Start by writing the text

Here’s the best piece of advice you will ever get about creating a PowerPoint presentation: Write the text of the presentation before going anywhere near PowerPoint. Focus on the words to begin with. This way, you focus on what you want to communicate, not slide layouts or graphic designs or fonts. If you work in Microsoft Word, you can take advantage of the outline feature to import your outline straight into a PowerPoint presentation. People enjoy doodling with PowerPoint slides because it distracts them from focusing on what really matters in a presentation that is, what’s meant to be communicated. Building an argument is hard work. People who can afford it pay lawyers and ghostwriters to do the job for them. Building an argument requires thinking long and hard about your topic, putting yourself in the place of an audience member who doesn’t know the topic as well as you, and convincing the audience member that you’re right. You can do this hard work better in Word, without the carnival atmosphere of PowerPoint to distract you. In Word, simply write down the text you want to put on each slide. Later, you can copy the text into a PowerPoint presentation. If you’re comfortable with Word’s outline feature write the PowerPoint text in outline form. Moving headings around is easy in Outline view, and, you can import a Word outline straight into a PowerPoint presentation. After the outline arrives in PowerPoint, you get one slide for each Level 1 heading. Level 1 headings form the titles of the slides, Level 2 headings form first-level bullets, and Level 3 headings form second-level bullets.

Getting a Better View of Your Work

When you work on a presentation, some views are better than others. To change views, click a View button in the lower-left corner of the window or open the View menu and choose Normal, Slide Sorter, Slide Show, or Notes Page. Click a tab at the top of the task pane in Normal view to see thumbnail slides or outline text. Why choose one view over the other? Here’s why:

 -  Normal/Outline view for fiddling with the text: To enter text or read the text in a presentation, switch to Normal view and select the Outline tab (you can find it at the top of the task pane). The words on the slides appear in the task pane. You can select a slide and click a button on the Outlining toolbar to move the slide forward or backward in the presentation.

 -  Normal/Slides view for moving from slide to slide: Switch to Normal view and click the Slides tab when you want to move around in a presentation or work on a particular slide. Thumbnail slides appear in the task pane. Scroll to and select a slide to make it appear on-screen.

 -  Slide Sorter view for moving and deleting slides: In Slide Sorter view, you see thumbnails of all the slides in the presentation. From here, moving slides around is easy, and seeing many slides simultaneously gives you a sense of whether the different slides are consistent with one another.

 -  Slide Show view for giving the show: In Slide Show view, you see a single slide. This is what the slide will look like to the audience when you give the presentation. To quit Slide Show view, press the Esc key.

 -  Notes Page view for reading your speaker notes: In Notes Page view, you see notes you have written to aid in the presentation, if you’ve written any. This view is available only on the View menu.

 -  Grayscale, Black and White: Sometimes color on slides, not to mention animations and graphics, is a distraction. To strip down slides to their bare essence, click the Color/Grayscale button on the Standard toolbar and choose Grayscale or Pure Black and White on the drop-down list. Pure Black and White is especially useful for focusing on text. These commands do not actually change the color on slides they change the slides’ appearance only on your computer monitor. You can close the task pane in Normal view if it gets in your way. To close it, click the Close button. To see the task pane again, choose View -> Normal (Restore Panes). In Normal view, you can make the Outline tab show all the text on slides or just the titles. On the Outlining toolbar, click the Expand All button (or press Alt+Shift+9) to see all the text; click the Collapse All button (or press Alt+Shift+1) to see the titles.

Inserting Slides and Choosing Layouts

After you’ve written the text for the presentation, it’s time to create the slides. To that end, PowerPoint offers slide layouts, preformatted slides into which you can plug headings, bulleted lists, graphics, tables, charts, and whatnot. You can also insert a slide by duplicating one you’ve already made or steal slides from another presentation. Better keep reading.

