People | Departments | Search UMD
	Search ITSS:

Intermediate PowerPoint

In this workshop, we will expand upon the skills learned in the introductory course. Before you take this class, you should know how to:

• Create and organize slides
• Show a presentation
• Move objects on a slide
• Format text
• Use design templates

Adding Interest

There are many different things you can insert into PowerPoint slides to convey information and spark your audience's interest. We will use four of the most commonly used objects as examples: clip art, digital photos, media clips, and video clips.

PowerPoint Clip Art

Remember, when we talk about "clip art" in PowerPoint, we are discussing the collection of clips that come prepackaged with the program. Other pictures, even things packaged as "clip art" that you find on the web or in clip art collections are treated as picture files or objects.

To create a new slide to include clip art:

1. From the menu bar, choose "Insert"
2. From the insert menu, choose "New Slide"
3. From the autolayouts, choose one of the two that contains clip art and text
4. Click "OK"
5. Double click in the placeholder where it indicates "Double click to add clip art". This brings up the clip art gallery, showing a variety of categories
6. From the clip gallery, click on one of the categories. You will see thumbnails, which are miniatures of the actual pictures in the gallery
7. Click on one of the pictures. A popup menu appears with several choices
8. Click on the first choice: "insert clip"

Note: when you have clip art selected on a slide, you may see a floating toolbar that contains a variety of options related to formatting and modifying the clip. If you do not have this toolbar available, you can activate it by:

1. From the menu bar, choose "View"
2. From the view menu, choose "Toolbars"
3. Click on the "Picture" toolbar to activate it

Or, you can format the picture by:

1. From the menu bar, choose "Format"
2. From the format menu, choose "Picture"

Digital Photos and other Art Files

You can add other pictures to your presentation in similar manner. Such artwork can come from a digital camera, another program, or the web and can be in any number of formats: *.jpg, *.gif, *.tiff, and others.

To create a new slide with a picture on it:

1. From the menu bar, choose "Insert"
2. From the insert menu, choose "New Slide"
3. From the autolayouts, choose one that contains text and an object (Windows) or text and a picture (MacOS)
4. Click "OK"
5. Double click in the placeholder where it indicates "Double click to add object" (Windows) or where the picture icon is located (MacOS)
6. (Windows only) In the "Insert Object" dialog box, you have a choice of creating a new object or creating an object from a file. FOR WORKSHOP: Choose "create from file". The dialog box changes to allow you to specify where the file is located
7. Navigate to the file you want to insert into your presentation
8. Click "OK" (Windows) or "Insert" (MacOS) as necessary to return to the slide view

Media Clips

Media clips, like clip art, are clips that are prepackaged with PowerPoint. They come in two types: sounds and animated gifs.

To create a new slide with a media clip:

1. From the menu bar, choose "Insert"
2. From the insert menu, choose "New Slide"
3. From the autolayouts, choose one that contains text and media clip
4. Click "OK"
5. Double click in the placeholder where it indicates "Double click to add media clip"
6. From the Microsoft Clip Gallery, choose whether you want to add sound or a motion clip. FOR WORKSHOP: choose "Motion Clips". (FYI - Computers in the workshop may not have speakers.)
7. Click on the appropriate category. FOR WORKSHOP: choose "Academic" or "Animals"
8. Click on one of the pictures to select it
9. From the popup menu, choose the second tool to play a preview of the clip
10. Close the preview window by clicking on the "x" in the upper right hand corner
11. Click one of the pictures again to select it
12. From the popup menu, choose the first tool to insert the clip into your slide

Note: media clip animated gifs generally "play" themselves automatically when you view a show.

When you insert a media clip sound, you will be asked whether or not you want the sound to play automatically when the slide appears. If you choose not to have it play automatically, then you will need to click the sound's icon to make it play while showing your presentation.

Video Clips

You can insert short digital video clips into your PowerPoint presentations to show while you are presenting.

