Table of Contents
Part I: Building Your Presentation
Chapter 1: A First Look at PowerPoint
Who Uses PowerPoint and Why?
What's New in PowerPoint 2013?
Learning Your Way around PowerPoint
Changing the View
Zooming In and Out
Enabling Optional Display Elements
Opening a New Display Window for the Same Presentation
Using the Help System
Summary
Chapter 2: Creating and Saving Presentation Files
Starting a New Presentation
Saving Your Work
Setting Passwords for File Access
Closing and Reopening Presentations
Setting File Properties
Summary
Chapter 3: Creating Slides and Text Boxes
Creating New Slides
Inserting Content from External Sources
Managing Slides
Using Content Placeholders
Creating Text Boxes Manually
Working with Text Boxes
Summary
Chapter 4: Working with Layouts, Themes, and Masters
Understanding Layouts and Themes
Changing a Slide's Layout
Applying a Theme
Managing Themes
Changing Colors, Fonts, and Effects
Changing the Background
Working with Placeholders
Customizing and Creating Layouts
Managing Slide Masters
Summary
Chapter 5: Formatting Text
Changing the Font
Changing the Font Size
Adjusting Character Spacing
Changing Font Color/Text Fill
Applying a Text Outline
Applying Text Attributes
Applying WordArt Styles
Applying Text Effects
Copying Formatting with Format Painter
Inserting Symbols
Inserting Math Equations
Summary
Chapter 6: Formatting Paragraphs and Text Boxes
Formatting Bulleted Lists
Formatting Numbered Lists
Setting Indents and Tabs
Adjusting Line Spacing
Changing Horizontal Alignment
Formatting Text Boxes
Summary
Chapter 7: Correcting and Improving Text
Finding and Replacing Text
Correcting Your Spelling and Grammar
Setting the Editing Language
Using AutoCorrect to Fix Common Problems
Using AutoFormat As You Type
Using the Research Tools
Summary
Chapter 8: Creating and Formatting Tables
Creating a New Table
Moving around in a Table
Selecting Rows, Columns, and Cells
Editing a Table's Structure
Applying Table Styles
Formatting Table Cells
Using Tables from Word
Integrating Excel Cells into PowerPoint
Summary
Part II: Using Graphics and Multimedia Content
Chapter 9: Drawing and Formatting Objects
Working with the Drawing Tools
Selecting Objects
Deleting Objects
Moving and Copying Objects
Understanding Object Formatting
Resizing Objects
Arranging Objects
Merging Shapes
Applying Shape or Picture Styles
Understanding Color Selection
Applying an Object Border
Applying an Object Fill
Applying Object Effects
Summary
Chapter 10: Creating SmartArt Graphics
Understanding SmartArt Types and Their Uses
Inserting a SmartArt Graphic
Editing SmartArt Text
Modifying SmartArt Structure
Modifying a Hierarchy Graphic Structure
Formatting a SmartArt Graphic
Saving a SmartArt Graphic as a Picture
Summary
Chapter 11: Working with Clip Art and Photos
Choosing Appropriate Artwork
Inserting Clip Art
Understanding Raster Graphics
Inserting Photos
Sizing and Cropping Photos
Adjusting and Correcting Photos
Compressing Images
Exporting a Photo from PowerPoint to a Separate File
Creating a Photo Album Layout
Summary
Chapter 12: Working with Charts
Understanding the Parts of a Chart
Starting a New Chart
Working with Chart Data
Chart Types and Chart Layout Presets
Working with Chart Elements
Controlling the Axes
Formatting a Chart
Rotating a 3-D Chart
Working with Chart Templates
Summary
Chapter 13: Incorporating Content from Other Programs
Working with External Content: An Overview
Copying Content from Other Programs
Introducing OLE
Working with Linked and Embedded Objects
Exporting PowerPoint Objects to Other Programs
Summary
Chapter 14: Adding Sound Effects, Music, and Soundtracks
How PowerPoint Uses Audio
When to Use Sounds — and When Not To
Inserting an Audio Clip as an Icon on a Slide
Assigning a Sound to an Object
Adding a Digital Music Soundtrack
Adding a CD Audio Soundtrack
Configuring Sound Playback
Using the Advanced Timeline to Fine-Tune Sound Events
Summary
Chapter 15: Incorporating Motion Video