Inserting a new slide and layout

The first layout is a title slide meant for the first slide in presentations; the other slides are known simply as slides in PowerPoint-speak (the sidebar, “Slides and title slides,” explains the difference between title slides and slides). The important thing to remember about these layouts is that you can change them whenever you want, although changing layouts can be problematic, for example, if you entered a graphic or bulleted list on the slide and you choose a layout that doesn’t have placeholders for graphics or bulleted lists. To apply a layout to a slide, click the layout in the Slide Layout task pane. Follow these steps to insert a new slide and give it a slide layout:

1. Select the slide that you want the new slide to go after. In Normal view, select the slide on the Slides pane (select the Slides tab, if necessary). In Slide Sorter view, select the slide in the main window.

2. Click the New Slide button, press Ctrl+M, or choose Insert -> New Slide. A slide appears, as does the Slide Layout task pane. The task pane offers 26 slide layouts. Try to find a layout that works for the slide you’re creating. If you can’t find one, choose the Blank layout and prepare to do a lot of formatting work on your own.

3. Scroll through the layouts and select the one you want. Go ahead and experiment. When you select a layout in the task pane, the slide adopts the layout. Here are a couple of shortcuts for inserting slides in presentations:

 -  Select a slide that’s already there, choose Insert -> Duplicate Slide, and then change the text on the duplicate slide and move it elsewhere.

 -  In Normal view, select a slide and press Enter. Doing so inserts a Title and Text slide (a slide with a placeholder for a heading and a bulleted list) after the slide you selected. If you mistakenly choose the wrong layout for a slide, you can choose another. Select the slide, choose Format -> Slide Layout, and choose a different layout in the Slide Layout task pane

Stealing slides from other presentations

Stealing is wrong, of course, except when stealing slides from other PowerPoint presentations. If slides you developed for another presentation will do the trick, don’t hesitate to steal them:

1. Select the slide that you want the new slide or slides to follow.

2. Choose Insert -> Slides from Files to open the Slide Finder dialog box.

3. Click the Browse button to open the Browse dialog box and select the PowerPoint presentation with the slides you want to steal. Slides from the presentation appear in the Slide Finder dialog box.

4. Select the file you need. Click the Insert All button to grab all of them. Otherwise, Ctrl+click to select multiple slides. You can click the unnamed buttons in the dialog box to see the slides in thumbnail or outline form.

5. Click the Insert button to insert your slides in the presentation you’re working on. Slides that you copy this way adopt the slide design or color background of the presentation you’re working on. Be sure to examine the slides to make sure that nothing on the new slides was lost, obscured, mutilated, or spindled by the new design. Dark backgrounds, for example, can sometimes obscure text. To copy slides with their designs intact, select the Keep Source Formatting check box in the Slide Finder dialog box.

Moving and Deleting Slides

As a presentation takes shape, you sometimes have to move a slide forward or backward in the presentation. And sometimes you have to delete a slide. To perform these relatively simple tasks, switch to Slide Sorter or Normal view and do the following:

 -  Deleting a slide: Click the slide and then press the Delete key or rightclick it and choose Delete Slide.

 -  Moving a slide: Click the slide you want to move and drag it to a new position. A vertical line (in Slide Sorter view) or horizontal line (in Normal view) shows where the slide will land when you release the mouse button. With the Outline pane displayed, you can also move a slide by selecting it and clicking the Move Up or Move Down button on the Outlining toolbar. In my experience, Slide Sorter view is best for moving slides around because you can grab the slides and move them more easily. You can move several slides simultaneously as long as they are next to each other. To select the slides, Ctrl+click them.

Entering the Text

It goes without saying, but you can’t have much of a PowerPoint presentation without text. This article describes everything a mere mortal needs to know about putting the text on slides. It explains text frames, getting the text from a Word document, tending to the appearance of slide text, and putting lists on slides. You also find out what speaker notes are and how they can assist you in giving a presentation.

Entering Text on Slides

After you have decided what your presentation is all about, the next step is to enter the text on the slides. The other way is to switch to Normal view, select the Outline tab to see the Outline pane, and enter text there. Text you type next to a slide icon in the Outline pane becomes the title of the slide. To see formatting text in the Outline pane, click the Show Formatting button. When this button is selected, text that is boldfaced, italicized, and underlined in the presentation looks that way in the Outline pane as well.

