1.4 Apply graduated background fill colours, texture, patterns, picture fill effect to a slide or slides in a Presentation.
On the Slide
Click on either the Body or the Title Placeholder
Format Menu => Format Placeholder… => Colors and Lines tab => Fill section
Complete as before. See section 2.1.1 of these notes for further details.
2.2 Exporting
2.2.1 Save a slide to a drive in any of gif, tif, jpg or bmp format.
Saving a slide as a graphical file.
Click on the required slide.
File Menu => Save As…
From the dialog box, click on the pull down list alongside, Save as Type
Select any of gif, tif, jpg and bmp. For example, select tif or jpg for photos.
Type in the filename, say Apex221
A further dialog box appears …
Further dialog box of do you want to save every side or current slide only?
Click on the Current Slide Only button to complete the task.
You may save an individual picture using a different method.
Select the picture, then RIGHT Click and select ‘Save As Picture …’.
Provide a file name, file type and storage location.
Aside 1.
Use Paint to view bmp or gif files. Firefox or Mozilla to view the tif or jpg files
Aside 2.
Office 2002 includes the MS Photo Editor (PhotoEd.exe) and Office 2003 &
2007 include MS Photo Manager (OIS.exe). Internet Explorer re-directs jpg files into either the Photo Editor or Photo Manager respectively.
3 Pictures, Images and Drawn Objects
This large section of the course deals with manipulation, applying effects and editing images. Unfortunately, not all items on the ECDL Advanced Presentation syllabus can be produced by PowerPoint alone. Some items require third party software, such as Adobe Photoshop or JASC Paintshop to manipulate and edit images. Also different versions of PowerPoint have different capabilities. For example, only versions 2002 and above can rotate images.
3.1 Manipulation
In this section, the manipulation tasks are performed. They are :- converting or breaking an image (for example a Windows MetaFile (.wmf) ) into an object(s), grouping/ungrouping, re-ordering and re-positioning objects. Open file Apex3.ppt for most of the examples in this section.
3.1.1 Convert (or break) a WMF picture into an object
Go to the Slide with the Title ‘Break a Picture’ (Slide 3)
Select the Pound Currency graphic
Edit Menu => Picture Object.
The Confirm box appears and click on the Yes button.
To view the main object and its two components, do the below instructions.
Drawing Toolbar => Ungroup
There now should be three objects denoted by three green rotation dots.
Click away from the graphic and then click firmly on the £ blue circle.
Try and move the Pound within the blue circle away from the left graphic.
3.1.2 Group and Ungroup Objects on slide
- a) Group objects on a slide (into a super object)
Select the objects.
Click on the first object and for subsequent objects use Ctrl key and Click
Drawing Toolbar => Draw pop up menu => Group (Altematively, use RIGHT Click => Grouping… => Group )
- b) Ungroup objects on a slide.
Select the single grouped object.
Drawing Toolbar => Draw pop up menu => Ungroup (Altematively, use RIGHT Click => Grouping… => Ungroup )