More people use PowerPoint for selling goods and services than for any other reason. Armed with a laptop computer and a PowerPoint presentation, a salesperson can make a good impression on a client anywhere in the world. figure 1-1 shows a slide from a sample sales presentation.

Sales possibilities with PowerPoint include the following:

Figure 1.1. PowerPoint offers unparalleled flexibility for presenting information to potential customers.

The distinction between sales and marketing can be rather blurred at times, but marketing generally refers to the positioning of a product in the media rather than its presentation to a particular company or individual. Marketing representatives are often called upon to write advertising copy generate camera-ready layouts for print advertisements, design marketing flyers and shelf displays, and produce other creative selling materials.

PowerPoint is not a drawing program per se, and it can't substitute for one except in a crude way. However, by combining the Office 2007 clip art collection and drawing tools with some well-chosen fonts and borders, a marketing person can come up with some very usable designs in PowerPoint. figure 1-2 shows an example. You learn about clip art in Chapter 12.

Figure 1.2. PowerPoint can generate camera-ready marketing materials, although they can't substitute for the tools that professional advertising companies use.

Human resources personnel often find themselves giving presentations to new employees to explain the policies and benefits of the company. A well-designed, attractive presentation gives the new folks a positive impression of the company they have signed up with, starting them off on the right foot.

One of the most helpful features in PowerPoint for the human resources professional is the Organization Chart tool. With it, you can easily diagram the structure of the company and make changes whenever necessary with a few mouse clicks. figure 1-3 shows an organization chart on a PowerPoint slide. You can also create a variety of other diagram types. Organization charts and other diagrams are covered in Chapter 11.

Figure 1.3. Microsoft's Organization Chart lets you easily create organizational diagrams from within PowerPoint.

Most training courses include a lecture section in which the instructor outlines the general procedures and policies. This part of the training is usually followed up with individual, hands-on instruction. PowerPoint can't help much with the latter, but it can help make the lecture portion of the class go smoothly.

Using a third-party scanning program, or the Scanner and Camera Wizard in Windows, you can scan in diagrams and drawings of the objects you are teaching the students to use. You can also use computer-generated images, such as screen captures, to teach people about software.

PowerPoint's interactive controls even let you create quizzes that each student can take on-screen to gauge his or her progress. Depending on the button the student clicks, you can set up the quiz to display a "Yes, you are correct!" or "Sorry, try again" slide. See figure 1-4. I explain this procedure in more detail in Chapter 21 and in Lab 4 in the Project Labs section at the end of the book.

Figure 1.4. Test the student's knowledge with a user-interactive quiz in PowerPoint.

Service organizations such as hotels and restaurants often need to inform their customers of various facts but need to do so unobtrusively so that the information will not be obvious except to those looking for it. For example, a convention center hotel might provide a list of the meetings taking place in its meeting rooms, or a restaurant might show pictures of the day's specials on a video screen in the waiting area.

In such unattended situations, a self-running (kiosk) presentation works best. Typically the computer box and keyboard are hidden from the passersby and the monitor displays the information.

Many nonprofit clubs and organizations, such as churches and youth centers, operate much the same way as for-profit businesses and need sales, marketing, and informational materials. But clubs and organizations often have special needs too, such as the need to recognize volunteers for a job well done. PowerPoint provides a Certificate template that's ideal for this purpose. figure 1-5 shows a certificate generated in PowerPoint.

Figure 1.5. With PowerPoint, you can easily create certificates and awards.

Instead of using a complex menu system, PowerPoint 2007 relies on a graphical Ribbon with multiple tabbed pages (referred to as tabs). Each tab is like a toolbar, with buttons and lists you can select or open.

Tabs are not easily customizable as toolbars were in earlier versions, but the Quick Access Toolbar provides a home for any custom buttons or shortcuts you would like to keep readily available. You can add almost any button or command to the Quick Access Toolbar by right-clicking it and choosing Add to Quick Access Toolbar. See figure 1-6.

Figure 1.6. The Ribbon and its tabbed pages of command groups enable users to select commands and apply formatting.

One menu remains: the Microsoft Office menu (abbreviated in this book as Office menu). You can access it by clicking the Microsoft Office button (again, abbreviated in this book as Office button), the big round button in the top-left corner of the screen. See figure 1-7.

Figure 1.7. The Office button opens a menu of commands similar to those that were on the File menu in previous versions of PowerPoint.

