"How to" Guideline series is coordinated by Helen Mongan-Rallis of the Education Department at the University of Minnesota Duluth. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions to improve these guidelines please e-mail hrallis@d.umn.edu.

rainbow bar

Intermediate Power Point Guidelines

Developed by Helen Rallis
(adapted from earlier guidelines developed by Helen Rallis & Al Roline)

These guidelines were designed to follow the Introduction to Power Point lesson guidelines. (Guidelines to this first lesson can also be found online at http://www.d.umn.edu/~hrallis/guides/PP/PP2000Intro.html). In this second lesson you will learn to do the following:

Overview of topics:

  1. Locate Clip Art on the Internet.
  2. Change the Color of Clip Art Images.
  3. Insert Images From Digital Camera Floppy Disk.
  4. Insert Video Clips.
  5. Insert Sound From a CD.

Locating Clip Art on the Internet

Power Point comes with a large clip art gallery. In the Introduction to Power Point lesson you learned how to insert clip art from this gallery. As you become more comfortable with using Power Point you will find that you would like to go beyond the standard gallery and find other images. There is a wide variety of clip art web sites on the Internet. You can find these by using most Internet search engines and searching for free clip art. Some examples of clip art sites:

Once you have located clip art images that you want to use in your Power Point Presentation, download these and save them. If you are working at your own computer, it is a good idea to create a Clip Art folder for saving downloaded clip art. For example:

  1. Go to Clipart.com (http://www.clipart.com/). Under the list of free clip art on the right hand side of the page, click on Valentine's Day. This will take you to a collection Valentine's Day clip art.
  2. To download one of these images:
  3. Give the image a name that you will remember at a later date, but make sure the name you give it is one word and ends with the extension .jpg or .gif (use whatever extension the creator used). For example, I downloaded the following teddy bear image, which the creator of it called "g0065.thm.jpg" but which I renamed teddycartoon.jpg:

    teddy cartoon picture

Once you have found the clip art images that you want, you can then insert these into your Power Point presentation. To do this, follow the same steps described below for inserting pictures from a digital camera floppy disk.

[Note: To copy a photograph from the Internet, follow the same steps as you did for copying clip art (mouse click --> hold --> download --> save)]

Changing the Color of Clip Art Images

Although clip art is usually usable exactly as it was originally designed, it it sometimes useful to be able to change the colors. For example, on a slide in a PowerPoint presentation I wanted to show a way of classifying concepts using a pyramid. However, I wanted just the lowest level of the pyramid to be colored. So here is what I did:

multi-colored pyramidI took the PowerPoint clip art of a multicolored pyramid.. single colored pyramid...and removed all the colors, finally adding red to the lowest level to focus attention on just this level.

To change the color of clip art:

  1. Select the clip art and insert it onto a slide.
  2. Once the clip art is on the slide, double click on it --> this will open the Format Picture dialog box.
  3. The Format Picture dialog box gives you a series of different sections (tabs) to make adjustments to your picture. For now, select the Picture tab --> then click on the Recolor button.
  4. This will bring up a Recolor Picture dialog box that shows the clip art on the one side and a break down of the colors in this picture on the other side as shown below:

    recolor picture box Notice that in this picture the young woman on the left has dark hair.

  5. To change the color of any part of the image, click on the small downward pointing triangle to the right of the color you wish to change --> this will bring up a box with a limited selection of other color choices. If the one you want isn't shown, click on the words More Colors --> then make your selection from the range of choices shown in the color palette.
  6. Click on the OK button --> this takes you back to the Format Picture box --> click on the OK button there --> done! The following shows how I changed the image of the two young women.

    changed color to blond Now the young woman on the left has blond hair!
    You can see the pull down color box and the new color (yellow) that I picked to replaced the dark brown.

Inserting Images From Digital Camera Floppy Disk

For this exercise you need to have a floppy disk with digital images taken using the digital camera (to see directions on how to take photos with the Sony Mavica Digital Camera you can go to the web page How To Take Photos with Sony Digital Camera).

Inserting QuickTime Video Clips

Inserting QuickTime video clips works in much the same way as inserting photographs.

From Digital Camera:

For this exercise you will need to have a movie clip that you have taken using a digital camera that has movie capabilities (such as the Sony Mavica). With the Sony Mavica, to take a movie clip works in the same way as taking a photograph, only you slide the selector on the back of the camera to movie, rather than still. Then hold the shutter button down while you film your movie clip. You can capture up to 15 seconds of movie footage on one floppy disk using a Sony Mavica. Once you have your video on disk

  1. Insert the disk into the floppy drive.
  2. Open the disk and copy the movie file (it will have the extension .mpg) to the Intermediate Power Point folder that you created in the exercise above. You may want to rename the movie so it has a name that you will recognize at a later date (e.g.IvyLicksFoot.mpg).
  3. Create a new slide. It is usually best to use a title slide, so that you can give the video a title and then use the rest of the space on the page for inserting the video (you can always add a text box later if you want to insert text related to the video).
  4. Click on the Insert menu, then scroll down to Movies and Sound and then click on Movie From File.
  5. A dialog box will prompt you to select the picture from a particular location on your computer. Navigate to the place where you have saved your movie (in this case, on the floppy disk -- which on a PC will be in the 3 1/2 Floppy (A:) drive) and on the Mac will show up as a floppy icon on your desktop).
  6. When you open the floppy disk you will see the movie you took with the digital camera (the file name will end in .mpg).
  7. Select the movie you wish to insert and click the Convert button.
  8. Next a box will pop up asking you if you want the movie to play automatically in the slide show (and if not, it will play when you click it). If you do, click on the Yes button. If you don't, click the No button.
    NOTE: usually it is best to choose No. This way, when the slide appears, you can start the video clip when you are ready (once you have talked a bit about the contents of the slide and are ready to show the video to illustrate a point that you are making).
  9. Once you complete the above steps PowerPoint will insert a link to the video clip onto your slide. However, you won't see that this is what it did. Instead it will look like the video is on the slide. It will show up as a picture of the first frame in the movie, with a little movie icon to indicate that it is a movie clip and not a regular photograph.