Understanding Video Types
Placing a Video on a Slide
Managing Clip Files and Links
Changing the Video's Formatting
Specifying Playback Options
Troubleshooting Video Problems
Summary
Chapter 16: Creating Animation Effects and Transitions
Assigning Transitions to Slides
Animating Slide Content
Layering Animated Objects
Summary
Part III: Interfacing with Your Audience
Chapter 17: Creating Support Materials
The When and How of Handouts
Creating Handouts
Creating Speaker Notes
Printing an Outline
Exporting Handouts or Notes Pages to Word
Summary
Chapter 18: Preparing for a Live Presentation
Starting and Ending a Show
Using the On-Screen Show Controls
Using the On-Screen Pen
Hiding Slides for Backup Use
Using Custom Shows
Creating and Using Sections
Giving a Presentation on a Different Computer
Working with Audio-Visual Equipment
Summary
Chapter 19: Designing User-Interactive or Self-Running Presentations
Understanding User Interactivity
Navigational Control Basics
Creating Text Hyperlinks
Creating Graphical Hyperlinks
Using Action Buttons
Creating Self-Running Presentations
Recording Narration and Timings
Using Kiosk Mode
Setting Up a Secure System
Summary
Chapter 20: Preparing a Presentation for Mass Distribution
Working with File Properties
Checking for Compatibility and Usability
Limiting User Access to a Presentation
Creating a PDF or XPS Version of a Presentation
Converting a Presentation to a Video File
Making a DVD Movie of a Presentation
Presenting Online
Working with the PowerPoint Viewer
Summary
Chapter 21: Sharing and Collaborating
Working with Comments
Comparing and Merging Presentations
Sharing Your Presentation File on a LAN
Sending a Presentation via E-Mail
Sharing a Presentation on Your SkyDrive
Sharing a Presentation via Office 365 SharePoint
Managing Simultaneous Edits
Sharing Slides with a SharePoint Slide Library
Summary
Chapter 22: Customizing PowerPoint
Setting Program Defaults
Configuring the Trust Center
Customizing the Ribbon
Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar
Managing Add-Ins
Customizing the Status Bar
Summary
Part IV: Project Labs
Lab 1: Presenting Content without Bulleted Lists
Lab 1A: Using Shapes as Text Boxes
Lab 1B: Converting Bullets to SmartArt
Lab 2: Adding Sound and Movement to a Presentation
Lab 2A: Fading Text and Graphics In and Out
Lab 2B: Replacing One Picture with Another
Lab 2C: Zooming In on a Picture
Lab 2D: More Animation Practice
Lab 2E: Using Transitions and Soundtracks
Lab 3: Creating a Menu-Based Navigation System
Lab 3A: Making Room for a Navigation Bar
Lab 3B: Creating a Navigation Bar
Lab 3C: Creating a Graphical Navigation System
Lab 4: Creating a Classroom Game
Lab 4A: Making the Game Board
Lab 4B: Creating the Question Slides
Lab 4C: Creating the Answer Slides
Lab 4D: Linking Up the Game Board
Appendix A: What Makes a Great Presentation?
Qualities of an Effective Presentation
Developing Your Presentation Action Plan
Choosing and Arranging the Room
Choosing Your Attire
Keeping the Audience Interested
Managing Stage Fright
Summary
Appendix B: Essential SkyDrive Skills
Understanding Your SkyDrive Interface Options
Managing Files on Your SkyDrive
Part I
Building Your Presentation
In This Part
Chapter 1 A First Look at PowerPoint
Chapter 2 Creating and Saving Presentation Files
Chapter 3 Creating Slides and Text Boxes
Chapter 4 Working with Layouts, Themes, and Masters
Chapter 5 Formatting Text
Chapter 6 Formatting Paragraphs and Text Boxes
Chapter 7 Correcting and Improving Text
Chapter 8 Creating and Formatting Tables
Chapter 1
A First Look at PowerPoint
In This Chapter
PowerPoint 2013 is a member of the Microsoft Office 2013 suite of programs. A suite is a group of programs designed by a single manufacturer to work well together. Like its siblings — Word (the word processor), Excel (the spreadsheet), Outlook (the personal organizer and e-mail manager), and Access (the database) — PowerPoint has a well-defined role. It creates materials for presentations.
A presentation is any kind of interaction between a speaker and audience, but it usually involves one or more of the following: computer-displayed slides, noncomputerized visual aids (such as transparencies or 35mm slides), hard-copy handouts, and/or speaker's notes. PowerPoint can create all of these types of visual aids, plus many other types that you'll learn about as you go along.
Because PowerPoint is so tightly integrated with the other Microsoft Office 2013 components, you can easily share information among them. For example, if you have created a graph in Excel, you can use it on a PowerPoint slide. It goes the other way too. You can, for example, take the outline from your PowerPoint presentation and copy it into Word, where you can dress it up with Word's powerful document formatting commands. Virtually any piece of data in any Office program can be linked to any other Office program, so you never have to worry about your data being in the wrong format. PowerPoint also accepts data from almost any other Windows-based application and can import a variety of graphics, audio, and video formats.
In this chapter you'll get a big-picture introduction to PowerPoint 2013, and then we'll fire up the program and poke around a bit to help you get familiar with the interface. You'll find out how to use the tabs and panes and how to get help and updates from Microsoft.
PowerPoint is a popular tool for people who give presentations as part of their jobs and also for their support staff. With PowerPoint, you can create visual aids that help get the message across to an audience, whatever that message may be and whatever the format in which it is presented. Although the traditional kind of presentation is a live speech presented at a podium, advances in technology have made it possible to give several other kinds of presentations, and PowerPoint has kept pace nicely. The following list outlines the most common PowerPoint formats:
When you start your first PowerPoint presentation, you may not be sure which delivery method you will use. However, it's best to decide the presentation format before you invest too much work in your materials because the audience's needs are different for each medium.
Most people associate PowerPoint with sales presentations, but PowerPoint is useful for people in many other lines of work as well. The following sections present a sampling of how real people just like you are using PowerPoint in their daily jobs.
More people use PowerPoint for selling goods and services than for any other reason. Armed with a laptop computer and a PowerPoint presentation, a salesperson can make a good impression on a client anywhere in the world. Figure 1.1 shows a slide from a sample sales presentation.
Figure 1.1 PowerPoint offers unparalleled flexibility for presenting information to potential customers.
These are just some of the sales tools you can create with PowerPoint:
The distinction between sales and marketing can be rather blurred at times, but marketing generally refers to the positioning of a product in the media rather than its presentation to a particular company or individual. Marketing representatives are often called upon to write advertising copy, generate camera-ready layouts for print advertisements, design marketing flyers and shelf displays, and produce other creative selling materials.
PowerPoint is not a drawing program per se, and it can't substitute for one except in a crude way. However, by combining the Office 2013 clip art collection and drawing tools with some well-chosen fonts and borders, a marketing person can come up with some very usable designs in PowerPoint. Figure 1.2 shows an example. You learn about clip art in Chapter 11, “Working with Clip Art and Photos.” You can also integrate video clips in PowerPoint presentations that can tell the story of your product; see Chapter 15 for more information.
Figure 1.2 PowerPoint can generate camera-ready marketing materials, although it can't substitute for the tools that professional advertising companies use.
Human resources personnel often find themselves giving presentations to new employees to explain the policies and benefits of the company. A well-designed, attractive presentation gives the new folks a positive impression of the company they have signed up with, starting them off on the right foot.
One of the most helpful features in PowerPoint for the human resources professional is the SmartArt tool. With it, you can easily diagram the structure of the company and make changes whenever necessary with a few mouse clicks. Figure 1.3 shows an organization chart on a PowerPoint slide. You can also create a variety of other diagram types. Organization charts and other SmartArt diagrams are covered in Chapter 10, “Creating SmartArt Diagrams.”
Figure 1.3 Microsoft's SmartArt feature lets you easily create organizational diagrams from within PowerPoint
Most training courses include a lecture section in which the instructor outlines the general procedures and policies. This part of the training is usually followed up with individual, hands-on instruction. PowerPoint can't help much with the latter, but it can help make the lecture portion of the class go smoothly.
If you have access to a scanner, you can scan in diagrams and drawings of the objects you are teaching the students to use. You can also use computer-generated images, such as screen captures and video clips, to teach people about software.
PowerPoint's interactive controls even let you create quizzes that each student can take on-screen to gauge their progress. Depending on the button the student clicks, you can set up the quiz to display a “Yes, you are correct!” or “Sorry, try again” slide. See Figure 1.4. For details about this procedure, see Chapter 19 and Lab 4 in the Project Labs section at the end of the book.
Figure 1.4 Test the student's knowledge with a user-interactive quiz in PowerPoint.
Service organizations such as hotels and restaurants often need to inform their customers of various facts but need to do so unobtrusively so that the information will not be obvious except to those looking for it. For example, a convention center hotel might provide a list of the meetings taking place in its meeting rooms, or a restaurant might show pictures of the day's specials on a video screen in the waiting area.
In such unattended situations, a self-running (kiosk) presentation works best. Typically the computer box and keyboard are hidden from passersby, and the monitor displays the information.
Many nonprofit clubs and organizations, such as churches and youth centers, operate much the same way as for-profit businesses and need sales, marketing, and informational materials. But clubs and organizations often have special needs too, such as the need to recognize volunteers for a job well done. Microsoft provides a certificate template for PowerPoint that's ideal for this purpose. Figure 1.5 shows a certificate generated in PowerPoint. Another popular use for PowerPoint is to project the lyrics of a song on a big screen for sing-alongs at churches and meetings.
Figure 1.5 With PowerPoint, you can easily create certificates and awards.
PowerPoint 2013 is very much like PowerPoint 2010 in its basic functionality. It uses a tabbed Ribbon across the top, rather than a traditional menu system, and employs dialog boxes and a Quick Access Toolbar in the same ways that 2010 did.
This doesn't mean that there aren't changes and improvements though! The following sections outline the major differences you will see when you upgrade from PowerPoint 2010 to PowerPoint 2013.
You can purchase Office 2013 (or the standalone PowerPoint 2013) either as a traditional boxed application or as a cloud-based subscription called Office 365. There are several benefits to the cloud version, including lower price, automatic updates, the ability to use Office on multiple PCs without paying extra (with some editions), and the ability to access your Office applications and files from multiple locations. The cloud-based version is marked primarily to businesses, but versions are also available for university students and home users too. See http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/small-business-home.aspx for more information.
In earlier PowerPoint versions, you started up in a blank new presentation, which some beginners found intimidating. PowerPoint 2013 opens with a Start screen (Figure 1.6), providing easy access to both local and online templates as well as recently used files.
Figure 1.6 PowerPoint 2013 opens with a Start screen that offers links to templates and recent files.
If you have ever tried to create anything with the drawing tools in an Office app, you know that it can be frustrating because the shapes provided don't always match the shapes you want. Office 2013's drawing tools contain several new commands and capabilities that make the process of creating just the right shapes much easier. You can find the Merge Shapes button on the Insert Shapes section of the Drawing Tools Format tab when two or more shapes are selected. Clicking Merge Shapes opens a menu of merge types.
These new commands are all focused around merging two or more shapes into a single shape, using actions like Union, Combine, Intersect, Fragment, and Subtract. For example, suppose you want a shape that consists of a rounded rectangle with two arrows emerging from it. You could start with the three separate shapes shown at the left in Figure 1.7 and then use the Union command to join them into a single shape, as shown on the right.
Figure 1.7 Drawn shapes, before and after merging.
You will learn a lot more about these in Chapter 9, “Drawing and Formatting Objects.”
PowerPoint 2013 makes it easier than ever to precisely align and evenly space objects with one another. When you drag an object to position it, dotted guidelines called Smart Guides appear, showing its relationship to other objects on the slide and allowing you to easily snap the object into precise alignment and spacing. Earlier versions of PowerPoint had alignment commands, but you had to specifically issue them; Smart Guides present themselves automatically whenever they might be needed. Figure 1.8 shows an example. Smart Guides are covered in Chapter 9.
You can also create permanent drawing guides on the slide masters, making it easier to position content on slide masters and layout masters. Chapter 4, “Working with Layouts, Themes, and Masters,” covers modifying slide masters.
Figure 1.8 Alignment guides make it easier to align objects on slides.
PowerPoint has included a Comments feature in the past, but it hasn't been very robust. In PowerPoint 2013, there is a Comments pane that you can use in Normal view to display and manage comments. See Figure 1.9.
Figure 1.9 The Comments pane helps you display and respond to comments.
SkyDrive is Microsoft's online file storage service. Each user gets a certain amount of free space there (usually 2GB), and you can purchase additional space.