The commands on the Office menu are for working with the file itself: saving, printing, opening, closing, and so on. These commands were on the File menu in earlier PowerPoint versions (and in fact, some people actually still call the Office menu the "File menu").

If you've worked with Microsoft Word, you are probably familiar with the concept of styles. A style is a saved formatting specification that you can apply to multiple blocks of text in Word, to ensure consistency. For example, to ensure that all of your headings are formatted the same way, apply a Heading style to each one.

PowerPoint 2007 extends the concept of styles to cover graphic objects such as pictures, drawn lines, and shapes as well as text. For example, suppose you want each photo to have a beveled edge effect; you can simply apply a picture style that contains the desired edge type to each picture. No more manual formatting of multiple graphic objects!

Styles are found in various parts of PowerPoint, depending on the object type. For example, figure 1-8 shows the Picture Styles section of the Format tab, available when a picture is selected. Shape Styles (for drawn lines and shapes) and WordArt Styles (for text) are also available.

Figure 1.8. You can apply styles to easily and consistently format graphic objects.

Drawn objects (formerly called AutoShapes, now called Office Art graphics) are much improved in PowerPoint 2007. You can not only apply basic colors and fills to them, but you can add shadows, glows, surfaces, and 3-D tilt and rotation. In earlier versions, the 3-D option simply enabled you to extend perspective to create "sides" on a flat object. In PowerPoint 2007, the 3-D option now enables you to tilt the entire object. figure 1-9 shows examples of some of the new effects.

All of the new effects for drawn objects can also be applied to the borders of other graphics, such as imported pictures. There are also some new tools for working with photos, including applying a tint to a picture and changing the shape of the photo frame.

Figure 1.9. Many more effects are available for drawn lines and shapes.

PowerPoint 2007 adds several new text formatting capabilities to help users further polish their work. For example, you can now control character spacing and kerning, use different underline styles and colors, and make all characters in a line equal height.

Perhaps the most significant improvement in text formatting, however, is the ability to format any text using the full range of WordArt formatting tools. WordArt (a.k.a. shaped text) has been around in Office programs for years, but there has always been a strict differentiation between regular text and WordArt. Regular text (that is, text appearing in the presentation outline) could not receive WordArt formatting such as reshaping, stretching, and distortion.

PowerPoint 2007 loses the differentiation between WordArt text and regular text, so the full gamut of formatting features is available to all text, regardless of position or usage. You can format individual words as separate pieces of WordArt, or entire text boxes by using a common WordArt style. In figure 1-10, the slide title "Green Hill Shelties" is regular text and appears on the presentation outline, but it also benefits from WordArt formatting effects.

Figure 1.10. WordArt can now be applied to regular text, including slide titles.

Styles can automate the formatting of individual objects, but you can also apply overall themes to the entire presentation to change all of the formatting at once. A theme is a set of formatting specifications that are applied to objects and text consistently throughout the presentation (except in cases where an object has manual formatting applied that overrides the theme).

There are three elements to a theme: the colors, the fonts, and the effects. Colors are applied via a set of placeholders, as they were in PowerPoint 2003, but now you can apply tints or shades of a color much more easily. Whenever you open a list or menu that contains a color picker, you select from a palette like the one in figure 1-11. The top row contains swatches for the colors in the current theme, and beneath them are various tints (lighter versions) and shades (darker versions) of the colors. By applying theme colors instead of fixed colors, you enable objects to change color automatically when you switch to a different theme.

Figure 1.11. Choose colors for text and graphic objects from a color picker that focuses on theme-based color choices.

Font themes apply one font for headings and another for body text. In PowerPoint 2007 it is usually best not to apply a specific font to any text, but instead to apply either (Body) or (Heading) to it. Then you can let the font theme dictate the font choices, so that they will update automatically when you chose a different theme. On the Font drop-down list, the top choices are now (Body) and (Heading), as shown in figure 1-12. The font listed next to them is the font that happens to be applied with the current theme.

Figure 1.12. When you apply (Body) and (Heading) as the font choices rather than a specific font, you enable formatting via font themes.

Effect themes apply shadows and 3-D effects to graphic objects. PowerPoint 2007s new gallery of effects are impressive and can make plain lines and shapes appear to pop off the screen with textures that simulate glass, metal, or other surfaces.

