Chapter 1: Inserting and Handling Slides
In This Chapter
Looking at how slides are constructed
Creating new slides
Choosing a layout for a slide
Evaluating ways to view slides
Selecting slides
Moving and deleting slides
Hiding slides in case you need them
This chapter delves into the nitty-gritty of PowerPoint. It explains how to create slides for a presentation. A presentation isn’t complete without slides, is it?
In this chapter, you look into how slides are constructed and discover what layouts are. You find out how to choose a layout for a slide, borrow slides from another presentation, and create slide text from a Word document. This chapter explains how to change the size and orientation of slides, and to display slides in different ways in PowerPoint so that you can take some of the drudgery out of working with slides. You find out how to select, move, and delete slides, as well as how to hide slides from the audience but keep them on hand in case you need them.
The techniques explained in this chapter will serve you throughout your adventures in PowerPoint. Master the techniques I describe here and you will be well on your way to becoming one of those wise guys or wise gals who people call on the telephone when they have a PowerPoint question or problem.
Understanding How Slides Are Constructed
Before you insert a slide, PowerPoint asks you a very important question, “What kind of slide do you want?” You can choose among several different slide layouts, the preformatted slide designs that help you enter text, graphics, and other things. Some layouts have text placeholder frames for entering titles and text. Some layouts come with icons that you can click to insert a table, diagram, clip-art image, picture, Excel worksheet, or video.
Slide layouts
To make a wise choice about inserting slides, it helps to know how slide layouts are constructed. Figure 1-1 shows one of the simplest layouts, Title and Content, in three incarnations:
The Title and Content layout as it appears on the New Slide drop-down list (left). As you will find out shortly, you create a slide by choosing a layout from the New Slide drop-down list.
The slide as it looked right after I selected it, before I entered any text (middle).
The finished product, after I entered a bulleted list (right).
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Figure 1-1: A slide layout (left), the bare-bones slide (middle), and the finished slide (right). |
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Text frames and content frames
The Title and Content slide layout comprises two placeholder frames, one for entering a title and one for entering either a bulleted list or “content” of some kind — a table, chart, diagram, picture, clip-art image, or video. Most slide layouts come with text placeholder frames to make the task of entering text on a slide easier. As Figure 1-2 shows, all you have to do to enter text in a text frame is “Click to add [the] title” or “Click to add [the] text.” When you click in a text placeholder frame, these instructions disappear, and when you start typing, the text you enter appears in the frame where the instruction used to be.
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Figure 1-2: Entering text in a text frame. |
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Many slide layouts come with content placeholder frames as well as text placeholder frames. Content placeholder frames are designed to help you create charts and tables, place clip-art images and pictures in slides, include a diagram in a slide, or insert a movie. Figure 1-3 shows the Picture with Caption slide layout in three incarnations:
The Picture with Caption layout as it appears on the New Slide drop-down list (left).
The slide as it looked right after I selected it, before I entered the picture and the text (middle).
The finished product, after I entered the picture, title, and caption (right).
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Figure 1-3: The Picture with Caption layout (left), the bare-bones slide (middle), and the finished slide (right). |
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Content placeholder frames come with icons that you can click to enter a table, chart, smart-art diagram, picture, clip-art image, or movie. As the instruction in Figure 1-3 says, “Click icon to add picture.” You click the icon that represents the item you want to create.
Selecting the right layout
When you create a slide, select the layout that best approximates the slide you have in mind for your presentation. As you get better with PowerPoint, you’ll discover that slide layouts are actually kind of limiting. You’ll find yourself tweaking the layouts to remove some of the frames and change the size of frames. You may even create your own templates with slide layouts that you design yourself, a subject taken up in Book VII, Chapter 2.
Creating New Slides for Your Presentation
After you create a presentation, your next step on the path to glory is to start inserting the slides. PowerPoint has done its best to make this little task as easy as possible. You can insert slides one at a time, duplicate a slide you already made, steal slides from another presentation, or nab content from a Microsoft Word document.