Making Text Fit in Frames

When headings, paragraphs, and lists don’t fit in a text frame, PowerPoint starts by shrinking the amount of space between lines. Then the program shrinks the text itself. You can tell when PowerPoint has shrunk the text because the AutoFit Options icon appears by the frame when the frame is selected. When text doesn’t fit in a frame, the first question to ask yourself is, “Do I want to fool with the integrity of the slide design?” Making the text fit usually means shrinking the text, enlarging the text frame, or compromising the slide design in some way, but audiences notice design inconsistencies. Slides are shown on large screens where design flaws are easy to see. If heading text is shrunk on one slide and the heading frame is enlarged on the next one, the audience may notice the inconsistency and conclude that the presentation is the work of . . . an amateur! Making text fit in a frame usually means making a compromise. Here are different ways to handle the problem of text not fitting in a frame. Be prepared to click the Undo button (or press Ctrl+Z) as you test these techniques:

 -  Edit the text: Usually when text doesn’t fit in a frame, the text needs editing. It needs to be made shorter. A slide is not a place for a treatise. The words on the slide are supposed to tell the audience what you’re talking about, not provide a full explanation. Editing the text is the only way to make it fit in the frame without compromising the design.

 -  Enlarge the frame: Click the AutoFit Options button and choose Stop Fitting Text to Placeholder. Then select the frame and drag the bottom or top selection handle the round white circle to enlarge it.

 -  Increase or decrease the font size: The easiest way to change font sizes is to select the text and click the Increase Font Size or Decrease Font Size button as many times as necessary to make the text fit within the frame.

 -  Change the frame’s internal margins: Similarly to the design of a page, text frames have internal margins to keep text from getting too close to the frame border. By shrinking these margins, you can make more room for text. Right-click the text frame and choose Format Placeholder. Then, on the Text Box tab of the Format Placeholder dialog box, enter smaller measurements for the margins.

 -  Create a new slide for the text: If you’re dealing with a list or paragraph text, the AutoFit Options menu offers two ways to create a new slide. Choose Continue on a New Slide to run the text onto another slide; choose Split Text Between Two Slides to divide the text evenly between two slides. Neither option is recommended, though. If you need to make a new slide, do it on your own, and rethink how to present the material. Inserting a new slide to accommodate a long list throws a presentation off-track.

Making Your Own Text Frames

Intrepid travelers will be glad to know that you don’t have to rely solely on the text frames in slide layouts. You can create text frames of your own. And PowerPoint permits you to turn an autoshape into a text frame as well.

 -  Text frame: To insert a text frame of your own, choose Insert -> Text Box or click the Text Box button on the Drawing toolbar. The cursor changes into a cross hair. Click and drag to draw the frame.

 -  Autoshape: To insert an autoshape, click the AutoShapes button on the Drawing toolbar and, on the pop-up menu, choose the kind of shape you want and then the shape itself from the submenu. Drag on the slide to draw the shape. Click in a text box or autoshape and start typing to enter the text. The Increase Font Size and Decrease Font Size buttons come in very handy when you are trying to make text fit in a text box or autoshape.

Changing the Look of Text

Most of the text-formatting commands that you know and love in Microsoft Word are also available in PowerPoint. These options are available in the Font dialog box, which you can open by choosing Format -> Font. You can also take advantage of these text-formatting shortcuts:

 -  Changing fonts: Select the text and choose an option from the Font drop-down list on the Formatting toolbar.

 -  Changing font size: Select the text and choose an option on the Font Size drop-down list. For your convenience, you can also click the Increase Font Size or Decrease Font Size buttons until the text is just so.

 -  Choosing character styles: Click the Bold, Italic, Underline, or Shadow button to change the look of the letters.

 -  Changing the color of text: Select the text, open the Font Color button’s menu and select a color.

 -  Changing case: Case refers to whether letters are upper- or lowercase. Press Shift+F3 as many times as necessary until the letters are the right case: Sentence case, lowercase, UPPERCASE, or Title Case. You can also choose Format -> Change Case and make a choice in the Change Case dialog box. To quickly change fonts throughout a presentation, PowerPoint offers the Format -> Replace Fonts command. Going to the Slide Master is another way to change fonts throughout a presentation.