SmartArt uses groups of lines and shapes to present text information in a graphical, conceptually meaningful way. Experts have been saying for years that people respond better to information when it is presented graphically, but the difficulty in constructing attractive diagrams has meant that most people used plain bulleted lists for everything. SmartArt can convert a bulleted list into a conceptual diagram in just a few clicks.

figure 1-13 shows a plain bulleted list (left) and a SmartArt diagram constructed from it. The SmartArt is not only more interesting to look at, but it also conveys additional information — it shows that the product life cycle repeats continuously.

Figure 1.13. SmartArt diagrams are easy to create and make information more palatable and easy to understand.

In earlier Office versions, Excel had a great charting feature, but the other applications suffered along with an inferior tool called Microsoft Graph. PowerPoint 2007 includes a great, all-new charting tool, the same one that's in Excel 2007. Like SmartArt, it is integrated with the new Escher 2.0 graphics engine, and you can format the charts with a variety of theme effects. figure 1-14 shows a typical chart.

Figure 1.14. You can construct charts more easily with better formatting and layout options in PowerPoint 2007.

In earlier versions of PowerPoint, you were stuck with the slide layouts that came with PowerPoint. In PowerPoint 2007, you can create your own slide layouts, complete with content placeholders, and apply them as easily as you can apply the built-in ones. This makes it easy to reuse complex layouts without having to resort to manually created text frames each time. Custom layouts are configured from within the expanded and improved Slide Master view.

You can start PowerPoint just like any other program in Windows: from the Start menu. Follow these steps:

If you have opened PowerPoint before, a shortcut to it might appear in the Recently Used Programs list, which is directly above the All Programs command on the Start menu. See figure 1-15. If you use other applications more frequently than PowerPoint, PowerPoint may scroll off this list and you therefore have to access it via the All Programs menu.

Figure 1.15. A shortcut to PowerPoint might appear on the top level of the Start menu. PowerPoint shortcut

When you are ready to leave PowerPoint, select Office

PowerPoint's interface is typical of any Windows program in many ways, but as you learned earlier in the chapter it also has some special Office 2007 specific features as well. The PowerPoint window contains these elements, pointed out in figure 1-16:

As mentioned earlier in the chapter, PowerPoint 2007s user interface is based on the Ribbon, which is a bar across the top of the window that contains tabbed pages of commands and buttons. Rather than opening a menu and selecting a command, you click a tab and then click a button or open a list on that tab.

Figure 1.16. The PowerPoint window is a combination of usual Windows features and unique Office 2007 elements.

Here are some important terms you need to know when working with tabs:

Figure 1.17. The Ribbon is PowerPoint 2007's primary user interface.

Working with Collapsible Tab Groups

Within a tab, groups can expand or collapse depending on the width of the PowerPoint window. When the window is large enough (somewhere around 1100 pixels), everything within each group is fully expanded, so that each item has its own button. When the window is smaller, groups start collapsing so that all groups remain visible. At first, large buttons get smaller and stack vertically; if that's not enough, then groups collapse into single large buttons with drop-down lists from which you can select the individual commands. figure 1-18 shows the same tab in three different widths for comparison.

Warning

Because of the Ribbon's collapsing ability, the exact steps for performing certain procedures depend on the active PowerPoint window's width. A small window may require an extra step of opening a button's menu to select a command, for example. For a large window, each command appears directly on the tab. This book assumes an average window size of 1024 x 768 pixels; if you run PowerPoint at a smaller resolution, you may occasionally have an extra step to access a command.

Figure 1.18. The size of the PowerPoint window determines how much the groups are collapsed or expanded on the Ribbon.

Dialog boxes are PowerPoint's (and Windows') way of prompting you for more information. When you issue a command that can have many possible variations, a dialog box appears so you can specify the particulars.

Figure 1.19. Some of the commands on the Office menu have submenus.

The Print dialog box (File

Figure 1.20. The Print dialog box is an excellent study in dialog box controls.

You might also sometimes see tabs at the top of a dialog box; this occurs when the dialog box has more controls than will fit on one screen. To move to a tabbed page, click the tab.

Normal view, shown in figure 1-22, is a very flexible view that contains a little of everything. In the center is the active slide, below it is a Notes pane, and to its left is a dual-use pane with two tabs: Outline and Slides. (figure 1-21 shows Slides, and figure 1-22 shows Outline.) When the Outline tab is selected, the text from the slides appears in an outline form. When the Slides tab is selected, thumbnail images of all the slides appear (somewhat like Slide Sorter view, which you will see later in this chapter).

Figure 1.22. Normal view, the default, offers access to the outline, the slide, and the notes all at once.

Each of the panes in Normal view has its own scroll bar, so you can move around in the outline, the slide, and the notes independently of the other panes. You can resize the panes by dragging the dividers between the panes. For example, to give the notes area more room, point the mouse pointer at the divider line between it and the slide area so that the mouse pointer becomes a double-headed arrow, and then hold down the left mouse button as you drag the line up to a new spot.

The Slides/Outline pane is useful because it lets you jump quickly to a specific slide by clicking on it. For example, in figure 1-21 you can click on any of the slide thumbnails on the Slides tab to display it in the Slide pane. Or in figure 1-22 you can click some text anywhere in the outline to jump to the slide containing that text.

You can turn the Slides/Outline pane off completely by clicking the X button in its top-right corner. This gives maximum room to the Slides pane. When you turn it off, the Notes pane disappears too; they cannot be turned on/off separately. To get the extra panes back, reapply Normal view.

If you have ever worked with 35mm slides, you know that it can be helpful to lay the slides out on a big table and plan the order in which to show them. You rearrange them, moving this one here, that one there, until the order is perfect. You might even start a pile of backups that you will not show in the main presentation, but will hold back in case someone asks a pertinent question. That's exactly what you can do with Slide Sorter view, shown in figure 1-23. It lays out the slides in miniature, so you can see the big picture. You can drag the slides around and place them in the perfect order. You can also return to Normal view to work on a slide by double-clicking the slide.

When it's time to rehearse the presentation, nothing shows you the finished product quite as clearly as Slide Show view does. In Slide Show view, the slide fills the entire screen. You can move from slide to slide by pressing the Page Up or Page Down keys, or by using one of the other movement methods available.

You can right-click in Slide Show view to display a menu that enables you to control the show without leaving it. To leave the slide show, choose End Show from the menu or just press the Esc key.

Tip

When entering Slide Show view, the method you use determines which slide you start on. If you use the Slide Show View button in the bottom-right corner of the screen, the presentation will start with whatever slide you have selected. (You can also press Shift+F5 to do this, or choose Slide Show

Figure 1.23. Use Slide Sorter view for a birds-eye view of the presentation.

Figure 1.24. Slide Show view lets you practice the presentation in real life.

When you give a presentation, your props usually include more than just your brain and your slides. You typically have all kinds of notes and backup material for each slide — figures on last quarters sales, sources to cite if someone questions your data, and so on. In the old days of framed overhead transparencies, people used to attach sticky notes to the slide frames for this purpose and hope that nobody asked any questions that required diving into the four-inch-thick stack of statistics they brought.

Today, you can type your notes and supporting facts directly in PowerPoint. As you saw earlier, you can type them directly into the Notes pane below the slide in Normal view. However, if you have a lot of notes to type, you might find it easier to work with Notes Page view instead.

Notes Page view is accessible only from the View tab. In this view, you see a single slide (uneditable) with a text area, called the notes placeholder, below it for your notes. See figure 1-25. You can refer to these notes as you give an on-screen presentation, or you can print notes pages to stack neatly on the lectern next to you during the big event. If you have trouble seeing the text you're typing, zoom in on it, as described in the next section.

Figure 1.25. Notes Page view offers a special text area for your notes, separate from the slides.

Vertical and horizontal rulers around the slide pane can help you place objects more precisely. To toggle them on or off, mark or clear the Ruler check box on the View tab. Rulers are available only in Normal and Notes Page views.

The rulers help with positioning no matter what content type you are working with, but when you are editing text in a text frame they have an additional purpose as well. The horizontal ruler shows the frame's paragraph indents and any custom tab stops, and you can drag the indent markers on the ruler just like you can in Word.

Tip

The vertical ruler is optional. To disable it while retaining the horizontal ruler, choose Office

Gridlines are non-printing dotted lines at regularly spaced intervals that can help you line up objects on a slide. figure 1-28 shows gridlines (and the ruler) enabled.

To turn gridlines on or off, use any of these methods:

Figure 1.28. Gridlines and the ruler help align objects on a slide.

There are many options you can set for the gridlines, including whether objects snap to it, whether the grid is visible, and what the spacing should be between the gridlines. To set grid options, follow these steps:

Figure 1.29. Set grid options and spacing.

