Microsoft PowerPoint

Course Summary

This page will provide information, video and links to information to help you use Microsoft PowerPoint. This page is intended as a supplement to a hands-on course that I teach on this software application.

What is a PowerPoint

PowerPoint is a powerful and useful slideshow creation software. Powerpoint allows you to create individual slides which can contain text, images, audio and/or video, order them as you would like them to appear, and then play them in that order as a slideshow. Slideshows have many practical applications such as organizing content for use as cues during presentations and demonstrations, displaying and describing content such as photographs, as well as using visual aids to convey a core set of themes, thoughts or ideas. There are other slide presentations programs as well, including those that exist entirely on the web and offer some very unique features and characteristics (a list of these is included at the bottom of this page).

Links

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/CR061832731033.aspx - PowerPoint 2003 Tutorials from Microsoft Office Online. There is an extensive list of tutorials here which are supplemented by audio recordings.

http://www.fgcu.edu/support/office2007/ppt/index.asp - PowerPoint tutorials from Florida Gulf Coast University

http://getit.rutgers.edu/tutorials/powerpoint/index.html - Tutorial created by the Rutgers University Writing Program. This is a bare bones tutorial for performing basic functions with PowerPoint. This one is useful for those just starting out and needing to become a little more comfortable with how PowerPoint works.

http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/technology/tutorials/office/ppt03/index.html - From the iSchool at the University of Texas, this is more of a tips and suggestions resource than a standard tutorial, however it does have some really useful information about what makes a good PowerPoint presentation, as well as how to use the drawing toolbar to visually enhance a slideshow

The following links represent several different online tools you can use to create dynamic slide style presentations which can be shared, stored on the web, and thus accessed from any computer with an internet connection. Try a few and see what you think!

Google Docs - http://docs.google.com

Empressr - http://www.empressr.com

Spresent - http://www.spresent.com/v2/

Zoho - http://www.zoho.com (click ZOHO SHOW to access the presentation tool)

280 Slides - http://280slides.com/

Note: There are more links available on Introduction to Powerpoint handout below

Files

Introduction to Powerpoint.pdf- this is the handout I use for teaching my introductory PowerPoint class. Admittedly there is some content on here that would be considered more advanced, but it does cover both basic and intermediate tasks and skills with PowerPoint. It can also serve as a useful step-by-step guide if you are trying to do something specific in PowerPoint and need some guidance.

Videos

I have limited the videos here to the basics, with the assumption that most visitors to this page are new to PowerPoint. There are videos for performing more advanced functions which you can find searching with either Google Video or YouTube