PowerPoint BasicsTutorial 2: A Slide Show

In this tutorial you’re going to create a presentation from scratch. You will have to keep this presentation open to follow the instructions, so you’ll need to move from one

presentation to the other while creating your presentation.Principal control of presentations is from the Office button (you’re familiar with this

from the Microsoft Word 2007 Workshops).

1.Click the Office Button now.2.Click New.3.From the available Template you should find the Blank Presentation already selected.4.Click the Create button. A new instance of PowerPoint should open, with a new slide and placeholders for a title and a subtitle. Go to the next slide in this tutorial.

Office ButtonOffice ButtonQuick Access Quick Access

ToolbarToolbar

You’re now on Slide 2 Tutorial 2 – Creating a Slide Show

If you want your presentation to be read by earlier versions of PowerPoint you can save the file as a PowerPoint 97-2003 presentation. Note however that certain features native to PowerPoint 2007 will be lost in this way, and your presentation may not look quite like what you originally intended.Of course you can also install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack so that earlier versions of PowerPoint can read 2007 (.pptx) versions. However, in this case, you can only read the files but won’t be able to edit them – Refer to Notesheet 06 for more details.

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1

Before actually doing anything in your presentation, you should immediately save the new document.1.Go to Office Button > Save As…2.Find a place where to save the file (e.g. the Desktop), give it the name Slideshow and click Save.

A The Placeholders you see when you create a new slide are useful for people who create standard presentations. As teachers we may need to create slightly different presentations, and sometimes we don’t need these placeholders.3.Put the cursor somewhere on the top left of the slide, click and hold the right button and drag to highlight both placeholders. This is a good way of selecting a group of objects at once.4.On the keyboard, hit the Delete key.5.Save the presentation (click on the floppy disk icon on the Quick Access toolbar).

B

Now we’re going to insert a photograph as the background for this slide. We will do the same for the subsequent slides as we go along.6.Right-click anywhere on the slide, and select Format Background…7.Select Picture or Texture Fill.8.Click on Insert from File.9.Select Pictures > Sample Pictures and choose the first file in the list – Autumn Leaves.10.Click Insert and Close. The photo should take up all of the slide area.11.Save the presentation.Go to the next slide in this tutorial.

C

You’re now on Slide 3 Tutorial 2 – Creating a Slide Show

We’re now going to create a textbox and use the Font and Paragraph tools in the Ribbon.1.Create a text box (refer to Tutorial 1).2.Use Georgia, 24pt and type in the name of the picture file – Autumn Leaves.3.Highlight the whole text and set these attributes:

Font colour: white

Text style: Italic, Shadow

Justification: Center4.Make sure that the text box has a white outline (at least 2pt) and a transparent fill (no colour).5.Position the text box to the bottom left of the screen.6.Save the presentation.

A

Note:Whenever you move an object on the screen, this will not affect the background of the slide.

The next slide we’re going to create for our show will have exactly the same format as the first. So all we need to do is duplicate the first slide.7.Look at the left side of the screen. You should see a small thumbnail of the slide we have created. Click on this thumbnail.8.From the Home Ribbon, click Copy and Paste. A second slide is created, with the same text box, but with no background image.9.Use a different picture for this slide’s background, e.g. the second photo in the Sample Pictures folder.10.Change the information in the text box accordingly.11.Save the presentation.12.Now, repeat the process until you have a slide show with at least five pictures. Make sure you insert the appropriate information in every text box.13.Save the presentation.

B We have now created a very simply slide show. In the thumbnail gallery, scroll up and click on the first slide.14.Open the Slide Show Ribbon.15.Click From Beginning to view the show.16.To go from one slide to the next, click the left mouse button.17.The right mouse button will give you more options to navigate through the show.18.If you move the pointer to the bottom left of the screen you will see some buttons, including a back and a forward arrow button. You can click on these to navigate as well.This is a very simple show. We can make it more interesting by introducing transitions from one picture to the next. We can also time the slides to change automatically, and we can also add some background music.That’s what we’re going to do next.Go to the next slide in this tutorial.

C

You’re now on Slide 4 Tutorial 2 – Creating a Slide Show

Now that we have a nice slide show, how about making it look a little bit more snazzy?1.Open the View Ribbon and select the Slide Sorter from the Presentation Views tools. This will enable us to see all the slides at one go.2.Now open the Animations Ribbon. The main tools we’ll be using are all in the Transitions to This Slide tools area.3.Drag to highlight all the slides in the show. This will enable us to make a setting for all slides simultaneously.4.In the Advance Slide area (far right) deselect On Mouse Click and select Automatically After:5.In the timer text box enter 00:05 (5 seconds). This will automatically change the pictures after 5 seconds.6.Try it now by going to the Slide Show Ribbon and playing the show.7.Save the presentation.

A

Look at the various samples of slide transitions in the main part of the Animations Ribbon. We can apply the same transition effect to all slides by selecting them all as we did for the timing, or we can apply a separate transition for each slide.8.Click on the first slide.9.Click on the Dissolve button (sixth transition effect). A small star under the thumbnail indicates that this slide has a transition.10.Repeat for the other slides, trying out different transitions. You can find many more effects by clicking on the More button at the bottom right of the samples area.11.Save the presentation and try it out.

Experiment with other transition options…

B

Now it’s high time we added some evocative background music.12.Go back to the View Ribbon and select Normal View.13.Go to the first slide.14.Open the Insert Ribbon.15.From the Media Clips tools, click and hold the Sound button, and select Sound from File.16.Select More > Music > Sample Music > OK.17.Select Symphony_No_3 (it seems the most appropriate for this kind of slide show) and OK.18.In the next requester click Automatically. This will start the music as soon as the show starts.19.Notice a small speaker icon in the centre of the slide to indicate the sound file embedded in the show. Click on the icon and on the Sound Tools tab at the top of the screen.20.From the Play Sound options, select Play across Slides. This will keep the music playing while the pictures change.21.Save the presentation and try it out.

Experiment with the other sound options…

Go to the next slide in this tutorial.

CNote:Timer information now appears under the slide thumbnails in the Slide Sorter view.

You’re now on Slide 5 Tutorial 2 – Creating a Slide Show

Note:You can download a copy of the Slideshow presentation from the course’s website:

http://www.normancborg.net/tefl/ict4teachers/resources.html

The slide show we have created can be run on its own, without having to open PowerPoint. In this way it is like a short standalone movie or video clip.1.To do this go to the Office Button and click Save As…2.Select PowerPoint Show.3.You can keep the same name as the original PowerPoint presentation. Since it’s being saved in a different format it will not over-write your original work.4.Try it out now, saving the show on the Desktop. Close PowerPoint, and double-click on the slide show icon.

Other things to consider:Remember that the timing can be adjusted for each slide separately, just like the transition effect.By default PowerPoint will create a blank empty slide at the end of the show.Music will stop at the end of the last slide.You can press the ESC key on the keyboard any time to exit the show.Even with an automated slide show, you can use the left and right arrow keys to navigate forwards and backwards in a show. Music is not interrupted.

Other things to experiment with:Transition effects can have their own sounds and speeds.You’ve learned how to use some of the most important functions of PowerPoint with this project, but there’s a quicker way for creating picture slide shows. Open the Insert Ribbon, and from the Illustrations tools, select Photo Album. Follow the instructions. Once the album is created you can add in the music and transition effects.Think of some ways to apply this feature for classroom use.

That’s the end of this tutorial.