By the way, if you have many photographs to load in a PowerPoint presentation, consider creating a photo album. This way, you can insert many slides simultaneously and place all your photos in a presentation without having to do a lot of work. Book IV, Chapter 3 explains photo albums.
Inserting a new slide
To insert a new slide, choose one from the New Slide drop-down list. Follow these steps to insert a new slide in your presentation:
1. Select the slide that you want the new slide to go after.
In Normal view, select the slide on the Slides pane. In Slide Sorter view, select the slide in the main window.
2. Click the Home tab.
3. Click the bottom half of the New Slide button.
You see a drop-down list of slide layouts (if you click the top half of the Add Slide button, you insert a slide with the same layout as the one you selected in Step 1). Figure 1-4 shows what the slide layouts look like (left), what a slide looks like right after you insert it (middle), and finished slides. The previous section in this chapter, “Understanding How Slides Are Constructed,” explains what slide layouts are.
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Figure 1-4: The first step in creating a slide is to choose a slide layout. The left side of this figure shows the slide layouts on the Add Slide drop-down list. (continued) |
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The first slide layout, Title Slide, is designed to be the first slide in presentations; the Section Header slide layout is for changing the course of a presentation; and the other slide layouts are meant for presenting information in various ways.
Which slide layouts you see and how many slide layouts you see on the New Slide drop-down list depend on which theme you are working with. Some themes offer more slide layouts than others. Figure 1-4 shows slide layouts in the Office theme, the default theme you get if you choose Blank Presentation when you start a new presentation. Book II, Chapter 3 explains themes.
4. Select the slide layout that best approximates the slide you want to create.
Don’t worry too much about selecting the right layout. You can change slide layouts later on, as “Selecting a Different Layout for a Slide” explains later in this chapter.
Select a slide with a layout you want for your new slide and then press Ctrl+M. You get the same layout as the slide you selected, unless you selected a Title Slide, in which case you get a Title and Content Slide.
Right-click the space between two slides and choose New Slide on the shortcut menu. Your new slide adopts the layout of the slide before your new slide in the presentation, unless that slide is a Title Slide.
By the way, you can create your own slide layouts and make them appear on the Add Slide drop-down list. See Book VII, Chapter 2 for details.
Creating a duplicate slide
Creating a duplicate slide can save you the trouble of doing layout work. All you have to do is re-create a slide and then go into the duplicate and change its title, text, or other particulars. PowerPoint offers no fewer than three different ways to clone slides. Select the slide or slides you want to duplicate and use one of these techniques:
On the Home tab, open the pull-down list on the New Slide button and choose Duplicate Selected Slides.
On the Home tab, open the pull-down list on the Paste button and choose Duplicate.
Right-click a slide in the Slides pane and choose Duplicate Slide on the shortcut menu.
The duplicate slide appears in your presentation after the slide from which you made the duplicate. If you selected more than one slide, you get more than one duplicate.
A word about content master slides
As the next chapter in this book explains in irksome detail, PowerPoint provides one content master slide for each slide layout. Content master slides are like slide templates in that changes you make to a content master slide appear immediately on slides you created from the slide layout of the same name. For example, suppose you want to change the font, text alignment, and layout of all slides in your presentation that you created with the Title and Content slide layout. To make these changes, you display the Title and Content layout master slide and make changes there. The changes appear throughout your presentation on all slides created with the Title and Content slide layout.
Content master slides save you the trouble of changing formats on many different slides. You can make the changes in one place without having to travel hither and yon in your presentation.
For now, the main thing for you to know about content master slides is this: When you choose a slide layout on the Add Slide pull-down list, you are also choosing a content master slide. To wit, you are choosing the content master slide that you can use to change the formatting of all slides you create with a slide layout. See the next chapter for more details.
