Presentation Skills Tip 8

Hi everyone

This month's presentations tip is about Powerpoint again. Last time I sent one on Powerpoint I was a bit anti (with good reason - there are lots of ways it can go wrong!) but in this one I'm going to redress the balance a little, with a list of very sexy features that you may not know about. Powerpoint can do all sorts of great things, and if you just pick up one or two hints from this list, then that's a result. So here goes.....

Hyper-links allow you to jump to other pages, reacting to what the audience wants
..... Click on: Insert / Hyperlink / place in this document.

Hide slides and only show them if you decide you want to..... In slide sorter mode, right click on a slide and select Hide Slide. During the show, pressing H will show the hidden slide. (Hint: put a line along the bottom to remind you that there's a hidden slide there)

Get each bulleted line to fade slightly when the next one comes up, so that the viewer's eye is drawn to the newest point (which is the one you are talking about)
Click on: Slide Show / Custom Animation / After Animation - click on the drop-down arrow on the right of the box - then select the dark grey third from the left. Ideally before you start, but also during creating your slideshow, you set up the Master Slide so that each new page (and the ones you've done so far!) will have the fonts, colours, footers, and background that you want
..... Click on: View / Master / Slide Master.

Have a very light picture as part of your background design - can look classy - but be careful: can be distracting too. Include it in slide master.
Click on: Insert picture from file, then make it see-through by using Right click on picture / format picture / watermark (may be too light) or try setting the brightness and contrast at about 75% and 50% - experiment - it depends on the picture you're using.

Build words and objects, so they appear one at a time
..... Click on: On your tool bar there should be a box containing a number - called "Animation Order" if you mouse over it. Use this to change the order to objects appearing on the screen. If it's not there you may need to go to View / Toolbars / Animation Effects (note - the rest of the effects are not a worth using!)

Control the default settings for things like the colour of lines, fills (normally turquoise), and hyperlinks after you've clicked on them (normally they go almost too light to see, which I don't like)
..... Click on: Format / Slide Colour Scheme / Custom / select colours.

there we are, I think that's quite enough for now!

have fun

onwards and upwards