Slide Creation

Introduction

If you create a presentation using either the AutoContent Wizard or a design template, a presentation with ready-made slides would be created for you. If you start a presentation from scratch, you would have to create your own slides as you see fit. The primary difference is that, the slides created from a presentation from scratch don't have any design: they are presented with a white background. This gives you complete freedom to customize their appearance.

Whether you start a presentation from scratch or you are using an already created presentation, you can add or insert a new slide any time. If you work from a blank presentation, a new slide would appear empty. If the presentation already has a design, that design would automatically be applied to it.

If you start a new presentation from scratch, you must create a new slide every time you need one. To create a slide, you can select one from the Slide Layout. To display the Slide Layout:

• On the main menu, you can click Insert -> New Slide
• On the Formatting toolbar, you can click the New Slide button
• At any time, you can press Ctrl + M

There are two broad categories of slides used in a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation:

• The first slide is meant to serve as a cover, like the cover of a book. In Microsoft PowerPoint, this is called the Title Slide
• The other slides usually share a common design as far as the background is concerned

To make a presentation fun, the slides use different layout, offering you automatic items such as lists, placeholders for pictures, charts, etc.

Although a slide can contain just about any type of graphic design, the primary content of a slide is text. If you create a presentation from scratch, you would be presented with empty slides. In this case, you must add text as you see fit. To make it easy to manipulate its content, the text of a slide is entered into "physical" objects called text boxes. In future lessons, we will learn that this allows you to move a whole block of text as if it were a picture.

Text of a slide is typically divided in two sections. The title in the top section gives an outline of the particular subject that would be discussed while the slide is displaying. Under the title, there is a text box that contains a bulleted list. The items in the bulleted list can also contain sub-items.

When you add a new slide, it appears with placeholders for text. The title displays "Click to add title". To change it, simply click that line and start typing. To move from the title to the other section, you can click its "Click to add text" line or you can press Ctrl + Enter. In this case also, you can just start typing.

The sample presentations that Microsoft PowerPoint provide allow you to easily create a presentation using an already formatted document. The outline of those presentations will hardly fulfill what you want your presentation to contain. In this case you would have to change the text in the slides. Another type of situation you may encounter is if somebody such as your boss, a friend or a customer wants you to create a presentation based on items he or she wants to include in a presentation. Fortunately Microsoft PowerPoint can accept almost text created in almost any format and include it in a presentation. This means that you can use an ASCII text document or a Microsoft Word file, etc.

Microsoft PowerPoint is ready to accept just about any type of text in its slides, even including a whole book. But, because Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation software and not a regular text editor, you should prepare an outline that would be used. If a boss, a friend or a customer hands you a piece of text or a document that should be used as the content of the presentation, either you or the other person can prepare it first.

To prepare an outline that would be used in a presentation, its text must be formatted as a list. The list doesn't need to be professional. Including one item per line is a good start. This also means that each line of item should be explicit enough but short so that it can fit on one (short) line. Each line can also have a sub-item. Such a sub-item can easily be created by pressing Tab before typing its text.

1. Start Notepad
2. In the empty file, type Course Outline and press Enter
3. Press Tab
4. Type Arlette Mimosa (or your name) and press Enter
5. Type Web Languages and press Enter
6. Press Tab
7. Type Markup Languages and press Enter
8. Press Tab twice
9. Type HTML and press Enter
10. Complete the file as follows:
     

    Course Outline Arlette Mimosa The Internet Computer Networks Inter-network (Domains) Intranet Extranet Security and Related Issues Role of a Web Site Goal Web Pages Graphics Copyright Issues Web Languages Active Web Client/Server Forms ADO/ASP/ASP.NET PHP SQL XForms SOAP Markup Languages HTML XML XHTML Scripts JavaScript VBScript Perl Web Design Accessories HTML Editors Professional Scripting Plug-Ins Web Site Delivery Hosting Free Hosting Commercial Hosting Internet Intranet VPN and Remote Access Mobile Computing Visitor/Customer Interactions Databases Forums Newsgroups Newsletters eCommerce Introduction to eCommerce Customers Transactions Product Delivery Type of Delivery Product Support/After Sale Handling Complaints Customer Service Final Touches Further Help Questions and Answers Final Recommendations