To create a new slide with a video on it:

1. From the menu bar, choose "Insert"
2. From the insert menu, choose "New Slide"
3. From the autolayouts, choose one that contains text and an object (Windows) or text and a picture (MacOS)
4. Click "OK"
5. Double click in the placeholder where it indicates "Double click to add object" (Windows) or where the picture icon is located (MacOS)
6. (Windows only) In the "Insert Object" dialog box, you have a choice of creating a new object or creating an object from a file. FOR WORKSHOP: Choose "create from file". The dialog box changes to allow you to specify where the file is located
7. Navigate to the file you want to insert into your presentation
8. Click "OK" (Windows) or "Insert" (MacOS) as necessary to return to the slide view

Note: videos added using the above steps usually need to be clicked upon to play during the presentation.

Controlling Objects

Now that we have introduced things that move and sing, you may be wondering how you can control and change their "behavior" in your presentation. This is done is via two groups of controls: action settings and custom animations.

Action Settings

In action settings, you can control what happens when you click on an object or roll your mouse cursor over it during your presentation. The options you have will depend upon what type of object you have selected.

To change action settings for an object:

1. Locate the slide that contains the object you want to control. FOR WORKSHOP: select the slide that contains a movie
2. Click on the object to select it
3. From the menu bar, choose "Slide Show"
4. From the slide show menu, choose "Action Settings"
5. In the "Action Settings" window, you will have a number of choices. Some will be unavailable because of the type of object you are controlling. FOR WORKSHOP: Choose "Object Action"
6. Depending upon the action chosen, you may have choices in a corresponding drop down menu. FOR WORKSHOP: Choose "Play"
7. In some cases, you will be able to choose to play a sound during the action of the object. FOR WORKSHOP: remember that you may not have speakers on your computers

Custom Animations

This is a very rich feature in PowerPoint, allowing you to control text, pictures, and other objects in your presentations. You can control the order in which things appear on your slides, how they enter and leave a slide, whether or not sounds and movies play automatically.

To customize the animation of an object:

1. Locate the slide that contains the object you want to control. FOR WORKSHOP: select the slide that contains a movie
2. From the menu bar, choose "Slide Show"
3. From the slide show menu, choose "Custom Animation" (Windows) or "Animations" and then "Custom" (MacOS)
4. Select the object(s) you want to animate or control. FOR WORKSHOP: select at least two items
5. If it is not active, click on the "Order & Timing" tab to select it
6. In the "Animation order:" window, select one of the items and use the up or down arrows to move it in the sequence of items
7. In the "Start animation" section, you select "On mouse click" or "Automatically," to control when the object moves onto the slide. Enter the number of seconds of delay before the object moves into the slide, if you wish
8. Click on the multimedia tab (Windows) or the options tab (MacOS)
9. In the "Object action:" drop down field, select "Play" (Windows). In the "Sounds and Movies" section, choose "Play using animation order" (MacOS)
10. Click on the tabs for the remaining options to see what choices you can make and experiment
11. View the show to see the results of your choices

PowerPoint and the Web

Hyperlinks

You can use hyperlinks in three ways in a PowerPoint presentation: to access material that is out on the web, to access other materials on your computer, or to jump to a different slide in the presentation itself.

Note, if you want to access a page on the web during your presentation, you must have a web browser on the computer you will be using and you must have a currently active connection to the web.

To create a hyperlink:

1. Position your cursor at the point where you want the hyperlink
2. From the menu bar, choose "Insert"
3. From the insert menu, choose "Hyperlink"
4. In the field "Text to display:" (Windows) or "Display" (Mac OS), type the text that you want to appear as the hyperlink on the slide. FOR WORKSHOP: type "Our home page"
5. From the choice of type of links, choose either:
   • "Existing File or Web Page" (Windows) or "Web Page" (Mac OS) - to link to a file or web page that already exists (may be on your computer or out on the web)
   • "Place in This Document" (Windows) or "Document" (MacOS) - to link to another slide in your presentation
   • "Create New Document" (Windows only) - to link to a file that you will create now or later
   • "E-mail Address" - to create link that would allow a user to send mail to the address you specify. FOR WORKSHOP: Choose "Existing File or Web Page"
6. In the field "Type the file or Web page name:" (Windows) or "Link to:" (MacOS) type the address of the page to which to link. If it is a file on your computer, you can browse for it. If it is a page on the Internet and you are connected, you can us your web browser to locate the correct page. FOR WORKSHOP: type "http://www.d.umn.edu"
7. Click the "OK" button

Take a look at your slide. If your settings are the usual, preset ones, the hyperlink is probably showing up in silver. Not only is this difficult to read against many backgrounds, it is also not the color we've come to expect a hyperlink to be.

