"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.

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Taking Power Point to the Next Level

Developed by Helen Rallis

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 image from the web
  4. Insert Images From Digital Camera Floppy Disk.
  5. Insert QuickTime Video Clips.
  6. Insert a Motion Clip From PowerPoint Gallery
  7. Insert Sound From a PowerPoint Gallery.
  8. Create PowerPoint Slide Show

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 Clip Art Connection: (http://www.clipartconnection.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. For example, I downloaded the following teddy bear image, which the creator of it called "g0065.thm.jpg" but which I renamed teddycartoon.jpg:

Once you have found the clip art images that you want, you can then insert these into your Power Point presentation.

Inserting Clip Art from PowerPoint Gallery

Any of the above options will open the clip art gallery dialog box. Then:

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, click on it once to select it --> from the Format menu --> Select Picture --> 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 image from the web

  1. Locate the image of your choice on the web page
  2. Download the image:
  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, no spaces.
  4. PC users: If you are using a PC the computer will add in the file extension automatically (usually .gif or .jpg)
  5. Mac users: If you are using a Mac, you need to type in the extension manually when you name the file (use whatever extension the creator used -- usually .gif or .jpg).
  6. Save the image to your computer [it's a good idea to start a folder in which you save your collection of images].
  7. Save the location of the image (so that you can cite the image source if you use the image for any public documents).
  8. Insert the image onto a PowerPoint Slide:
  9. Paste the URL of the page from which you copied the image underneath the photo. Click just before the URL and type in the words, "Image source" Example:

    sample image from REI web site
    [Image source: http://www.rei.com/]

Inserting Images From Digital Camera Floppy Disk

  1. 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).
  2. Insert your floppy disk (with the images you took using the digital camera) into the floppy drive.
  3. On your computer hard drive (Mac) or C drive (PC), create a new folder. Call this folder Power Point Images Workshop
  4. Open an existing Power Point presentation or create a new one.
  5. Save your existing or new Power Point Presentation into this folder.
  6. Place the cursor on the slide on which you want to insert the photograph or create a new slide for this purpose (it is usually best to use a blank slide, title only slide, or clip art & text slide for inserting photographs).
  7. Click on the Insert menu --> then scroll down to Picture --> and then click on From File.
  8. 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 pictures (or, in this case, on the floppy disk -- which on a Windows computer will be in the 3 1/2 Floppy (A:) drive) and on the Mac will show up as a floppy icon on your desktop).
  9. When you open the floppy disk you will see a list of photos you took with the digital camera. The file name for still photographs taken with the digital camera will end in .jpg.
  10. Select the photo you wish to insert and click the Insert button. This will insert the picture onto your slide.
  11. Once the picture is on the slide, you can use the PowerPoint picture editing tools to edit the picture. Examples:

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.

Inserting a Motion Clip From PowerPoint Gallery

  1. Create a new slide (title slide best).
  2. Click on the Insert menu --> then scroll down to Movies and Sound --> 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. Click on one of the pictures to select it --> a popup callout menu appears.
  4. Click on the second icon in the popup callout menu to preview of the clip (to close the preview window click on the "x" in the upper right hand corner)
  5. Once you have made your selection, click on the clip of your choice --> from the popup menu select the first icon to insert the clip into your slide.
  6. The motion clip will be inserted on the slide (it will play automatically when you show the slide).
  7. Once the clip is on the slide, you can reposition it on the slide and resize it (as you did for other kinds of images).

Inserting Sound From a PowerPoint Gallery

  1. Create a new slide (title slide best).
  2. Click on the Insert menu --> then scroll down to Movies and Sound --> click on Sound 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 sound clip files --> click Insert.
  4. Before the sound file is inserted, a box pops up asking you if you want the sound to play automatically in the slide show (if not, it will play when you click it). Click either the Yes or No button.
  5. A small icon of a speaker is inserted on the slide.
  6. Reposition this icon on the slide and resize it (I usually place it in an inconspicuous place in the bottom right-hand corner of the slide).