11. Save the file as Web Design.txt in your Microsoft PowerPoint Exercises folder
12. Close Notepad
13. On the main menu of Microsoft PowerPoint, click File -> Open
14. Locate your Microsoft PowerPoint Exercises folder and display it in the Look In combo box
15. Change the Files of Type to All Files
16. Select the Web Design.txt file you had created
     
    
17. Click Open
     
    
18. Save the presentation as Web Design in your Microsoft PowerPoint Exercises folder
19. To close Microsoft PowerPoint, press Alt+F4

In the above section, we were simulating the idea of somebody giving you an outline for a presentation. In some other cases, you would have to create a presentation from your own text. To make it more original, you may also want to work from a blank presentation so you would show your own design.

As mentioned already, to create a blank presentation, when Microsoft PowerPoint starts, you can select the Blank Presentation radio button and proceed from there.

1. Start Microsoft PowerPoint

2. Type Alcoholism in the new empty slide

3. Click the Click To Add Subtitle and type Ralph Antonis (or your name)

4. To save the presentation, press Ctrl + S

5. Set the name to Alcoholism Factor and click Save

6. To add another slide, on the main menu, click Insert -> New Slide...

7. In the new slide, click Click To Add Title and type Definitions

8. Press Ctrl + Enter and type Alcoholism

9. Press Enter and type Intoxication

10. Press Enter and type Diseases

11. Press Enter and type Who is an Alcoholic?

12. To add another slide, press Ctrl + M

13. In the new slide, type Drinkers: An Analysis

14. Press Ctrl + Enter and type Gender Differences

15. On the left side of the screen, click the Outline tab and click on the right side of Gender Differences

16. Press Enter and type Drinking Among College Students

17. Press Enter and type "Time Out" and Alcohol "Myopia"

18. Still on the left side of the screen, click on the right side of Analysis

19. Press Enter and type Cultural Differences

20. Press Enter and press Tab

21. Type Regional Differences in the US

22. Press Ctrl + End to get to the end of the presentation
23. To insert another slide, press Ctrl + Enter
24. Type Social Problems
25. Press Enter and press Tab
26. Type Driving Under the Influence
27. Press Enter and type Crime and Violence
28. Complete the slide so that it would have the following content:
     

    Social Problems Driving Under the Influence Crime and Violence Homicide Assault and Other Crimes of Violence Suicide Alcohol and Violence

29. Still in the left frame, if necessary, click on the ride of Alcohol and Violence. Press Enter
30. Press Shift+Tab
31. Type Conclusion
32. Press Enter and press Tab
33. Complete the slide with the following contents
     

    Conclusion Information and Resources Forum - Exchange - Discussion Final Words

34. Using the scroll buttons on the vertical scroll bar, scroll up to slide 2

35. In the right frame, click any item on the bulleted list, for example, click Intoxication

36. Press Ctrl + End to move the caret to the end of the slide

37. Press Enter and type Alcoholism as a Disease

38. Press Enter and type Primary Diagnosis

39. Press Enter and type Treatment

40. To close Microsoft PowerPoint, press Alt, f, x

41. When asked whether you want to save the presentation, press Enter (or click Yes) 

If you create a presentation using either AutoContent Wizard or a template, a design would be automatically applied to the slides of your presentation. You may not like that design or you may find it incomplete. To solve this problem, you can add new objects or change the appearance of objects in the slides. If you created a blank presentation, the slides would not receive a design. You can create your own design and apply it to the slides. In future lessons, we will learn how to address these two issues.

If you are familiar with the designs offered by Microsoft PowerPoint templates, you can apply any of them to your presentation. This allows you either to change the design of a presentation created using the AutoContent Wizard or a template, or to apply a ready-made design to a blank presentation.

