When you start PowerPoint, a new blank presentation begins automatically with one slide. Just add your content to it, add more slides if needed, change the formatting (as you'll learn in upcoming chapters), and go for it.

If you need to start another blank presentation, follow these steps:

A template is a file that contains starter settings — and sometimes starter content — on which you can base new presentations. Templates vary in their exact offerings, but can include sample slides, a background graphic, custom color and font themes, and custom positioning for object placeholders.

When selecting a template, you can choose from these categories:

Using a Saved Template

When you start a new presentation with an online template, as in the preceding section, PowerPoint copies that template to your hard disk so you can reuse it in the future without connecting to the Internet. It is stored, along with any custom template you have created, in the My Templates folder.

To access these downloaded and custom templates, follow these steps:

1. Choose Office

   

2. Click My Templates. A different New Presentation dialog box appears containing templates that you have downloaded or created. See figure 3.2.

3. Click OK. A new presentation opens based on that template.

Tip

Recently used template names appear on the right side of the New Presentation dialog box when it opens initially. You can select a template from there and click Create. To remove an item from the Recently Used Templates, right-click the item and choose Remove Item from List. To clear the whole list at once, right-click any entry and choose Remove All Items from List.

Figure 3.2. Choose a previously used or custom template.

If you already have a presentation that's similar to the new one you need to create, you can base the new presentation on the existing one.

Follow these steps to use an existing presentation as a template:

PowerPoint can open files in several formats other than its own, so you can start a new presentation based on some work you have done elsewhere. For example, you can open a Word outline in PowerPoint. The results might not be very attractive — but you can fix that later with some text editing, slide layouts, and design changes.

To open a file from another application, do the following:

If you haven't previously saved the presentation you are working on, Save and Save As do the same thing: They open the Save As dialog box. From there, you can specify a name, file type, and file location. Follow these steps:

Filenames can be up to 255 characters. For practical purposes, however, keep the names short. You can include spaces in the filenames and most symbols except <, >, ?, *, /, and . However, if you plan to post the file on a network or the Internet at some point, you should avoid using spaces; use the underscore character instead to simulate a space if needed. There have also been problems reported with files that use exclamation points in their names, so beware of that. Generally it is best to avoid punctuation marks in names.

After you have once saved a presentation, you can resave it with the same settings (same file type, name, and location) in any of the following ways:

If you need to save your presentation under a different name, as a different file type, or in a different location, use the Save As command instead. This reopens the Save As dialog box, as in the preceding steps, so that you can save differently. The originally saved copy will remain under the original name, type, and location.

By default, all files in PowerPoint (and all of the Office applications) are saved to the Documents folder (or My Documents under Windows XP) for the current user. Each user has his or her own version of this folder, so that each persons documents are kept separate depending on who is logged in to the PC.

The Documents folder is a convenient save location for beginners, because they never have to worry about changing the drive or folder. However, more advanced users will sometimes want to save files to other locations. These other locations can include floppy disks, other hard disks in the same PC, hard disks on other PCs in a network, hard disks on Web servers on the Internet, or writeable CDs.

Throughout all of the Office programs, the dialog boxes that save and open files are different depending on the operating system you are using.

Changing the Save Location (Windows XP)

Under Windows XP, the Save In list shows the top-level locations on the system, including each drive, My Documents, and My Network Places. Open the list, as shown in figure 3.8, and select the location in which you want to start. Then double-click folder icons in the file listing to drill down to the location in which you want to save. To go back up one level, click the Up One Level button. See figure 3.8.

Figure 3.8. Select a top-level location from the Save In list and then double-click folders to work your way through to the desired location.

Along the left side of the Save As dialog box is the Places Bar. It's roughly equivalent to the Favorite Links list in Windows Vista. You can click a folder to jump to the desired location to save a file.

Tip

If you consistently want your PowerPoint files saved into a different folder, change the default file location. Choose Office

PowerPoint 2007 has a new XML-based file format, like the other Office 2007 applications. XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language; it is a text-based coding system similar to HTML that describes formatting by using inline bracketed codes and style sheets. XML-based data files are smaller than the data files from earlier PowerPoint versions, and they support all of the latest PowerPoint 2007 features. For best results, use this format whenever possible.

There are also several variants of this format for specialty uses. For example, there's a macro-enable version with a .pptm extension. There are also "show" variants (.ppsx and .ppsm) that open in Slide Show view by default, and template variants (.potx and .potm) that function as templates.

However, not everyone has PowerPoint 2007, and only PowerPoint 2007 can open files with these new formats. (You can download a compatibility pack for earlier PowerPoint versions that will allow them to accept the new files, but you can't assume that everyone who has an earlier version of PowerPoint will download it.) Therefore you might need to save presentations in other file formats in order to share files with other people.

The available formats are shown in Table 3.1. In the Save As dialog box, open the Save as Type drop-down list and select the desired format. See figure 3.9.

Figure 3.9. Choose a different format, if needed, from the Save As Type drop-down list.

Tip

If you consistently want to save in a different format from PowerPoint 2007, choose Office

Table 3.1 lists a lot of choices, but don't let that overwhelm you. You have three main decisions to make:

Most of the other choices from Table 3.1 are special-purpose and not suitable for everyday use. The following sections explain some of those special types.

The Save Options enable you to fine-tune the saving process for special needs. For example, you can employ Save Options to embed fonts, to change the interval at which PowerPoint saves AutoRecover information, and more.

There are two ways to access the Save options:

The PowerPoint Options dialog box appears, as in figure 3.10.

Figure 3.10. Set Save Options to match the way you want PowerPoint to save your work.

Then set any of the options desired. They are summarized in Table 3.3. Click OK when you are finished.

One of the most important features described in Table 3.3 is AutoRecover, which is turned on by default. This means if a system error or power outage causes PowerPoint to terminate unexpectedly, you do not lose all of the work you have done. The next time you start PowerPoint, it opens the recovered file and asks if you want to save it.

When you exit PowerPoint, the open presentation file automatically closes, and you're prompted to save your changes if you have made any. If you want to close a presentation file without exiting PowerPoint, follow these steps:

To open a recently used presentation, select it from the right side of the Office menu. Although only one file appears in figure 3.12, up to nine can appear by default.

Figure 3.12. Close the presentation via the Office menu.

Tip

To pin a certain file to the Office menu's list so that it never scrolls off, click the pushpin icon to the right of the file's name on the menu. You can increase or decrease the number of recently used files that appear on the Office menu. Choose Office

If the presentation you want to open does not appear on the Office menu, follow these steps to find and open it:

To open more than one presentation at once, hold down the Ctrl key as you click each file you want to open. Then, click the Open button and they all open in their own windows. For more information, see the "Working with Multiple Presentations" section later in this chapter.

The Open button in the Open dialog box has its own drop-down list from which you can select commands that open the file in different ways. See figure 3.13, and refer to Table 3.4 for an explanation of the available options.

Figure 3.13. The Open button's menu contains several special options for opening a file.

Just as you can save files in various program formats, you can also open files from various programs. PowerPoint can detect the type of file and convert it automatically as you open it, so you do not have to know the exact file type. (For example, if you have an old PowerPoint file with a .ppt extension, you don't have to know what version it came from.) The only problem is with files that don't have extensions that PowerPoint automatically recognizes. In that case, you must change the File Type setting in the Open dialog box to All Files so that the file to be opened becomes available on the file list. See figure 3.14. This change is valid for only this one use of the Open dialog box; the file type reverts to All PowerPoint Presentations, the default, the next time you open it.

Figure 3.14. To open files from different programs, change the File Type setting to All Files.

If you have forgotten where you saved a particular presentation file, you're not out of luck. The Open dialog box (under Windows Vista) includes a Search box that can help you locate it. See figure 3.15.

To search for a file, follow these steps:

When saving files, you might want to create a new folder to put them in. To create a new folder in a Windows Vista style dialog box, click New Folder in the command bar. See figure 3.19. To create a new folder in Windows XP, click the New Folder button in the row of buttons that appears across the top of the Save As dialog box. See figure 3.20.

Figure 3.19. Create a new folder from a Windows Vista style dialog box.

One way to copy a presentation is to open it and then save it under a different name. (You learned to do this earlier in this chapter.) But here's a method that enables you to copy without having to first open the file:

Just as you can copy a file, you can delete a presentation file from Windows itself, bypassing PowerPoint altogether. Just select the file in Windows Explorer or My Computer and press the Delete key, or drag it to the Recycle Bin on the Windows desktop.

To delete a file from within PowerPoint, select it from the Save As or Open dialog box and press the Delete key on the keyboard or right-click it and choose Delete. (Or in a Windows XP style dialog box, you can click the Delete button on the toolbar.) You cannot delete a file that is currently open.

To rename a file from within the Save As or Open dialog boxes, click it, and then press F2, or right-click it and choose Rename from the shortcut menu. Then type the new name and press Enter.

If you have the display of file extensions for known file types turned off in Windows (the default), you do not need to type the .pptx extension when renaming files. In fact, if you do type it, the file may end up with a double extension, like myfile.pptx.pptx. On the other hand, if you have the display of file extensions turned on, you must type the file extension while renaming a file.

Tip

To change the setting that governs whether or not file extensions are displayed, open the Computer window in Windows Vista and choose Organize

This assigns a drive letter to a folder on a remote PC. This might be useful if you save frequently to a network location and you don't want to have to wade through multiple levels of folders each time to find it. (But you can also accomplish the same thing by creating a shortcut in My Network Places.)

To map the currently displayed folder as a network drive, open the Tools menu from either the Open or Save As dialog box and choose Map Network Drive. This opens a dialog box that lets you associate a drive letter with the location.