Hyperlinks are usually blue, and visited ones are usually purple. This is what we have been trained to look for as a clue in navigating web pages, so I generally recommend that people stick with this convention and use these colors whenever they create either presentations or web pages with hyperlinks.

To change the color of the hyperlink:

1. From the menu bar, choose "Format"
2. From the format menu, choose "Slide Color Scheme"
3. From the color scheme window, you have a number of standard choices. None of these have the conventional colors for the hyperlinks, so we need to click the "Custom" tab. FOR WORKSHOP: click the "Custom" tab
4. In the "scheme colors" section of the window, locate and click on the colored square labeled "Accent and hyperlink"
5. Click the "Change color" button
6. From the color palette, choose a midrange blue
7. Click the "OK" button
8. In the "scheme colors" section of the window, locate and click on the colored square labeled "Accent and followed hyperlink"
9. Click the "Change color" button
10. From the color palette, choose a medium purple
11. Click the "OK" button
12. Click the "Add as Standard Scheme" button
13. Click the "Apply to All" button

Putting Presentations on the Web

There are two main ways to make PowerPoint presentations available to students or colleagues via the Internet: put the presentation itself on the web server or convert it to HTML pages. Each has certain advantages and disadvantages.

When you put the presentation itself on the web, your show will be essentially the same as if you presented it yourself, retaining all the transitions and special features that you built into it. However, your viewer needs to either have PowerPoint or the free PowerPoint viewer in order to view your show. And, there is no PowerPoint viewing software currently available for the new SunRays in the basic access labs.

When you convert the presentation to HTML, you eliminate the need for your viewers to possess special software, however, many of the active components of a show (slide transitions, animations, movies) will not play properly, if at all. So, the conversion process is most effective when you are putting a simple slide show on the web.

In the workshop, we will learn to convert a PowerPoint presentation to HTML format and discuss some of the conversion options. We will not be able to practice uploading the pages during the workshop, but if you would like assistance with this process, we will be happy to work with you in your office on this process.

Convert Presentation to HTML

The process of converting a presentation to HTML format is fairly straightforward. You will create a COPY of the original presentation in the new format.

1. Open the presentation that you want to convert
2. From the menu bar, choose "File"
3. From the file menu, choose "Save as Web Page"
4. Chose where you want to save your HTML pages. This might be a location where you keep other files for your web site, especially if you are using a program such as Dreamweaver or PageMill
5. Choose how to name the main page of the presentation. A default name is given for you, but you may change it if you wish
6. Make sure that you are saving the file in web page format
7. Customize the format of the converted file by clicking the "Publish" button (Windows) or the "Web Options" button (MacOS)
8. When done choosing the formatting options, click the "Save" button. The converted file is saved as a main page, along with a number of supporting files

Effects of some Web Page Publishing Options

(Note: there is a great deal of difference between the MacOS and Windows versions of PowerPoint 2000/2001 in this area. I am writing these instructions in general terms so that they apply to both platforms.)

Upload HTML Pages

Before people can see your converted presentation, you must move it to your account area on the web server. This can be done in a variety of ways and will depend upon what other web tools you currently use.

It is VERY important that you move the file as well as the folder of supporting files that were created during the conversion process.

If you are unfamiliar with transfering files to the web, please contact Barbara Johnson at x6862 for help.

Create the Link to Your Presentation

Using your web authoring program, you should create a link from the appropriate web page to your PowerPoint presentation following these general steps:

1. Open the web page where you want to place the link
2. Create the text that will become the link. For example: "Link to PowerPoint presentation"
3. Create the link to the presentation's main page

Mastering your Layout

One way to give your presentation a professional touch is to create your own layout. By incorporating a graphic or a background associated with the University, your department, or the presentation topic, you add a measure of polish to your work. It also helps remind people of the source if you decide to put your materials up on the web for viewing later. (Be sure to review policies regarding use of official logos before using them in any presentation, however.)

