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The following screenshot shows the various
areas in a standard PowerPoint file. It is
important to familiarize yourself with these
areas as it makes learning and using
PowerPoint easier.
Slide Views
The group of four buttons located to the left of
the Zoom control, near the bottom of the
screen, lets you switch between PowerPoint
views.
Normal Layout view − This displays
page in normal view with the slide on
the right and a list of thumbnails to the
left. This view allows you to edit
individual slides and also rearrange
them.
Slide Sorter view − This displays all the slides as a matrix. This view only allows you to
rearrange the slides but not edit the contents of each slide.
Reading View − This view is like a slideshow with access to the Windows task bar in case you
need to switch windows. However, like the slideshow you cannot edit anything in this view.
Notes Section: This sections allows you to add notes for the presentation. These notes will
not be displayed on the screen during the presentation; these are just quick reference for the
presenter.
Slide Tab: This section is available only in the Normal view. It displays all the slides in
sequence. You can add, delete and reorder slides from this section.
Create Presentation
PowerPoint offers a host of tools
that will aid you in creating a
presentation. These tools are
organized logically into various
ribbons in PowerPoint. The table
below describes the various
commands you can access from the
different menus.
Menu Ribbon Commands
Category
Clipboard functions, manipulating slides, fonts, paragraph settings, drawing
Home
objects and editing functions.
Insert tables, pictures, images, shapes, charts, special texts, multimedia and
Insert
symbols.
Design Slide setup, slide orientation, presentation themes and background.
Transitions Commands related to slide transitions.
Animations Commands related to animation within the individual slides.
Slide Show Commands related to slideshow set up and previews.
Review Proofing content, language selection, comments and comparing presentations.
Commands related to presentation views, Master slides, color settings and
View
window arrangements.
Besides these depending on the objects selected in the slide, there are other menu tabs that get
enabled.
Adding Slides Notes
Slide notes can be very useful tools for presentation. These notes are not displayed on the screen in
the Slideshow mode, but the presenter can see them so they can prepare well to present the slides.
Depending on your Print settings, you can also print the slide notes along with the slides.
This chapter will show you how to add slide notes to an existing presentation.
Step 1 − To locate the slide notes, set the view in Normal mode.
Step 2 − The Slide Notes section is indicated by "Click to add notes".
Step 3 − You can click on the top border and drag the section to increase its size to make it easier to
type.
Step 4 − Type your text in this section as slide notes.
You can only use bullets, numbering and alignment functions in the Slide Notes section. All other
functions can be selected, but can be applied only to the selected slide, not the notes.
Slide notes can be printed from the print menu under the Backstage view. From the Print Layout
option, select Notes Pages or 3 Slides. Notes Pages will print a single slide with the slide notes below
it. The 3 Slides will print all three slides with notes on the right side.
Step 1
Step 2
Step3
Managing Section
Given the popularity of PowerPoint and its versatility, there are situations when you are dealing with
very large slide decks or just collaborating with different people to build the slides. In such cases, it is
always helpful to be able to segregate the slides into smaller groups and work with these groups.
PowerPoint 2010 introduces the concept of sections to achieve this. Here are the main functions you
can execute with sections.
Creating Sections
The steps to create a new section are as follows. You can execute these steps from the Normal view
or the Slide Sorter view.
Step 1 − In the Normal view or the Slide Sorter view, right-click at the position where you want to
add the section and select add section.
Step 2 − The new section gets added to the presentation with all the subsequent slides being
included in this section.
Step 3 − By default, the new section is named "Untitled Section" but you can change the section
name. Right-click on the section and select "Rename Section".
Step 4 − In the Rename Section dialog box, enter the new section name. This accepts all the
characters including alphabets, numbers, special characters, punctuations, etc.
Step 5 − Click on the "Rename" button on the dialog to rename the section.
Rearranging Sections
One of the advantages of sections is that you can not only group slides together, but also rearrange
them as one set. Instead of having to move each slide individually, you can move the entire section.
Just like rearranging slides you can drag and move the sections. Alternately, you can right-click on the
section and move it up or down as shown below.
If there are many slides to work with, you can collapse them so you view just the sections. This
makes rearranging them less confusing too.
Deleting Sections
PowerPoint 2010 provides three options to delete sections. The table below explains the function of
each option.
S.N
Delete Option & Description
o
Remove Section
1
Deletes the selected section and merges slides with the previous section.
Remove Section & Slide
2
Deletes the selected section and all the slides in the section.
Remove All Sections
3
Deletes all the sections and merges all the slides into a presentation without sections.
