Exploring Office 2007: PowerPoint 2007 Tips and Tricks SmartArt, New Layouts and Charts, and More Helen Bradley
»
Get Organized with New Layouts
There are now nine built-in slide layouts available from the Home tab when you click to create a new slide. These offer plenty of scope for creating slides that have a more designer-styled look than those in earlier versions of PowerPoint.
The new Picture With Caption slide lets you add a picture to a slide — it is displayed at a large size with an attractive caption. Click the Picture Tools, Format tab and you can choose from one of 28 styles for your picture frame. When you change the theme the image is reformatted to suit.
While PowerPoint does a good job of sizing and cropping the image to fit the layout, you can crop the image differently, if desired, to create a unique look.
Unlike previous versions of PowerPoint you can add additional placeholders to your slide layouts; so for example, if you need a two-column layout you can create one with a second placeholder. To do this select the View tab to get access to the PowerPoint slide master.
Click the Slide Master button, select the layout to alter, click the Insert Placeholder option, and drag a new placeholder of the desired type onto the slide and size it to suit. Click Close Master View to return to the slide editing window.
»
Charts in Presentations
When you design a chart for your PowerPoint presentation it will be created in Excel rather than using the old PowerPoint charting tool. Excel opens with a worksheet showing the categories and series for a basic chart.
You can edit this data, expand it if desired, and then return to PowerPoint to complete formatting the chart. Chart styles can be selected from the Chart Tools, Design tab that appears whenever a chart is selected. Like other elements in PowerPoint the chart's look, colors and effects match the theme that you are using and, when you change the theme, the look of the chart changes to match the newly selected theme.
You may have read our previous article on SmartArt. SmartArt is a new feature in Office 2007 that offers an easy way to create very smart diagrams and business graphics. Like other elements, these are formatted to match the current PowerPoint 2007 Theme.
Typically you create SmartArt objects by choosing SmartArt on the Insert tab and then type the data for the graphic. If you already have a list prepared, you can select the text and in the Home tab's Paragraph area locate and click the Convert to Smart Art Graphic icon. It's not easy to see, but it's there and is only available in PowerPoint.
»
Ready, Set, Present!
Come presentation time, PowerPoint offers a much improved Presenter View that you can use when you have multiple monitors attached to your computer. Presenter View gives you two views of your presentation — one for your audience and one for you.
Your view can include slide notes, which are notes you create for individual slides and which may contain additional information or reminders. You can make your notes as large or small as you like so they are easy to read.
You can also see a preview of the slides coming up in the presentation so you can prepare for what's next. And a handy on-screen indicator tracks how much time you have spent making your presentation so you can keep track of time.
Saving options for your presentation include saving the presentation in the default new file format or as a PowerPoint 97-2003 compatible file. You can also download and use the PowerPoint PDF add-in to save your presentation as a PDF file or, as with PowerPoint 2003 you can use the Publish Options to package the presentation for burning to a CD.
There are plenty of new features in PowerPoint 2007 that will make it easier for you to create graphically consistent and attractive presentations and to craft those presentations more efficiently. Of all the applications in the new Microsoft Office 2007 suite, the new graphic tools such as Themes and SmartArt are likely going to be most appreciated by PowerPoint 2007 users.
Helen Bradley is a respected international journalist writing regularly for small business and computer publications in the USA, Canada, South Africa, UK and Australia. She blogs at http://www.projectwoman.com/blogger.html.
Be sure to check out all of Helen's articles in the Exploring Office 2007 series:
