1. Introduction to PowerPoint
A Brief Overview of PowerPoint for Teaching in FAS
The Instructional Computing Group
FAS Computer Services

2. Introduction
This document illustrates some of the basic features of PowerPoint presentation software. PowerPoint allows users to create computer-based presentations, generate slides and overheads, and convert the presentation into formats suitable for the Web.

3. How to Get PowerPoint
PowerPoint is freely available to faculty through FAS Computer Services at the help desk in the basement of the Science Center.
Sorry, but we can’t just mail the disks to you.
Our license agreement requires that we have the serial number of the computer onto which Office will be installed and that the recipient sign a license agreement.
Faculty: call for more information.
If the version of PowerPoint you will be using on your own computer is older, you should be aware that some features may not be available or will be slightly different from those described in this document.
The versions of PowerPoint represented in the document are:
Apple, OSX: MS PowerPoint 2004.
PC, Windows XP: PowerPoint 2002

4. Creating a new presentation
File-->New
On PCs:
“Blank Presentation” defaults to black text on a white background.
“Design Templates” allows to you first select a slide design and then begin creating your presentation.
On Apples:
File-->New Presentation creates a new blank presentation.
Choose “Project Gallery”
Presentations-->Designs allows to you first select a slide design and then begin creating your presentation.
Presentations-->Content provides you with examples of pre-made presentations.
AutoContent Wizard is simple to use, but is pretty rigidly targeted toward business presentations.

5. Page Setup In File-->Page Setup, set: "Orientation"
"Slides sized for:"
Choose target media for presentation: on-screen show, overheads, 35 mm slides, etc.
"Orientation"
Chose whether you want the slides to be Landscape or Portrait; also set the orientation of your handouts.

6. View Menu Different views of your slides: Slide (Apple only)
A view of a single slide.
Move from one slide to another by using the scroll bar on the right side of the screen.
Slide Sorter
Shows reduced view of all slides in a show; you can re-order slides and apply transitions in this view. To see more slides on your screen, go to View Zoom and select a smaller percentage (keeping in mind the text on each slide will become harder to read onscreen).
Double-click a slide to open that slide in the normal "Slide" view.
Slide Show
This allows you to step through each slide as you will in an on-screen presentation. To move forward, simply click the mouse button. You can also use the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard to move backward and forward (respectively) through the show. The "Esc" key will exit the slide show altogether.
Outline
Shows the information presented on each slide in a textual outline format. Optionally, edit and create new slides here.
Normal View
Shows each slide on a separate page, along with space to add speaker’s notes and comments. You can print these out prior to a presentation to help guide you through your talk.

7. View Menu Toolbars Ruler/Guides Header/Footer
Toolbars appear as buttons at the top and bottom of the PowerPoint screen, and also may "float” elsewhere on the screen. Just as in other Office applications, you can rearrange these toolbars.
If a toolbar seems to be missing, just go to View Toolbars to make it reappear. You may need to choose more than one until the proper toolbar appears.
Ruler/Guides
View Ruler will create a ruler along the top and left-hand sides of the PowerPoint screen to allow you to place objects with precision.
View Guides creates movable dotted lines (which will not be printed) you can use to place objects.
Drag your mouse over a guide to move it.
If you want to create a new guide, press the control (Ctrl) key while moving your mouse over a guide.
To delete a guide, simply drag it completely off the slide.
Header/Footer
View Header and Footer… allows you to put information like the Date and Time at the top and/or bottom of your slide.
Click "Apply to All" to have information appear on all slides; "Apply" will put information on current slide only.

8. Add/Delete Slides
Insert-->New Slide prompts you for an "auto-layout” template and adds a slide to your show.
If you are in the "Slide" view, the new slide will be added after the slide you are viewing.
In the "Slide Sorter" view, the new slide will be added after the currently selected slide.
Choose a new layout via Format --> Slide Layout.
Edit/Delete Slide deletes either the current slide (in the "Slide" view) or the selected slide(s) (in the "Slide Sorter" view).
Edit/Duplicate Slide creates a duplicate of the current slide.
This is useful when you have a number of slides you want to be formatted identically and which will contain similar information; simply duplicate a completed slide and change information where necessary.