Working with Outlines
PowerPoint is a great program that allows you to bring together text, images, shapes and
multimedia. However, sometimes you may just want to review the text without focusing on the non-
text aspects of the slide deck. This is where the Outline view in PowerPoint is quite useful. The
Outline view can be accessed from the tab adjacent to the Slide tab in the Normal view.
The outline view shows just the text content from various slides. This view does not show the text
entered in the non-text box like SmartArt, WordArt or any other shapes.
By default, the outline pane size is the same as the slide tab pane; hence it is small. However, you can
drag the pane out to increase the size to improve readability.
Power Point Slidebar
PowerPoint slides have a left-hand side bar which offers two invaluable views. These views are great
to review the slides and edit them. The side bar is available in the Normal view and by default, it is
set to the Slides tab.
Slides Tab
This tab shows all the slides stacked vertically in a sequential manner. You can select individual slides
from this tab and also perform some tasks like changing slide layouts, reordering slides, inserting
new slides, deleting slides, etc. Although you cannot edit the slide contents from this tab, you can
select the slide and make edits from the slide displayed to the right.
Outline Tab
This is the tab right next to the Slides tab and as the name suggests, this provides the outline for the
slide. This section just displays all the textual content from every slide - this can be very useful if
there is a lot of non-text content in the slide and reviewing just the written part gets difficult. Unlike
in the slides tab, you can edit the text from this section.
If you need greater viewing space, you can close the sidebar by click on the X on the top right of this
bar.To recover the sidebar, just click on the Normal view icon again.
Presentation View
PowerPoint supports multiple views to allow users to gain the maximum from the features available
in the program. Each view supports a different set of functions and is designed accordingly.
PowerPoint views can be accessed from two locations.
Views can be accessed quickly from the bottom bar just to the left of the zoom settings.
Views can also be accessed from the Presentation Views section in the View ribbon
Here is a short description of the various views and their features.
Normal View
This is the default view in PowerPoint and this is primarily used to create and edit slides. You can
create/ delete/ edit/ rearrange slides, add/ remove/ modify content and manipulate sections from
this view.
Slide Sorter View
This view is primarily used to sort slides and rearrange them. This view is also ideal to add or remove
sections as it presents the slides in a more compact manner making it easier to rearrange them.
Reading View
This view is new to PowerPoint 2010 and it was created mainly to review the slideshow without
losing access to rest of the Windows applications. Typically, when you run the slideshow, the
presentation takes up the entire screen so other applications cannot be accessed from the taskbar. In
the reading view the taskbar is still available while viewing the slideshow which is convenient. You
cannot make any modifications when on this view.
SlidesShow
This is the traditional slideshow view available in all the earlier versions of PowerPoint. This view is
used to run the slideshow during presentation.
Setting Background
As PowerPoint is a design-based program, backgrounds are effective ways of improving the
aesthetics and readability of the slides. The Themes in PowerPoint help select the backgrounds by
default, so every time you change the theme, the default background is set automatically. Theme
includes more than just backgrounds, so you can retain other aspects of the theme while changing
the default background.
Given below are the steps to apply backgrounds in PowerPoint.
Step 1 − In the Design ribbon, under the Background group, click the Background Styles command.
Step 2 − Select one of the background styles that suits your requirements.
Step 3 − To edit the background for a specific slide, right-click on the desired background slide and
select "Apply to Selected Slides".
Step 4 − Selected slide(s) now have the new background.
The graphics in the slide background can distract you from the actual content, in such cases you can
hide the graphics and retain a plain background till you finish working on the content. To do this,
select the slide and check the "Hide Background Graphics" checkbox.
Review Presentation
Reviewing the presentation can be a very powerful way of eliminating the errors and perfecting the
slides. PowerPoint offers a wide range of reviewing options for you to use. Some of them are
automatic or system driven, while others aid other users to collaborate and review the slides. All the
reviewing tools are grouped under the Review ribbon.
Review
Functions
Section
Proofing Spellchecking − Identify spelling and grammar based on
selected language preference
Research − Reference language related research tools based
on specific reference books and research sites
Thesaurus − Provide synonyms for selected text
Translate − Provides translation services for selected words
for multilingual support
Language
Language − Sets the default language for the presentation -
this will be used as default language for proofing
Show Marking − Show/hide the user comments in the slide
New Comment − Add new comment against the selected
content
Edit Comment − Edit an existing comment
Comments
Delete Comment − Delete a selected comment, all comments
in the selected slide or all the comments in the presentation
Previous / Next Comment − Move to previous / next
comments
Compare − Compare the current presentation with another
presentation and identify the differences
Accept/ Reject − Accept or reject the differences to be
incorporated into the current presentation
Compare
Previous/ Next − Move to the previous or the next difference
in the comparison.