In Office 2013 apps, the logged-in user's SkyDrive is the default save location, making it as easy to save files to your SkyDrive as it is to save to any local folder on your hard disk. Files saved to SkyDrive are private and secure, and you can access them from any Internet-connected computing device, no matter where you are. For more information about SkyDrive, see Appendix B.
PowerPoint 2013, like other Office 2013 applications, includes integration with online picture and video sharing services such as YouTube and Flickr, enabling you to easily access your own and other people's online content for use in your presentations.
Microsoft's clip art collection is now accessed entirely online from Office.com. You can also easily import pictures from your own SkyDrive and from a Bing image search. To help you avoid copyright problems, by default the Bing image search returns only results that are free to use under Creative Commons (a public user license).
For videos, you can embed video code from any website that provides it. (PowerPoint 2010 also allowed this.) But what's new now is that you can search for videos with Bing video search and select and embed clips directly from YouTube. See Figure 1.10.
Figure 1.10 You can insert or embed video content from online sources.
PowerPoint 2013 improves on-screen presentation capabilities in several ways. First, the tools available to you in Slide Show view are now more robust, including the ability to zoom in on a particular area of a slide and to select a slide to jump to from an array of thumbnail images.
Presenter view can now be viewed on one monitor, allowing you to rehearse without connecting anything else. Presenter view has also been been enhanced, with extra display settings and easier-to-use slide controls. See Figure 1.11.
Figure 1.11 Presenter view is now easier to use.
Besides the features I've just outlined, there are plenty more nice surprises awaiting upgraders:
Now that you have seen some of the potential uses for PowerPoint and toured the new features, let's get started using the program.
PowerPoint is one of the easiest and most powerful presentation programs available. You can knock out a passable presentation in a shockingly short time by skimming through the chapters in Part I and Part II of the book, or you can spend some time with PowerPoint's advanced features to make a complex presentation that looks, reads, and works exactly the way you want.
You can start PowerPoint just as you would any other program in Windows: from the Start screen (in Windows 8) or the Start menu (in Windows 7). Office 2013 runs only under those two operating systems.
In Windows 8:
, on the keyboard to display the Start screen, or on a touch screen, swipe in from the right and tap Start. The Start screen appears.In Windows 7:
When PowerPoint 2013 opens, a Start screen appears, as you saw back in Figure 1.6, offering help for opening existing files or starting new ones. If you want to bypass the Start screen and jump immediately to a new blank presentation (as in earlier versions of PowerPoint), just press the Esc key.
When you are ready to leave PowerPoint, click the Close (X) button in the top-right corner of the PowerPoint window. If you have any unsaved work, PowerPoint asks if you want to save your changes. Because you have just been playing around in this chapter, you probably do not have anything to save yet. (If you do have something to save, see Chapter 2, “Creating and Saving Presentation Files,” to learn more about saving.) Click No to decline to save your changes, and you're outta there.
PowerPoint's interface is typical of any Windows desktop program in many ways, but it has some special Office-specific features as well. The PowerPoint window contains these elements, as shown in Figure 1.12:
Figure 1.12 The PowerPoint window is a combination of usual Windows features and unique Office elements.
PowerPoint 2013's user interface is based on the Ribbon, which is a bar across the top of the window that contains tabbed pages of commands and buttons. Rather than opening a menu and selecting a command, you click a tab and then click a button or open a list on that tab.
Here are some important terms you need to know when working with tabs:
Figure 1.13 The Ribbon is PowerPoint 2013's primary user interface.
Within a tab, groups can expand or collapse depending on the width of the PowerPoint window. When the window is large enough, everything within each group is fully expanded so that each item has its own button. When the window is smaller, groups start collapsing so that all groups remain visible. At first, large buttons get smaller and stack vertically; if that's not enough, then groups collapse into single large buttons with drop-down lists from which you can select the individual commands. Figure 1.14 shows the same tab in three different widths for comparison.
Figure 1.14 The size of the PowerPoint window determines how much the groups are collapsed or expanded on the Ribbon.
When you open Backstage view by clicking the File tab, a multilayered menu system appears. Many of the commands along the left side of the screen are categories that open submenus when you click them. For example, in Figure 1.15, the Export command has been selected, revealing additional choices.
Figure 1.15 Backstage view is a hierarchical menu system; first select a category on the left, then a command in the middle, and then an option on the right.
