Work Smarter in PowerPoint
Work Smarter in PowerPointWork Smarter in PowerPointTipWorld staff, edited by Matthew NewtonWith all of PowerPoint's various options, switches, and commands,
getting the program to work the way you want it to isn't always a piece of
cake. Here are a few tips for customizing PowerPoint's behavior and creating
snappier presentations.
Skip the Questions When you start PowerPoint,
you usually have to choose whether you want to create a blank presentation,
open an existing presentation, or perform another action. Follow these steps
to bypass this dialog and get straight to work.Run PowerPoint
and choose Tools, Options. When the Options dialog
box opens, click the View tab. Deselect the check box labeled Startup Dialog
and then deselect the New Slide Dialog check box. Click OK to close Options
and save your changes. Close PowerPoint, then run it again. This time it will
start with a blank slide offering a title and a subtitle.Micro Selection PowerPoint sometimes
makes it difficult to select small objects on your slides. Here's a method
for selecting even the tiniest elements.Press
Esc to make sure nothing is selected. Now press the
Tab key until you've selected the desired object.
You can also use this technique to select objects that are hidden behind other
objects. Try this: Draw a small rectangle. Now draw a larger rectangle over
it, so that you've completely obscured the small rectangle. Press
Esc to make sure all the objects are deselected, then press
Tab until you've selected the small rectangle. Roll 'Em You may want to recognize everyone
who's contributed to a slide show at the end of the show. Rather than simply
listing the names, try using scrolling credits--just like in movies. To create
scrolling credits, open a blank slide. Click the Text Box button in the Drawing
toolbar and use the mouse to draw the box. At this point, don't worry about
the box's size or position. Type in the names, pressing
Enter after each name.Once you've entered all
the names (and any other information you want to appear) in the text box,
press Esc to make sure the text box is selected,
then press and hold down the Alt key. With
Alt pressed, click the bottom edge of the selected text box
and drag the entire text box upward off the slide. (Holding down
Alt allows you to move objects off the slide.)
Now, right-click the bottom edge of the text box and choose
Custom Animation. When the Custom Animation text box opens,
click the Effects tab. Click the arrow at the right side of the Entry Animation
list box to expand the list. Locate Crawl From Bottom and select it.
Check the list box labeled Introduce Text. If it isn't set to All at Once,
click the arrow at the right side of the list box and select All at Once.
Then click the Timing tab and select the radio buttons labeled Animate and
Automatically. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes.
To see how your scrolling credits look, choose Slide Show, View
Show from the menu bar. The names should run from the bottom
of the screen and disappear at the top. You can animate WordArt
in the same way. Just enter the WordArt text and right-click it. Choose
Custom Animation and follow the procedure described above. WordArt
scrolls a bit more slowly than standard text. Make It Black Your presentations don't
have to end with your final slide--you can finish them off by instructing
PowerPoint to tack on a black slide at the end. Choose Tools,
Options and click the View tab. Select the check box labeled
End With Black Slide, then click OK. With this option selected, a black screen
will appear after your last slide. At the top of this screen, PowerPoint will
display the message "End of slide show, click to exit." The blank screen will
remain in view until someone clicks the mouse button.
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