Copying and pasting slides
Copying, as with duplicating, is another means of getting a head start. Copy the slide that most resembles the slide you want to create. After you make the copy, you can change the slide’s particulars.
Follow these steps to copy a slide or slides:
1. Starting on the Home tab, select the slide or slides you want to duplicate.
To select a slide, click it in Slide Sorter view or in the Slides pane. Ctrl+click slides to select more than one.
2. Copy the slide or slides to the Windows Clipboard.
PowerPoint is very generous with its Copy commands. Any of these methods will do the job:
• Click the Copy button on the Home tab.
• Press Ctrl+C.
• Right-click the slide and choose Copy on the shortcut menu.
3. Click to select the slide that you want the copied slide or slides to appear after.
4. Paste the slide or slides into your presentation.
PowerPoint is also very generous with the Paste commands. Again, you have three choices:
• Click the Paste button on the Home tab.
• Press Ctrl+V.
• Right-click and choose Paste on the shortcut menu. You can right-click between slides and be very certain where the pasted slide will land.
Stealing slides from other presentations
Stealing is wrong, of course, except when stealing slides from other PowerPoint presentations. One way to steal slides is to open the other presentation, copy slides to the Clipboard, and paste the slides into your presentation (see the previous section in this chapter). You can also take advantage of PowerPoint commands designed especially for recycling slides.
If slides that you or a co-worker developed for another presentation will do the trick, don’t hesitate to recycle them:
1. Select the slide that you want the recycled slides to follow in your presentation.
2. Click Home tab.
3. Open the drop-down list on the New Slide button.
4. Choose Reuse Slides on the drop-down list.
The Reuse Slides task pane opens. Use this task pane to preview slides and select the ones you want for your presentation.
You’ve come to a crossroads. What happens next depends on where the slides you want to steal are located — on your computer or computer network, or in a slide library. Choose a fork in the road and keep reading.
Getting the slides from your computer or computer network
Follow these steps to reuse slides if the slides you want to reuse are in a PowerPoint file stored on your computer or computer network:
1. Click the Open a PowerPoint File hyperlink; or open the drop-down list on the Browse button and choose Browse File.
The Browse dialog box appears.
2. Locate and double-click the PowerPoint file with the slides you want.
As shown in Figure 1-5, the Reuse Slides task pane now shows thumbnail versions of slides in the file you selected. Move the pointer over a slide to enlarge it and examine it more closely.
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Figure 1-5: Examine and select slides in the Reuse Slides task pane. |
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3. One at a time, click slides to select them for your presentation.
Each time you click a slide, PowerPoint adds it to your presentation.
Right-click any slide in the task pane and choose Insert All Slides to grab all the slides in the presentation.
Slides that you reuse adopt the slide design or color background of the slides in the presentation you’re working on, but if for some strange reason you want the reused slides to keep their original designs, select the Keep Source Formatting check box at the bottom of the task pane.
4. Click the Close button in the Reuse Slides task pane when you’re finished stealing slides.
If your theft was incomplete and you need to return to the scene of the crime to get more slides, choose the Reuse Slides command again.
Getting the slides from a slide library
As Book VII, Chapter 3 explains, you can share slides with others by way of a slide library, a folder where copies of slides are kept so that they can be shared by co-workers. To reuse slides from a slide library, either click the Open a Slide Library link in the Reuse Slides task pane or click the Browse button and select Browse Slide Library. You see the Select a Slide Library dialog box. Select the folder where your slide library is kept and select slides from it. See Book VII, Chapter 3 for details.
Conjuring slides from Word document headings
Headings in a Microsoft Word document are similar to titles in a Microsoft PowerPoint slide. As do titles, headings introduce a new topic. They tell you what is to follow. A heading announces the subject of the text to follow in the same way that a slide title announces what the subject of a slide is.