Creating PowerPoint Slide Shows

Setting up the slides:

  1. Plan out your entire slide show (what slides to include, sequencing, and if there is to be any text on the slides).
  2. Create a series of blank slides:
  3. Insert the photographs you want for your slide show onto the Power Point pages you have created. Usually it's best to have one photograph per page (but it's up to you what effect you want to have here). To insert the photographs there are a couple of different ways to do this:
  4. Adjust picture size to fit the slide. Be sure not to resize it too large so that the quality of the picture is compromised and it is no longer clear. You may find that you need to go back to the original high quality image (the one that you saved the first time you took or scanned the picture). To resize the photo you can:
  5. Change background color: Once you have created all the slides, experiment with different colored backgrounds or slide designs so that the pictures contrast with the slide background color. You can have different colored backgrounds for each slide if this is not distracting to the viewer. Typically it is better (and easier) to have the background the same.
  6. Rearrange slide order: You can rearrange the order of the slides by going into the slide sorter. To move a slide from one position to another, click on it once, then drag it to the desired position and release the mouse.

Develop the slide show

Create Slide Transitions. PowerPoint provides a variety of animation effects that you can use when moving from one slide to another.

  1. From the menu --> Select slide transition. This will bring up the slide transition dialog box:

    screen shot of slide transition box
  2. Select the desired transition from the pull down menu under the Effect box.
  3. Select transition speed (slow, medium, or fast).
  4. Under the Advance box select how the transitions will be applied (automatically after the number of seconds that you type into the box), or on mouse click, or both [Note:It's usually best to select both, so that during the presentation you have the option of advancing the slides quicker than you had originally intended if you want to speed things up].
  5. Under the Sound box you can select a sound to be played during the slide transition (Tip: only choose this if the sound adds to people's understanding of the slide. Sounds can be very annoying and can distract people from the point that you are trying to make].
  6. Apply the selected effect: You can choose to do this just to the one slide that you have on the screen now (click the Apply button), or to the entire presentation (click the Apply to all button). If the slides will be looping automatically and are all similar, you can apply the same effects to all slides (much easier this way!).

Other options for setting the timing of slides

If you would like to have some slides show for longer periods of time to give the viewers a chance to read text or to examine a complicated diagram, then you will need to set the timing for each slide separately. It is best to do this when you are in the slide sorter view where you can see thumbnails (miniatures) of each slide.

  1. From slide sorter view.
  2. Rehearse timings. This allows you to set the timings for each individual slide.
  3. Record narration: This allows you to set the timings for each slide and at the same time record any comments you want to make to go along with the slide (be sure to check that you microphone is working and that it is selected in the Control Panel under "sound.").

Design tips:

  1. Make the content is the focus of your presentation and not the special effects (e.g. animations, transitions, sounds).
  2. Use special effects only if needed to emphasize a point (by having the audience focus on it) and to enhance your objectives.
  3. Pacing is important. Give audience sufficient time to understand (and, if applicable, read) what it on the slide. Rehearse the timings before you give the presentation.

Creating Custom Slide Shows

Custom shows are like a presentation within a presentation. They can be used when you want to depart from the main content of your presentation to:

 

To access your custom slide shows you create an agenda slide. An agenda slide allows you to jump to the custom slide show and then return automatically to the agenda slide for you to continue with the rest of your (regular) presentation.

The agenda slide looks and acts very much like a web page. It lists the different parts of you presentation (like an index or home page on the Internet). From this agenda slide you can create hyperlinks that jump to a different section of your presentation and then return you automatically to the agenda slide so you can move on to the next item.

In the example on the right, the agenda slide links to three different custom shows (each consisting of 3 slides). At the end of each of these shows the presentation is set to return back to the agenda slides.
storyboard layout or agenda & other slides
Storyboard showing custom shows

To create an agenda slide that links to custom shows:

Design tip for custom slide shows: have all the slides for your custom slide show(s) be at the end of your regular presentation (so the custom slides appear like pages in the appendix of a book, and are accessed only if you choose to link to them).

Other PowerPoint Guidelines

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