Guides are like gridlines except they are individual lines, rather than a grid of lines, and you can drag them to different positions on the slide. As you drag a guide, a numeric indicator appears to let you know the ruler position. See figure 1-30. Use the Grid and Guides dialog box shown in figure 1-29 to turn guides on/off, or press Alt+F9.

Figure 1.30. Guides are movable, non-printing lines that help with alignment.

You can create additional sets of guide lines by holding down the Ctrl key while dragging a guide (to copy it). You can have up to eight horizontal and vertical guides, all at positions you specify

Most of the time you will work with your presentation in color. However, if you plan to print the presentation in black and white or grayscale (for example, on overhead transparencies or black-and-white handouts), you should check to see what it will look like without color.

Click the Grayscale or the Pure Black and White button on the View tab to switch to one of those views. When you do so, a Grayscale or Black and White tab becomes available, as shown in figure 1-31. From its Setting group, you can fine-tune the grayscale or black-and-white preview. Choose one that shows the object to best advantage; PowerPoint will remember that setting when printing or outputting the presentation to a grayscale or black-and-white source.

Figure 1.31. Select a grayscale or a black-and-white preview type.

When you are finished, click the Back to Color View button on the Grayscale tab. Changing the Black and White or Grayscale settings doesn't affect the colors on the slides; it only affects how the slides will look and print in black and white or grayscale.

When you have two or more windows open, whether they are for the same presentation or different ones, you need to arrange them for optimal viewing. You saw earlier in this chapter how to resize a window, but did you know that PowerPoint can do some of the arranging for you?

When you want to arrange the open windows, do one of the following:

These commands do not apply to minimized windows. If you want to include a window in the arrangement, make sure you restore it from its minimized state first.

If you have more than one window open and can see at least a corner of the window you want, click it to bring it to the front. If you have one of the windows maximized, on the other hand, or if another window is obscuring the one you want, click Switch Windows (on the View tab) and select the window you want to view.

All Office 2007 products must be activated after a certain number of days or a certain number of uses. This is a simple matter if you have an Internet connection. Every time you start an Office 2007 application, a reminder to activate appears. Follow the prompts to activate it. You do not have to give any personal information.

So what is this activation, and why is it required? Activation locks your copy of Office (or PowerPoint, if you bought it separately) to the hardware configuration in your computer, so that it can't be installed on any other PC.

The activation utility surveys a sampling of your PCs hardware (around a dozen different components), and based on their models, serial numbers, and so on, it comes up with a number. Then it combines that number mathematically with the 24-digit installation key code you entered when you installed the software, to produce a unique number that represents that particular copy of Office combined with that particular PC. It then sends that number off to an activation database at Microsoft, along with the original installation key code.

So how does this prevent illegal software copying? Two ways. One is that the installation key code is locked to that hardware ID, so that if you install the same copy on a different PC, it can't be activated there. (This is not the case for some corporate and volume-licensed copies.) The other is that it prevents you from radically changing the hardware in the PC without contacting Microsoft for reactivation authorization. For example, you could not take the hard disk out of the PC and put it in another PC without reactivating Office.

It is this second point that has been an issue of conflict between Microsoft and users, because many users like to tinker with their hardware and they do not want to have to contact Microsoft every time they make hardware changes. According to Microsoft documentation, the change of one or two pieces of hardware will not trigger the need for reactivation, but your experience may differ.

There are two situations in which you might not have to activate:

When you go through the activation process, you are also asked whether you want to register your copy of the software. Activation by itself sends no identifying information about you or your PC to Microsoft; if you want to be on the Microsoft mailing list for update information, you must go through the additional process of registration.

In some situations, it is advantageous for your copy of PowerPoint to communicate with Microsoft over the Internet. For example, when you use the Help system, you get better results if you are connected, and when inserting clip art, you have more images to choose from if you are connected.

It's a two-way street: your copy of PowerPoint can also help Microsoft by sending information to the company about your usage habits. For example, when Microsoft is developing a new version of PowerPoint, they look at usage data to determine which features of the program people are using the most and the least. This program for gathering user data is the Customer Experience Improvement Program, and participation in it is optional.

To control whether — and how — your copy of PowerPoint interacts online with Microsoft, follow these steps to configure Privacy Options:

Figure 1.35. Choose how your copy of PowerPoint will interact with Microsoft via the Internet.