If you have the wherewithal to do it, you can create slides from the headings in a Word document. First-level headings — that is, headings assigned the “Heading 1” style in Word — become slide titles in your presentation. Second-level headings become top-level bullet points on slides; third-level headings become second-level bullet points on slides; and so on. Well, you probably get the idea, but in case you don’t, Figure 1-6 shows what the headings from a Word document look like after they land in a PowerPoint presentation.
PowerPoint creates one new slide for each first-level heading in your Word document. The new slides are given the Title and Content slide layout. Each first-level heading from the Word document appears in a slide title.
The following pages explain how to conjure slides from the headings in a Word document. For people who don’t know their way around Word, I also offer a brief tutorial in how to assign heading styles to text in a Word document.
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Figure 1-6: Headings from a Word document imported into a PowerPoint presentation. |
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Importing the Word headings into PowerPoint
Follow these steps to use headings in a Word document to create slides for a PowerPoint presentation:
1. In Normal view, click the Outline tab in the Slides pane.
The Outline tab displays slide text (refer to Figure 1-6). You’ll get a better sense of how headings from the Word document land in your presentation by viewing your presentation from the Outline tab.
2. Select the slide that the new slides from the Word document will follow.
3. Click the Home tab.
4. Open the drop-down list on the New Slide button and choose Slides from Outline.
You see the Insert Outline dialog box.
5. Select the Word document with the headings you want for your presentation; then click the Insert button.
Depending on how many first-level headings are in the Word document, you get a certain number of new slides. Probably these slides need work. The capitalization scheme — the way in which headings are capitalized — in the Word document and your PowerPoint presentation may be different. The Word text may need tweaking to make it suitable for your PowerPoint presentation.
Assigning heading styles to text in Word
Book I, Chapter 4 explains why starting in Microsoft Word, not PowerPoint, is an excellent way to formulate a presentation. In Word, you can concentrate on developing a presentation without PowerPoint’s many distractions. You can truly focus on the text.
If you followed my advice in Book I, Chapter 4, bully for you! Your next task is to assign heading styles to your Word document to make the headings transfer properly into your PowerPoint presentation. A Word style is a collection of commands and formats bundled under one name. Assign the Heading 1 style to Word headings you want to use for slide titles and new slides; assign the Heading 2 style to text that you want to appear in bulleted lists on slides.
In your Word document, click the Home tab and click anywhere in the text that needs a style assignment. Then use one of these techniques to assign your text the Heading 1 or Heading 2 style:
In the Styles gallery, select the Heading 1 or Heading 2 style, as shown in Figure 1-7.
Click the Styles group button to open the Styles pane, as shown in Figure 1-7, and select Heading 1 or Heading 2.
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Figure 1-7: Assigning a style to text in Microsoft Word. |
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Selecting a Different Layout for a Slide
If you mistakenly chose the wrong layout for a slide, all is not lost. You can start all over. You can graft a new layout onto your slide with one of these techniques:
On the Home tab, click the Layout button and select a layout on the submenu.
Right-click the slide (being careful not to right-click a frame or object), choose Layout on the shortcut menu, and select a layout on the submenu.
Changing slide layouts can be problematic. For example, if you entered a graphic or bulleted list on the slide and now you choose a layout that doesn’t have frames for graphics or bulleted lists, you may have some cleanup work to do.
On the Home tab, click the Reset button.
Right-click your slide (but not a frame or object) and choose Reset Slide on the shortcut menu.
Sometimes choosing the Reset command makes a mess of a slide, and when that happens, you can always choose the trusty Undo command (or press Ctrl+Z) to reverse the reset. You’ll find the Undo command ready and waiting in the form of the Undo button on the Quick Access toolbar.
Changing the Size and Orientation of Slides
The first thing to know about changing the size of the slides in a presentation is don’t do it! Unless you have a very good reason, and I can’t think of a good one, changing the size of slides is unnecessary. The Size commands are a throwback to the time when slide shows were occasionally presented as 35mm slides on overhead projectors. However, in case you need to do it, these pages look into changing the size and orientation of slides.