The top-level categories and commands in Backstage View are as follows:
PowerPoint sometimes uses dialog boxes to prompt you for more information. When you issue a command that can have many possible variations, a dialog box appears so you can specify the particulars.
Figure 1.16 illustrates some of the controls you may encounter in PowerPoint's dialog boxes:
Figure 1.16 The Font dialog box illustrates several types of controls.
Office 2013 has moved away from using dialog boxes for some features; you may also encounter panes that ask for more information when you issue a command. A pane is a rectangular area along the left or right side of the screen, as shown in Figure 1.17. Notice that the Format Shape pane in Figure 1.17 has two tabs: Shape Options and Text Options. Click one or the other of those terms near the top of the pane to switch among the different pages of options. Beneath the selected tab are several icons; each icon shows a different page of options as well.
Some of the additional controls are shown in Figure 1.17:
Figure 1.17 Some features use panes instead of dialog boxes.
A view is a way of displaying your presentation on-screen. PowerPoint comes with several views because at different times during the creation process, it is helpful to look at the presentation in different ways. For example, when you add a graphic to a slide, you need to work closely with that slide, but when you rearrange the slide order, you need to see the presentation as a whole.
PowerPoint offers the following presentation views:
There are two ways to change a view: Click a button on the View tab, or click one of the view buttons at the right end of the status bar at the bottom of the screen, shown in Figure 1.18. Not every view is available in both places.
Figure 1.18 Select a view from the View tab or from the viewing controls in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
Normal view, shown in Figure 1.19, is a very flexible view that contains a little bit of everything. In the center is the Slide pane, where the active slide appears, and to its left is the Thumbnails pane, containing a set of thumbnail images that represent the presentation's slides.
Figure 1.19 Normal view, the default, shows slide thumbnails at the left and an editing window at the right.
Outline view (shown in Figure 1.20) is identical to Normal view except instead of the slide thumbnails on the left, you see a text outline.
Figure 1.20 Outline view shows a text outline at the left and an editing window at the right.
An optional Notes pane is available at the bottom of the window in Normal or Outline view; click Notes on the status bar to display or hide it. An optional Comments pane appears and disappears on the right when you click Comments on the status bar. (Normal view only, as shown in Figure 1.19).
Each of the panes in Normal view has its own scroll bar, so you can move in it independently of the other panes. You can resize the panes by dragging the dividers between the panes. For example, to give the notes area more room, point the mouse pointer at the divider line between it and the slide area so that the mouse pointer becomes a double-headed arrow, and then hold down the left mouse button as you drag the line up to a new spot. To get the Thumbnails (or Outline) pane out of the way, drag the divider between it and the slide editing pane as far as possible to the left.
The left pane is useful because it lets you jump quickly to a specific slide by clicking its thumbnail (Normal view) or some of its text content (Outline view).
If you have ever worked with hard copies of slides, such as 35mm slides, you know that it can be helpful to lay the slides out on a big table and plan the order in which to show them. You rearrange them, moving this one here, that one there, until the order is perfect. You might even start a pile of backups that you will not show in the main presentation but will hold back in case someone asks a pertinent question. That's exactly what you can do with Slide Sorter view, as shown in Figure 1.21. It lays out the slides in miniature, so you can see the big picture. You can drag the slides around and place them in the perfect order. You can also return to Normal view to work on a slide by double-clicking the slide.
Figure 1.21 Use the Slide Sorter view for a bird's-eye view of the presentation.
When it's time to rehearse the presentation, nothing shows you the finished product quite as clearly as Slide Show view does. In Slide Show view, the slide fills the entire screen, as shown in Figure 1.22. You can move from slide to slide by pressing the Page Up and Page Down keys or by using one of the other movement methods available (covered in Chapter 19).
The default slide dimensions in PowerPoint 2013 are set for a wide-screen monitor (16:9 aspect ratio). If you are using a regular monitor (4:3) but showing wide-screen slides, black bars fill in the extra space at the top and bottom. You can correct this problem by changing the slide size on the Design tab. When you change the slide size, PowerPoint prompts you to specify how to adjust the existing content to fit the new format.
Figure 1.22 Slide Show view lets you practice the presentation in real life.
When you move your mouse in Slide Show view, buttons appear in the bottom-left corner for controlling the show without leaving it (These aren't shown in Figure 1.22.). To leave the slide show, choose End Show from the menu or just press the Esc key.