    *Important: unlike inserting photographs, when you insert a movie file, all you are really doing is insert a link to where you have located the movie clip on your computer. The clip is never really a part of your presentation as this would make the file too large. Instead, the location of the movie is noted in the presentation, so when you click on it, Power Point looks to the location you specified for the file. For this reason you must save the movie clip on the same disk if you wish to show your Power Point from a floppy or Zip disk. If you fail to do this, when you open your Power Point Presentation and try to link to the movie clip, your computer will not be able to locate the movie and link to it. If you create the presentation on your computer hard drive and then later decide to show it from another computer or from a disk, you will need to update the address of the movie clip (the easiest way to do this is by reinserting the movie clip once you have moved the PowerPoint to the new location)

  10. Once the frame of the movie is on the slide, you can reposition it on the slide (by dragging it) and resize it (by dragging on one of the little boxes or resizing handlebars). Caution: if you make the size too big the video image will become distorted and harder to see, so you usually can have it no larger than about 4 or 5 inches wide.

To Insert a Movie From Power Point Gallery:

  1. Create a new slide (title slide best).
  2. Click on the Insert menu, then scroll down to Movies and Sound and then click on Movie From Gallery. [Note: In order to be able to access the Movies and Sounds files that come with the PowerPoint Gallery these must have been installed onto your computer when you installed the program or you need to insert the CD on which you have the original PowerPoint program. If these files are not on your computer and you don't have the original CD, then when you try to insert the files from the Gallery nothing will happen when you click on insert in the next step!]
  3. Select one of the video files, and click Insert. This creates a link to the movie clip (it does not actually insert the clip). The first frame of the movie will appear on your screen.
  4. As you did above, once the frame of the movie is on the slide, you can reposition it on the slide and resize it.

Inserting Sound From a CD

a. Playing sound from a CD:

(you will need to have the CD in your computer when you show your Power Point presentation if you choose this option)

  1. Insert > movies & sounds > Play CD audio track
  2. In the play options box that appears, select the sound track that you want to play. You can also select what segment of the track you wish to play (set the timer start and end point)
  3. Click on the OK button
  4. You may also choose to select the box to look the track until stopped.

b. Save CD track and insert the whole or part of the sound track into Power Point presentation:

  1. From Insert menu > movies & sounds > movie from file (NOT sound from file)
  2. Navigate to the CD & click on the sound track you want to import
  3. Click on the convert button
  4. In the box that appears, give your sound file a name (songname) instead of the default "Track 1 Movie"
  5. Navigate to where you want save the movie (it must be in the same folder in which you have your PowerPoint presentation saved. If you save it somewhere else you will run in problems with the sound file not being found. This is especially true if you move the presentation to a zip disk or to another location).
  6. Choose one of the following options:
  7. Make sure your sound file is going to be saved in the correct location and the click the save button --> You will then be asked you if you want this to play automatically --> Click No (it's better to have the sound play when you click on this icon rather than automatically when the slide opens).
  8. A QuickTime movie icon on your page. Resize it so it is very small and then move it to an inconspicuous place on the slide.
    picture of Quick Time Icon
    When you show your presentation, this icon will appear, To play the sound, move the cursor over it until it "gives you the finger." Click and the sound file will play.

c. Insert action button that links to the sound file:

  1. From slide show menu --> action button --> sound
  2. Cross hairs appear (in place of the cursor) > draw a button with this
  3. The action button dialog box pops up. Select hyperlink to > other file > navigate to the sound file that you have saved in your Power Point file
  4. Click on the "Use relative path link" box (so that the hyperlink is relative to file where you have it saved).
  5. Click OK
  6. When you are in slide show mode and click on this action button it will bring up a QuickTime player screen. You then click the play button to play the sound

d. Record sound clip while playing the CD:

This is not a very good option as it also records all the background sound that you and anyone else around you makes!

  1. Start playing the desired CD track.
  2. When you get to the segment/clip that you want to record, in your Power Point presentation from Insert menu --> Movies and sound --> record sound.
  3. In the box that pops up, click record.
  4. Press stop when you are done recording the clip you wish to insert
  5. Then follow the direction above under "Importing sound into Power Point."

Other PowerPoint Guidelines:

  1. Introduction to PowerPoint (http://www.d.umn.edu/~hrallis/guides/PP/PP2000Intro.html)
  2. Creating a Power Point Slide Show: (http://www.d.umn.edu/~hrallis/guides/PP/slideshow.html)
  3. Saving a PowerPoint presentation as a web page (http://www.d.umn.edu/~hrallis/guides/PP/SavePPAsWeb.html)

rainbow bar

Return to the Index of How To Guidelines