Changing the size of slides
PowerPoint presentations are designed to fill a computer monitor screen. If your slides aren’t doing that, you may have inherited an old PowerPoint presentation with slides that need resizing. In that case, follow these steps to choose a new size for the slides in your presentation:
1. Click the Design tab.
2. Click the Page Setup button.
The Page Setup dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 1-8.
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Figure 1-8: The Page Setup dialog box (left) and a portrait-style slide (right). |
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3. Click the down-arrow on the Slides Sized For drop-down list and choose an On-Screen Show setting.
You can choose 4:3, 16:9, or 16:10. These settings determine the width-to-height ratio of slides when they are displayed at full-screen size during a presentation. The commands in the Page Setup dialog box apply to all the slides in a presentation.
4. Click OK.
Most of the options on the Slides Sized For drop-down list pertain to printing slides on paper, a subject taken up in Book VI, Chapter 2.
Changing the orientation of slides
Orientation refers to whether a slide is wider than it is tall (landscape style) or taller than it is wide (portrait style). See Figure 1-8 for an example of a slide in portrait style. As noted previously, PowerPoint slides are designed to fill the monitor screen, but a portrait slide can’t do that because monitor screens are themselves in landscape style, so when you show a slide in portrait style, PowerPoint puts black space on either side of the slide to fill the screen.
Portrait-style slides look a little odd to people who are accustomed to seeing the standard landscape style, but portrait slides also open the door to creative opportunities. Portrait style is good for presenting graphics that are taller than they are wide. Showing a presentation in portrait style sets it apart from run-of-the-mill presentations.
Click the Design tab and use one of these techniques to change the orientation of the slides in your presentation:
Click the Slide Orientation button and choose Portrait or Landscape on the drop-down menu.
Click the Page Setup button and, in the Page Setup dialog box (refer to Figure 1-8), select the Portrait or Landscape option button under Slides.
Orientation commands apply to all the slides in a presentation. Sorry, you can’t mix and match portrait- and landscape-style slides.
Displaying Slides So That You Can Manipulate Them
As you manipulate slides — as you select, move, and delete them — it pays to know which view is best for which task. The next section in this chapter explains how to manipulate slides. You can be more manipulative if you know how the different views display slides on-screen.
Book I, Chapter 3 explains in detail how to change views, but to reiterate and spare you from having to turn to that chapter, here are the three ways to change views:
Click the View tab and choose a view in the Presentation Views group.
Click a View button — Normal, Slide Sorter, or Slide Show — along the bottom of the window.
When you are in Normal view, click the Slides tab in the Slides pane to switch to Normal/Slides view; click the Outline tab to switch to Normal/ Outline view.
The two Normal views and Slide Sorter view are where it’s at when you’re manipulating slides:
Slide Sorter: Places the slides on-screen like solitaire cards so that you can see many slides at one time, as shown in Figure 1-9. Switch to Slide Sorter view to move slides backward and forward in a long presentation or to select several different slides.
Normal/Slides view: Displays one slide large enough so that you can see it easily, as well as several slides in the Slides pane. Switch to this view when you need to examine a slide before moving or deleting it.
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Figure 1-9: Slide Sorter view is great for rearranging slides in a presentation. |
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Selecting, Moving, and Deleting Slides
As a presentation takes shape, you have to move slides forward and backward in the presentation. And sometimes you have to delete a slide. To turn your sow’s ear into a silk purse, you have to wrestle with the slides. You have to make them do your bidding. These pages explain how to move and delete slides and how to select them. You can’t move or delete slides until you select them first.
Selecting slides
The best place to select slides is Slide Sorter view if you want to select several at a time. Use one of these techniques to select slides:
Select one slide: Click the slide.
Select several different slides: Holding down the Ctrl key, click each slide in the Slides pane or in Slide Sorter view. Clicking slides this way is called Ctrl+clicking.