9. Work with Existing Slide Elements
When choosing a slide "auto layout" template, combinations of several elements are provided. These elements are:
Title
Bulleted List/Text
Table
Chart
Clip Art
Move an element by clicking on its border and dragging it.
Delete an element by clicking on its border and pressing the "Delete" key.
Resize an element by clicking on its border, then clicking and holding down on one of the small squares that appears along the border.
Dragging on a corner square will ensure that the proportions of the object are not distorted. This is particularly important when resizing graphic objects.
By default, PowerPoint creates Text boxes as Bulleted Lists.
To get rid of the formatting that is generated automatically with bulleted lists, click in the text box and click the "Bulleted List" button in the formatting toolbar. The button has three vertically aligned dots followed by dashes.
If you are using the bulleted lists, remember that pressing "Tab" at the beginning of a list item indents and "demotes" the item (usually making it a smaller type). Holding down the "Shift" key while pressing "Tab" at the beginning of a list item un-indents the item and "promotes" it.
To edit the automatic typestyles of bulleted lists, you should edit the list items on the Slide Master to have those changes reflected on all slides. The Slide master is discussed shortly.

10. Insert Elements
To add graphics, go to Insert-->Picture and choose “Clip Art…” (for graphics included with Microsoft Office; may not be available if your installation did not include these items) or “From File…”.
Simply browse to the image’s location on your computer’s hard drive, select the file, and click "OK".
If you insert Picture From File…, you can choose from a number of common image file formats, including JPEG (.jpg), GIF (.gif), PICT (.pct), and TIFF(.tif).
You can resize the image once it is on your slide.
You can only insert Picture-->From Scanner if you have a scanner attached to the computer you are using. Otherwise, you will have to use a computer with a scanner to capture the image to a file, copy that file to your hard drive, and insert it using Picture From File…. as described above.
To add an Excel graph or cells from a worksheet:
Open the Excel file containing the desired information.
Select the cells or chart you want to have appear in your PowerPoint presentation.
In Excel, go to Edit.-->Copy
In PowerPoint, choose Edit -->Paste while the slide you want the information to appear on is selected.
You can resize the chart or table as you would any other element.
To add text from Word:
Open the Word file.
Select the text you want to have appear in your PowerPoint presentation.
In Word, go to Edit -->Copy.
In PowerPoint, choose Edit-->Paste while the slide you want the text to appear on is selected.
To edit text after it has been placed, double-click on it.
Usually you will be able to copy and paste items between open applications (as described for Excel and Word), but it depends on the application.

11. Master Slides
To have formatting changes reflected across your presentation, you can edit the Master slides rather than having to apply changes to each slide.
Access the master slide here: View-->Master-->Slide Master
Modify elements on this slide to affect all slides except the Title Slide(s) in your presentation.
If you’ve selected a slide with a background image, you can click on the image and resize, move, or delete it.
To use your own background image, choose Insert-->Picture, choose Clip Art or From File, and find the image. Once it is on the page, you can resize it as appropriate (keeping in mind that using the corner resizing squares prevents distortion).
The Drawing toolbar at the bottom of the PowerPoint screen allows you to work with object order. That is, if your newly-inserted background image is covering up other things on the page, select the image, click the "Draw" button, go to "Order" and choose "Send to Back".
View-->Master-->Title Master
Modification of objects on this Master slide will only affect the "Title Slide" auto layout.

12. Slide Color Schemes and Designs
If you want to change the design of a presentation and select a different template, simply go to Format-->Slide Design.
Choose a design and click "Apply" to modify all slides in your current presentation.
Modify the color scheme of a presentation in Format-->Color Scheme.
Most slide design templates include a number of color schemes appropriate for different presentation media.
Dark background/Light foreground (Color)
Best for 35 mm slides and on-screen presentations. Avoid this when printing overhead transparencies or when using slides as handouts.
Light background/Dark foreground (Color)
Best for color overhead transparencies.
Light background/Dark foreground (Black & White)
Best for b&w overhead transparencies, slides as handouts printed on a b&w printer.