Creating a Custom Layout

To customize your background in any PowerPoint presentation:

1. From the menu bar, choose "View"
2. From the view menu, choose "Master"
3. From the popup menu, choose "Slide Master"
4. From the menu bar, choose "Format"
5. From the format menu, choose "Background". The background window will open.
   
   
   
6. Click on the down arrow in the drop down field
7. From the popup menu, choose "More colors"
8. In the standard colors dialog box, choose one of the colors
9. Click the "OK" button
10. Click on the down arrow in the drop down field again
11. From the popup menu, choose "Fill effects"
12. In the fill effects window, you have 4 main options: Gradient, Texture, Pattern, and Picture, with a wide variety of options under each. FOR WORKSHOP: choose "Texture"
13. Choose one of the available textures by clicking on it
14. Click the "OK" button. You will return to the background window
15. Click the "Apply to All" button
16. From the menu bar, choose "View"
17. From the view menu, choose "Normal" to go back to the usual working window

In similar fashion, you can change the font on the slide master or add a picture to it, which will effect every slide in your presentation.

Note: changes made to the slide master will affect every new slide you create, and it will affect existing slide elements, provided that you have not made formatting changes to them.

Save Layout as a Template

Once you have created a custom design template, you may want to use it again for future presentations. However, remember to save the template BEFORE you add any content to it that you do not want duplicated in future slide shows.

To save your template:

1. From the menu bar, choose "File"
2. From the file menu, choose "Save As"
3. Give the file a name in the "File name:" field
4. In the "Save as type:" field, choose "Design Template (*.pot)"
5. In the saving dialog box, make sure that you are saving in the location "Templates". This way, it will be easy to locate when you do a new presentation
6. Click the "Save" button

To use your template:

1. Create a new presentation
2. In the "New Presentation" dialog box, select the "General" tab
3. Select the design template you want to use
4. Click the "OK" button

Creating Graphs/Charts

A graph is an example of one of the many tools available to you to convey information non-verbally. In PowerPoint, they are referred to as "charts".

To insert a chart:

1. FOR WORKSHOP: create a new presentation
2. FOR WORKSHOP: Create a title page with the title: "Pet Ownership Survey" and your name
3. Create a new slide using the chart slide layout
4. Title this slide: "Survey Says..."
5. Double click in the lower region where the "Double click to add chart" message is displayed. An EXAMPLE chart and datasheet are created for you to edit. Take a moment to notice the changes in your menu and tool bars.
6. Move your cursor over the datasheet area. It will turn into a white cross
7. Click on the heading of column B. The whole column becomes highlighted
8. Press your "Delete" key. The data in the column is eliminated
9. Repeat for columns C and D
10. Click in the first row of column A
11. Type a description of the data we will be collecting. FOR WORKSHOP: "Number"
12. Click in the first column for the first data series (the word "East" is there now)
13. Type a short description for our first type of animal from the audience
14. Click in the cell to the right of our first animal type and enter the number of the people who own one (from the audience)
15. Repeat for several animals
16. When done entering data, click the "x" in the upper right of the datasheet

To customize the graph:

1. Make sure the graph is selected. It should have a broad, hashed line around it
2. From the menu bar, choose "Chart"
3. From the chart menu, you can choose "Chart Type" to change the type of graph from the default to pie charts or lines (or a host of other possibilities. You can choose "Chart Options" to make changes to how the chart displays. FOR WORKSHOP: choose "Chart Type". You will see a window similar to this:
   
   
   
4. Make sure the "Standard Types" tab is selected.
5. Click on some of the different chart types (in the left window) to see the different subtypes associated with each (in the right window). If you want to see how your data will appear as the selected chart type, press and hold the button in the lower right labeled "Press and Hold to View Sample"
6. When you are pleased with the appearance of your graph, click the "OK" button

Note: depending upon the data in your data sheet, some graph types will not be applicable.

One possible frustration comes about when the graph type that you want to use is based on organizing the data by row (when you have it in columns) or by column (when you have it is rows). Fortunately, this organization is under your control when you define the data series.

To define the data series:

1. Make sure the graph is selected. It should have a broad, hashed line around it
2. From the menu bar, choose "Data"
3. From the data menu, choose either "Series in Rows" or "Series in Columns". (Usually, the data series starts in rows, so if your graph is not displaying as you expected, try the series in columns.)