Select several slides in succession: Holding down the Shift key, click the first slide and then the last one. This technique works for selecting slides that appear one after the other. For example, to select slides 2 through 5 in a presentation, Shift+click slide 2 in the Slides pane or Slide Sorter window and then Shift+click slide 5 (or Shift+click slide 5 and then slide 2).
Select a block of slides: Drag across the slides you want to select, being careful to click on the screen, not on a slide, when you start dragging.
Moving slides
To move or rearrange slides, you are advised to go to Slide Sorter view. By comparison to the Slide Sorter window, the Slides pane in Normal view is too narrow and cramped for moving slides. Select the slide or slides you want to move and use one of these techniques to move slides:
Dragging and dropping: Click the slides you selected and drag them to a new location. You see the drag pointer, and in Slide Sorter view, a vertical line shows you where the slide or slides will land when you release the mouse button. On the Slides pane, a horizontal line appears between slides to show you where the slide or slides will land when you release the mouse button.
Cutting and pasting: On the Home tab, cut the slide or slides to the Windows Clipboard. To do that, use one of these methods: click the Cut button; press Ctrl+X; or right-click and choose Cut. Next, select the slide that you want the slide or slides to appear after and then choose the Paste command. To do that, click the Paste button, press Ctrl+V, or right-click and choose Paste on the shortcut menu. You can right-click between slides and paste with precision.
Yet another way to move a slide is to switch to Normal/Outline view, select a slide, and press Alt+Shift+↑ to move it forward or Alt+Shift+↓ to move it backward.
Deleting slides
Before you delete a slide, think twice about deleting. Short of using the Undo command, you can’t resuscitate a deleted slide. Select the slide or slides you want to delete and use one of these techniques for deleting slides:
Press the Delete key.
Right-click and choose Delete Slide on the shortcut menu.
On the Home tab, click the Delete button.
Hidden Slides for All Contingencies
Hide a slide when you want to keep it on hand “just in case” during a presentation. Hidden slides don’t appear in slide shows unless you shout Ollie ollie oxen free! and bring them out of hiding. Although you, the presenter, can see hidden slides in Normal view and Slide Sorter view, where their slide numbers are crossed through, the audience doesn’t see them in the course of a presentation. You can call on a hidden slide in a slide show if need be. Create hidden slides if you anticipate having to turn your presentation in a different direction — to answer a question from the audience, prove your point more thoroughly, or revisit a topic in more depth. Merely by right-clicking and choosing a couple of commands, you can display a hidden slide in the course of a slide show.
Hiding a slide
The best place to put hidden slides is the end of a presentation where you know you can find them. Follow these steps to hide slides:
1. Select the slide or slides.
2. On the Slide Show tab, click the Hide Slide button.
You can also right-click and choose Hide Slide.
Hidden slides’ numbers are boxed in the Slides pane and Slide Sorter window.
To “unhide” a slide, select the slide and click the Hide Slide button again or right-click it in the Slides pane or Slide Sorter window and choose Hide Slide on the shortcut menu.
Showing a hidden slide during a presentation
Hidden slides don’t appear during the course of a presentation, but suppose that the need arises to show one. Before showing a hidden slide, take careful note of which slide you’re viewing now. You’ll have to return to this slide after viewing the hidden slide.
Follow these steps to view a hidden slide during a presentation:
1. Right-click the screen and choose Go to Slide.
You see a submenu with the titles of slides in your presentation. As shown in Figure 1-10, you can tell which slides are hidden because their numbers are enclosed in parentheses.
2. Select a hidden slide so that the audience can view it.
How do you resume your presentation after viewing the hidden slide? If you look at only one hidden slide, you can right-click and choose Last Viewed on the shortcut menu to return to the slide you saw before the hidden slide. If you’ve viewed several hidden slides, right-click the screen, choose Go to Slide, and select a slide to pick up where you left off.
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Figure 1-10: Going to a hidden slide. |
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