13. Transitions and Animations
Important Note: Use transitions and animations sparingly. They can slow down your presentation and distract the audience’s attention from the content of your slides. In general, transitions are less distracting than animations. However, animations can be useful if you have a slide on which you’d prefer to control when information appears (e.g., a question and answer slide, on which the question appears first, you have time to talk about it, and then the answer appears only when you’re ready).
Transitions: Effects that appear during the transition from one slide to another during the slide show.
Go to the Slide Sorter view (View-->Slide Sorter) to apply transitions.
Click the "Slide Transition" button in the toolbar (hover your mouse cursor over the toolbar buttons to see their names).
Move through the available Effects to determine which you would like to apply.
Clicking "Apply to All" applies that transition to all slides in your slide show. "Apply" applies it only to the currently selected slide.
Usually you will want to advance "On mouse click" rather than showing each slide only for a specified number of seconds.

14. Animations
Animations: Effects that appear as objects (text, graphics, etc.) are inserted into a single slide during the slide show.
On Apples: Make certain the "Animation Effects" toolbar is visible (View-->Toolbars-->Animation Effects). On PCs: Right click within the object and select “Custom Animation”.
In the normal "Slide" view of a particular slide, select an object (for example, the title), and either:
Use the buttons on the toolbar to choose an effect for that object.
On the Animation Effects toolbar, the number field is used to set the order of each effect. Typically, you will want the title to appear first (and so it should be number 1), and subsequent objects appear in the order you set.
Go to Slide Show-->Preview Animation to see a miniature version of the animations on that slide; the Esc key will cancel the animation preview while it is running.

15. Printing Slides/Handouts/Notes
In the File-->Print menu, there is a "Print what" field.
"Slides" prints your slides on regular paper or transparency media from the printer you select.
"Handouts" prints 2, 3, or 6 reduced versions of your slides on a single page (so a slide show with 12 slides would print on 2 pages).
You can use View-->Master-->Handout Master to control the information and layout on these pages.
"Outline View" prints an outline of your slide show.
Go to View-->Outline to see this information.
"Notes Pages" prints a reduced view of each slide on a page, together with either the notes added within the presentation, or with empty space in which you can include handwritten notes.
Go to View-->Master-->Notes Master to control the information and layout on these pages.

16. Saving for On-Screen Presentation
Save your PowerPoint presentation using File-->Save.
Save your presentation repeatedly during your work to ensure you don’t lose anything should PowerPoint crash or freeze.
If you learn that the computer on which you will be running your presentation has an older version of PowerPoint, use File-->Save as…, and in the "Save as type" field, choose an earlier version of PowerPoint.

17. Classroom presentation
Options for getting your PowerPoint presentation to the computer in your classroom:
Bring your own laptop.
A convenience if you frequently use PowerPoint or the Web in your class.
Buy a laptop with built-in wireless network capability.
Most classrooms have the capability to display a podium laptop.
Upload the presentation to your course Web site and download it onto the classroom computer.
Be sure that the classroom computer is connected to the Internet.
Put it in a password-restricted folder to prevent anyone else from seeing it.
Be sure the classroom computer has a network connection.
the document to yourself and use FAS Webmail to retrieve it onto the classroom computer.
Not appropriate for files over 1 MB.
Burn a CD with a presentation and bring it to the classroom.
Confirm that the classroom computer has a CD reader.

18. Working with Images in PowerPoint
PowerPoint has convenient built-in functionality for working with images.
Resizing: Click once on the image and then use your mouse to click, hold, and drag any of the boxes in the surrounding outline box.
Note: To preserve the relative dimensions of the image (known as the “aspect ratio”) and avoid distortion, resize the image by using the corner boxes.
PowerPoint is good at making images smaller while preserving the original image quality.
Adjust color balance, contrast, crop, or rotate the image by clicking once on the image to select it and then using the “Picture Toolbox” that appears on your screen.
You can also double click on the image to set other parameters for the display of the image.