End Review − End the review and discard any unapplied
changes
Adding Slide Number
Just like you have page numbers for books, it is usually a good idea to add slide numbers to
presentations. There are two ways you can add slide numbers to your presentation and this chapter
will show you both those techniques.
Step 1 − Under the Insert ribbon, Text group click on Slide Number command.
Step 2 − The Header and Footer dialog opens up.
Step 3 − Check the Slide number check box.
Step 4 − The Preview shows the section where the slide number will be placed.
Instead of clicking on the Slide Number command, you can also click on the Header & Footer menu
item to launch the same dialog as in Step 2.
Adding Header & Footer
PowerPoint offers the ability to add header and footers to the slides. While having footers in
presentations is logical, header may not be quite evident at first. Typically, the slide title would be the
header in the main slide, however when it comes to printing out handouts a separate header would
be quite useful.
Here are the steps to add header and footer information to slides
Step 1 − In the Insert ribbon, click on the Header & Footer menu item.
Step 2 − The Header and Footer dialog has two tabs the Slide tab and the Notes and Handouts tab.
Step 3 − You can add details to the slide footer from the Slide tab.
S.No Slide Footer Options & Description
Date and time
Add date and time to the footer
1
Specify the format of the date and time entered
Set up the footer to update automatically or use a fixed number
Slide Number
2
Insert Slide number in the footer
Footer
3 Add designated text to the footer - a good example of this is the confidentiality clause or
copyright clause
Don't show on title slide
4
Decide on whether the footer information should be displayed on the title slide or not
Step 4 − You can add the details to the handouts from the Notes and Handouts tab.
S.No Notes and Handouts Options & Description
Date and time
Add date and time to the footer
1
Specify the format of the date and time entered
Set up the footer to update automatically or use a fixed number
Header
2
Add the header information for every page on the handout
Page Number
3
Insert page number in the footer
Footer
4 Add designated text to the footer - a good example of this is the confidentiality clause or
copyright clause
When you check any of the header and footer checkboxes in either tabs, you can see the location
where the detail is inserted in the preview section.
Running Slide Show
Most PowerPoint presentations are created to be run as a slideshow. Given all the advanced features
available in PowerPoint 2010, it is no surprise that there are many features related to running the
slideshow that have been included in this program too. Most of these features are really to help you
create a good slideshow without having to go through the entire presentation over and over again
after every minor change. Features related to running the slideshow are grouped under
the Slideshow ribbon.
Section Menu Item Description
From
Starts slideshow from beginning
Beginning
From Current
Starts slideshow from the current slide
Slide
Start
Slideshow
Broadcast Allows users to broadcast the slideshows using Microsoft's
Slideshow PowerPoint Broadcast Service
Custom
Builds a custom slideshow by picking the slides you want to run
Slideshow
Helps set up the slideshow including browser/ full screen display,
Set Up show options with or without narration/ animation, pen and laser
Slideshow color during the slideshow and the slides to be presented during
the show
Helps mark/ unmark the slide as hidden, so it is skipped or shown
Hide Slide
during the slideshow respectively
Set Up Rehearse Allows users to rehearse the timing on each slide and the entire
Timing slideshow
Record
Records the slideshow including narration and animation
Slideshow
Helps set or avoid the use of narrative audio and rehearsed
Slideshow
timings during the show. Display media controls in the slideshow
Checkboxes
view
Resolution Defines resolution in slideshow view
Show
Picks the monitor to display the presentation one - in case of
Presentation
Monitors multiple monitors
on
Use Presenter Run presentation in Presenter view rather than just slideshow
View view
Keyboard Shortcut
Like the other windows based programs, PowerPoint 2010 also offers a wide range of keyboard
shortcuts. For the current PowerPoint users, there is a major change in the way these shortcuts are
being mapped in the 2010 release compared to some of the older ones. With a whole new range of
features being added to PowerPoint, it is evident why there are so many changes to the keyboard
shortcuts. We will understand how to read and figure out the shortcuts with ease.
Step 1 − The first step to access the keyboard shortcuts is to press the Alt key on your keyboard. This
will display the first level of shortcuts indicated by alphabets or numbers as shown. For example, the
shortcut to access the Home ribbon is 'H' and for saving the presentation, the shortcut is '1'.
Step 2 − Once you select the first level of shortcut, the second level of shortcuts for respective
commands are shown. Notice that some of these shortcuts are disabled or displayed in a lighter
shade than others. This is because the disabled shortcuts cannot be used in the current state.
For example, all the font related commands are disabled as no text has been selected. If you execute
the same steps after selecting a portion of text, these shortcuts will be enabled too.
