Microsoft PowerPoint practical exam questions
Microsoft PowerPoint practical exam questions PDF
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Practical Image Tips and Exercises for PowerPoint
Exercise 1: Remove Image Background
Eliminating a background from an image can make a big difference in the impact of an image.
- Insert the image
- From the Insert menu, choose an image from Picture, Clip Art, or Photo Album. TIP: This technique works best with clipart, which is more likely to have a solid color background. Photos often have too many blended colors in the background for this magic trick to work.
- Position the image
- Resize the image and move it to the desired location on the slide.
- To adjust which objects on the slide appear in front of or behind other objects (the order), first select an object. Under the Arrange menu, choose one of the 4 Order Objects options.
- In this example, the text boxes were moved to the top layer in order to be visible. However, if the “surprised man” image were moved to the back, it would be obscured by the “burst” graphic. The white background ruins the effect of the “burst” graphic. What to do?
- Make the background transparent
- Select the image. Under Picture Tools, click Format.
- On the left end of the Picture Format ribbon, click the down arrow next to Recolor to open the menu. Select Set Transparent Color (bottom option).
- Move your pointer over to the (still selected) image. The pointer arrow will have a little marker pen icon attached to it. Click anywhere in the white background area of the image.
Voila! No more white background. The image can be moved around and resized and the background will remain transparent.
Exercise 2: DIY Graphics
It isn’t hard to create your own simple graphic images using the shapes in PowerPoint. In this example, a circus ball is made from a circle and star shapes.
- Create the ball.
- From the Insert menu, click Shapes to open the drop-down menu.
- Under Basic Shapes, select the oval tool.
- Move your pointer over to the slide. To draw a circle, hold down the Shift key while you clickand-drag across the slide.
TIP: Use a blank slide to create shapes. Make the shape big so it’s easy to work with. You can resize it later and copy/paste it into other slides.
- Color the ball
- Select the circle. Under Drawing Tools, click Format to open the object formatting tools.
- Under Shape Fill, choose a color to fill the shape area. Under Shape Outline, choose a color for the outline.
- Create the stars
Stars are an appropriate decoration for a circus ball.
From the Insert menu, click Shapes to open the drop-down menu.
Under Stars and Banners, select the 5-point star tool.
Move your pointer over to the slide. To draw a star, click-and-drag across the slide.
Under Shape Fill, choose a color to fill the shape area. Under Shape Outline, choose a color for the outline.
TIP: It’s not necessary to draw the star inside the circle. You can color it, resize it and move it into the circle later.
- Add decorations to the ball
You could have one big star on the ball but you may want many smaller stars.
To resize the star, select it and:
o Under Drawing Tools, click Format to open the object formatting tools. Enter values into the Height and Width boxes (far right).
o Or click-and-drag on a corner point to eyeball the desired size.
Copy-and-paste as many stars as you would like for the ball.
Move each star inside the circle of the ball. Use the green “handle” to rotate the star as desired.
- Finishing touches
To Group all the shapes into one object, select all of the objects that make up the circus ball.
From the Formatting tools, find Group (or rightclick on the selected objects). Choose Group.
To add a shadow to the ball, under Shape Effects, choose Shadow.
Now place the finished ball in a slide and enjoy your handywork.
Alignment and Order exercise
This exercise will give you lots of practice with a variety of alignment commands.
(Note: see step #8 for image of the end product of this exercise.)
- Create title text
Start from a blank slide.
Select the text box tool and add a text box. Enter appropriate text. Choose font style and size.
Resize text box by pulling side, top and/or corner handles to stretch across the top of the slide.
- Create background blended fill
From the Format menu, click Background to create a background fill.
In the Background window, click the drop-down arrow and select Fill Effects.
In the Fill Effects window, click One color.
Click the drop-down arrow to choose a color.
Under Shading styles, choose Horizontal (the default). You may want to click the other variations to see previews of the effects.
Under Variants, click the dark-top-to-lightbottom variant. Click OK.
In the Background window again, click Apply. You may click Preview to see what the effect will look like on a full slide.
If you want this blend to apply to all slides in the set, click Apply to All.
- Create graph lines
Make sure the Drawing toolbar is visible.
Select the line tool and draw a horizontal line from side to side on the slide.
Copy the line and paste it 6 times for a total of 7 lines.
Separate them so they are distinguishable from one another.
Format the bottom line to be visibly thicker
(Menu bar: Format > Autoshape > Colors and Lines tab > Line Weight: 5.75 pt)
- Align graph lines
Select all lines by holding down the Shift key and clicking on each line.
Click Draw on the Drawing toolbar.
Select Align or Distribute > Align Left.
With the lines still selected, move all of them so that they touch the left border of the slide.
- Distribute graph lines
Select the top line and move it up to the position that will mark the top of the graph.
Select all the lines by holding down the Shift key and clicking on each line.
Click Draw on the Drawing toolbar.
Select Align or Distribute > Distribute Vertically.
- Add rectangles
Select the rectangle tool and draw a rectangle.
In the formatting menu (Format > Autoshape), select the Colors and Line tab and choose colors and border line width.
Drag the side ‘handle’ to resize it to a width that you like.
Copy the rectangle and paste to create a second rectangle.
Select both rectangles, align their bottom edges and drag them down to meet the bottom line.
With both rectangles still selected, click Draw > Order > Send to Back on the Drawing toolbar so that the graph lines show in front of the shapes.
Drag the top handle of one rectangle to meet the top line. Drag the top handle of the other rectangle to an appropriate height on the graph lines.
- Add text boxes
Select the text box tool and add four text boxes.
Enter appropriate text in each box. Choose font style, size and color.
For the two text boxes that are labels for the rectangles, click and drag the rotation handle and rotate counterclockwise 90◦.
Drag each text label into a rectangle. Click Draw > Order > Bring to Front. Place the number/% text boxes over the top of each associated rectangle
Select the text label, the number/% text box and the associated rectangle. Click Draw > Align and Distribute > Align Center. Do the same with the other set of label, number and rectangle.