If you have been handed the outline of a presentation or you create your own outline, instead of creating a blank presentation without a design, you can select a design and automatically apply it.

1. Start Microsoft PowerPoint
2. On the right side, click Create A New Presentation...
3. On the right side, click From Design Template
4. Under Available For Use, click the button for Mountain Top (1st column - 7th row) and observe the slide
    
   
5. Under Available For Use, click Competition (2nd column - 10th row)  and observe the slide
6. Under Available For Use, click Blends (1st column - 22nd row)
7. In the slide, click the Click To Add Title line and type Human Body Structure
8. Click the Click To Add Subtitle section to move the caret to the lower section of the slide
9. Type Helene Mukoko (or your name) and click outside of the marked box
   
   
10. To add another slide, on the main menu, click Insert -> New Slide...
11. Type Body Organization
12. Click the Click To Add Text section
13. Type Definitions: Tissue, Cell, Muscle and press Enter
14. Complete the slide content as follows:
     
    
15. To insert another slide, on the Formatting toolbar, click New Slide
16. Type Digestion and press Ctrl + Enter
17. Type Nutrition - Digestion and press Enter
18. Type The Mouth
19. Complete the slide as follows:
     
    
20. To add another slide, press Ctrl + M
21. On the right side, scroll down and, under Other Layouts, click Title, Clip Art and Text
22. In the slide, click Click to Add Title and type Introduction and Overview
23. Click Click to add text to Add Text
24. Type Presenter
25. On the left side of Microsoft PowerPoint, click the Outline tab
26. Click on the right side of Presenter and press Enter
27. Type Subject Overview and press Enter
28. Type Presentation Approach
29. To add another slide, press Ctrl + Enter
30. Type Respiration and Press Enter
31. Type Air Circulation and press Tab. That will make the new line part of a bulleted list inside of the current slide
32. Press Enter
33. Type The Mechanics of Breathing and press Enter
34. Type Air Transport and Exchange
35. On the left side of Microsoft PowerPoint, click the Slides tab
36. To insert another slide, on the Formatting toolbar click the New Slide button
37. On the right side, under Text Layouts, click Title and 2-Column Text
38. Type The Circulatory System and press Ctrl + Enter
39. On the left list, type System Functions and press Enter
40. Type Heart and Blood Vessels and press Enter
41. Type The Blood
42. Press Ctrl + Enter to move to the other Click To Add Text column
43. Type Types of Blood Cells and press Enter
44. Type The Lymphatic System and press Enter
45. Type Diseases of the Circulatory System
46. On the left side of Microsoft PowerPoint, click the Outline tab if necessary.
    In the left section of the view, click one of the bulleted lines of slide 5, for example, click Mechanics
47. To add another slide, press Ctrl + Enter
48. Type Organisms Diversity
49. Press Enter and press Tab.
50. Type Fungi and press Enter
51. Type Viruses and press Enter
52. Type Protists and press Enter
53. Type Bacteria
54. To review slides in another view, on the main menu, click View -> Slide Sorter
55. To save the current presentation, on the menu bar, click File -> Save
56. In the File Name combo box, type Structure of the Human Body as the file name
57. Click Save

The quickest way to apply a fancy background to a blank presentation is to assign one of the designs that ship with Microsoft PowerPoint. These are good and already formatted designs ready to complete a presentation with an already configured set.

To apply one the designs to a presentation:

• On the main menu, you can click Format -> Slide Design...
• On the Formatting toolbar, click Design
• In the Normal View, you can right-click an unoccupied area of the slide and click Slide Design

The available designs would appear on the right side of the screen. You can then click the desired design.

1. To open a previously used presentation, on the main menu, click File and click Alcoholism Factor. If you don't see it, open the Alcoholism1 presentation
2. On the main menu, click Format -> Slide Design...
3. On the right section of the window, under Recently Used, click Mountain Top. If it doesn't appear, under Available For Use, click Mountain Top ((1st column - 7th row)
4. Close Microsoft PowerPoint
5. When asked whether you want to save, click Yes