In some cases, there are two alphabets associated with a single shortcut; in such cases, you need to
key in both of them immediately after another to get the desired effect.
Spelling Check
One of the best proofing tools available in PowerPoint is the spelling check. This is an automated
proofing feature which will review the entire presentation for errors. To use this feature, you need to
first set the Proofing language from the Language section under the Review ribbon.
In the Language dialog, you can select the language you want to use for your presentation. If you
have some content selected, you can click OK and select it for just that section. If you want to use the
selected language for the entire presentation you should click default.
Once the proofing language is set you can see it at the bottom of the PowerPoint window. If there
are proofing errors in the presentation, you will also see an icon of a book with a red cross on top of
it.
You can review the errors in the presentation by clicking on the red cross at the bottom of the
window or by clicking on "Spelling" under the Proofing section in the Review ribbon.
From the Spelling dialog, you can take the necessary actions to ignore, correct or edit the errors in
the presentation. The table below describes the various options you have in the Spelling dialog.
S.No Spelling Dialog Option & Description
Ignore
1
Ignores the error for the current instance.
Ignore All
2
Ignores the error for all the instances in the presentation.
Change
3
Accepts the suggested change for the current instance.
Change All
4
Accepts the suggested change for all the instances in the presentation.
5 Add
Uses the first suggested word each time you click Add.
Suggest
6
Includes this word in the PowerPoint dictionary.
AutoCorrect
7
Automatically corrects similar errors going forward.
Close
8
Closes the Spelling dialog.
Options
9
Sets up how PowerPoint should proof the presentation.
Content Translation
One of the newer features in PowerPoint is the content translation. This feature allows you to select
content and have it translated into a different language. The following steps will help you translate
content in PowerPoint.
Step 1 − Select the text to be translated and click on Translate - Translate Selected Text under
the Language section of the Review ribbon.
Step 2 − In the research sidebar, the "From" language is set to default language settings for the
content. The "To" language is set to the alphabetically first language supported by PowerPoint.
Step 3 − From the "To" language dropdown, select the language you want the selected portion of
text translated into. Click on Insert to replace the selected text from the default language to the new
translated text.
Step 4 − Notice that if you replace the portion of text using translation, the default language for the
replaced text also changes automatically.
Setting Language Type
PowerPoint is a multi-lingual tool; it is evident that there will be an option to set the default language
to be used in the slides. The following steps will help you set the language type in PowerPoint.
Step 1 − Under the Review ribbon, in the Language group, click on Language
Step 2 − If you have not selected any content, you will be able to just set the Language Preferences
Step 3 − If you have selected a portion of content with text in it, you can also set the proofing
language.
Step 4 − When you select the "Set Proofing Language", you get the language dialog. Wherein, you
can select one of the many languages available in PowerPoint. If you are selecting a language just for
the selected text, click OK. If you are selecting a language for the entire presentation click Default.
You can also check the "Do not check spelling" checkbox, if you do not want PowerPoint to
automatically check for spelling errors based on dictionaries available.
Step 5 − When you select "Language Preferences", you get the PowerPoint Options dialog where
you can change the language settings like loading dictionaries for various languages, prioritizing the
display and help languages, and the Screen tip language setting.
Duplicating Content
PowerPoint is a multi-content program that supports many non-text content types like shapes,
charts, pictures, clip arts, SmartArt and multimedia files. While working with the content, it may
sometimes be required to duplicate the content as part of the presentation development.
PowerPoint offers options to duplicate the non-text content using the cutcopy-paste features.
Cut-Paste Procedure
In this procedure, the original content is moved to a different location. When you use the Cut option,
you can also create multiple copies, it is just that the content in the original location is lost. The
following steps will make you understand how to work with the cutpaste procedure.
Step 1 − Select the content you want to move. Right-click on it to access the Cut option.
Step 2 − Now move the cursor to the location where you want the content to be moved and right-
click to access the Paste options.
Step 3 − Select one of the paste options to paste the content.
Copy-Paste Procedure
This is exactly similar to the cut-paste procedure except that the original content is retained in the
original location.
Step 1 − Select the content you want to move. Right-click on it to access the Copy option.
Step 2 − Now move the cursor to the location where you want the content to be moved and right-
click to access the Paste options.
Step 3 − Select one of the paste options to paste the content.
The Use Destination Theme option retains the content as the original content, but uses the
destination location theme settings. The Picture option just pastes the content as an image with
original settings. Once pasted as a picture you cannot change the parameters of the original content;
for example, if you pasted a chart as an image, you cannot edit the data on the chart image.