19. Working with Images in PowerPoint
To add an image using a file on your computer, go to Insert-->Picture-->From File and navigate your hard drive to select the desired image file.
You can also simply drag the image onto the PowerPoint slide from a window on your computer.
On Apples, you can drag images onto PowerPoint directly from a Web page.
On PC’s, you can right click on an image in a Web browser and select Copy. Then right click on your PowerPoint slide and select Paste.
Resize and position the image on the slide.
Resize the image using the corners of the select box surrounding the image.
Click and hold anywhere on the image to drag it around the slide and position it as needed.

20. Working with Images in PowerPoint
How to create a detail of a larger image
A high resolution original is critical to creating an effective detail. The higher the resolution of the original image, the better the quality of the detail.
PowerPoint is very good at reducing the size of high resolution images.
Select the original image on a slide.
Select File-->Copy and copy to a new slide by selecting
File-->Paste.
Select the Crop Tool in the Picture Toolbox.
Use your mouse to grab the corners, top, bottom, or sides of the selection box to resize the image and crop it to the scene you wish to capture.
On Apples:
You can use one of the “marquee” selection tools to select the area you wish to extract.
Copy the selection area (Edit-->Copy)
Paste (Edit-->Paste) the selection onto the existing or a new slide.
Resize and position the new image as desired.

21. Save as a Web Page File-->Save As Web Page Setting Web options
When saving a presentation for the Web, PowerPoint creates one page that serves as a table of content and a folder that contains images of each slide as well as copies of any media (images, audio or video clips) that you have embedded in your slides.
You need to upload BOTH the index page AND the folder to your course Web site.
This can be done using a secure FTP program available through FAS Computer Services or by “zipping” the index page and the folder into a single file. That c can be uploaded to the Web site in the Instructor’s Toolkit.
The Toolkit automatically will expand the content.ss of “Zip” files. Use WinZip for PCs and Stuffit for Macs. Learn more by sending to
Transferring files using FTP is easy to learn. More information is available by sending to
Setting Web options
You can change the colors of the links, text, background, and the style and positioning of the buttons on your pages.
Apples
Select File-->Save As Web Page-->Web Options
PCs
Select File-->Save Web Page and find “Web Options” in the “Tools” pull-down in the dialog box.

22. Save as Web Page
Web options: Make sure your presentation is viewable by all browsers.
After you select File-->Save as Web Page, find the section for “Browser Support” in the Web Options section and be sure that your presentation is saved in a way adds support for Netscape and other browsers.
PowerPoint can save presentations to Web pages that can only be viewed by Microsoft’s browser, Internet Explorer. Students using any other browser will not be able to view your slides.

23. Save as PDF What is the “portable document format” (PDF)?
A type of file that preserves the formatting of documents exactly as they would be printed on paper, including images.
Viewable by almost all computers.
Save your PowerPoint presentation in a single file that can be easily uploaded to your course Web site.

24. Save as PDF
Limitations of saving PowerPoint presentations as PDF files:
PDF files do not include animations or slide transitions.
PDF files do not include video or audio clips.
Upload those files separately to the course Web site and they will listed for students to access alongside the PowerPoint PDF file.
For presentations with a lot of images or multimedia clips, file size can be very large.
Slightly cumbersome, but in no way prohibitive for students at Harvard. May be problematic from slow network connections.
Storage space on your Web site not a problem. Send to to request additional storage space.
Can be some degrading of images as they are embedded in the PDF file in the same way that making a photocopy of a photocopy leads to lower quality.

25. Save as PDF Mac: PC Print --> PDF
Download and install Adobe Acrobat from
Than, Print and select “PDFWriter” as your printer.

26. Additional Resources PowerPoint help: Alternatives to PowerPoint:
The main PowerPoint online discussion group is microsoft.public.powerpoint, or:
Microsoft PowerPoint Homepage
Follow links to “Assistance” for tutorials and tips.
Many other resources are available on Google.
Alternatives to PowerPoint:
Apple Keynote
Open Office
Using HTML to present Slides, Richard Olivo, Derek Bok Center (#2 hit on Google search, “PowerPoint alternative”)