Reading view is like Slide Show view except it runs within the PowerPoint app window rather than full screen and it doesn't have the powerful slide show tools that you get with Slide Show view (covered in Chapter 18), such as the ability to draw on a slide or skip to a certain slide. You still see the PowerPoint app's title bar, and you still see the status bar at the bottom. You can move between slides by clicking with the mouse or by using the arrow keys on the keyboard. As with Slide Show view, you can exit from Reading view by pressing Esc to return to the previously accessed view.
When you give a presentation, your props usually include more than just your brain and your slides. You typically have all kinds of notes and backup material for each slide — figures on last quarter's sales, sources to cite if someone questions your data, and so on. In the old days of framed overhead transparencies, people used to attach sticky notes to the slide frames for this purpose and hope that nobody asked any questions that required diving into the four-inch-thick stack of statistics they brought.
Today, you can type your notes and supporting facts directly in PowerPoint. As you saw earlier, you can type them directly into the Notes pane below the slide in Normal or Outline view. Just click the Notes button in the status bar to display the Notes pane, and start typing away. However, if you have a lot of notes to type, you might find it easier to work with Notes Page view instead.
Notes Page view is accessible only from the View tab. In this view, you see a single slide (uneditable) with an editable text area below it called the notes placeholder, which you can use to type your notes. See Figure 1.23. You can refer to these notes as you give an on-screen presentation, or you can print notes pages to stack neatly on the lectern next to you during the big event. If your notes pages run off the end of the page, PowerPoint even prints them as a separate page. If you have trouble seeing the text you're typing, zoom in on it, as described in the next section.
Figure 1.23 Notes Page view offers a special text area for your notes, separate from the slides.
If you need a closer look at your presentation, you can zoom the view in or out to accommodate almost any situation. For example, if you have trouble placing a graphic exactly at the same vertical level as some text in a box next to it, you can zoom in for more precision. (The new Smart Guides feature in PowerPoint 2013 helps with that situation too.) You can view your work at various magnifications on-screen without changing the size of the surrounding tools or the size of the print on the printout.
In Normal view, each of the panes has its own individual zoom. To set the zoom for the Thumbnails pane only, for example, select it first; then choose a zoom level. Or to zoom only in the Slide pane (the main editing pane), click it first. In a single-pane view such as Notes Page or Slide Sorter, a single zoom setting affects the entire work area.
The larger the zoom number, the larger the details on the display. A zoom of 10% would make a slide so tiny that you couldn't read it. A zoom of 400% would make a few letters on a slide so big they would fill the entire pane.
An easy way to set the zoom level is to drag the Zoom slider in the status bar, or click its plus or minus buttons to change the zoom level in increments, as shown in Figure 1.24. You can also hold down the Ctrl key and roll the scroll wheel on your mouse, if it has one.
Figure 1.24 Zoom in or out to see more or less of the slide(s) at once.
To resize the current slide so that it is as large as possible while still fitting completely in the Slides pane, click the Fit Slide to Current Window button, or Choose View ⇒ Fit to Window.
Another way to control the zoom is with the Zoom dialog box. Choose View ⇒ Zoom to open it. (You can also open that dialog box by clicking the % next to the Zoom slider in the lower-right corner of the screen.) Make your selection, as shown in Figure 1.25, by clicking the appropriate button, and then click OK. Notice that you can type a precise zoom percentage in the Percent text box. You can specify any percentage you like, up to 400%. (Some panes and views will not go higher than 100%.)
Figure 1.25 You can zoom with this Zoom dialog box rather than the slider if you prefer.
PowerPoint has a lot of optional screen elements that you may (or may not) find useful, depending on what you're up to at the moment. The following sections describe them.
Vertical and horizontal rulers around the Slide pane can help you place objects more precisely. To toggle them on or off, select or deselect the Ruler check box on the View tab, as shown in Figure 1.26. Rulers are available only in Normal, Outline, and Notes Page views.
The rulers help with positioning no matter what content type you are working with, but when you are editing text in a text frame they have an additional purpose. The horizontal ruler shows the frame's paragraph indents and any custom tab stops, and you can drag the indent markers on the ruler just as you can in Word.
Figure 1.26 Rulers and gridlines help position objects on a slide.
