Briefly introduce the topics that will be covered in this lesson so students are aware of the new skills they will learn. Remind students that all the information is available in the book as a reference so they don’t need to commit anything to memory or take notes.
Review with students how they can use pictures in a presentation to illustrate ideas and add visual interest.
Demonstrate how students can click either the picture icon inside a content placeholder, or use the button on the Insert tab, to add a picture. Explain that the same Windows file browse dialog is used as when opening presentations, but that the File Type is set to look only for pictures, so even though students may be looking in the same folder as they have for other files, only picture files are listed. As well, Windows may try to look for pictures in the My Pictures folder, so students may need to navigate to the folder containing the student data files.
Explain the benefits of each method of inserting a picture. In most cases, Insert will be fine (especially if pictures are later compressed to reduce the presentationfile size). It’s probably not necessary to demonstrate Link to File, changing the file, and watching it update in the presentation, but you certainly could if time permits.
This slide lists the picture modification options that are covered in detail on the following slides.
The visual previews of the different picture correction effects will quickly give students an understanding of the effect of this feature on their picture. Have students try different options to see their effect.
As with the features on the previous slide, the visual previews of the different picture color effects will quickly give students an understanding of the effect of this feature on their picture. This feature can be used both to “correct” a photo—bringing the colors into a more natural balance—as well introduce artistic effects.
This feature speaks for itself – it can add visual appeal to a photo or presentation.
In a presentation without a theme, or with a plain one or white backgrounds, a border around a photo can really give it focus and anchor it on the slide. It can improve an otherwise dull picture. Conversely, on an already busy slide, the frame may be too much.
Cropping pictures is a great way of conveying a more meaningful message. In the example on the slide, the crop focuses the viewer on the couple on bicycles, making it clear this slide is about them, not about the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. Cropping a photo allows us to enlarge it on the slide as well, since space isn’t taken up by unneeded portions, and that can enhance details and make the photo easier to see. Until it’s removed using the Compress Pictures feature, the cropped portion of the photo remains available and can be restored using the Crop tool again, so students shouldn’t fear trying different crops.
After experimenting with all the picture correction and effect options, students will either have a masterpiece or a mess! The Reset Picture option will help return the picture to its original state. Note the 2 options available and that the second, Reset Picture & Size, removes crops as well as restores the picture to its original size.If students like the formatting they have applied, but have decided a different picture might be more appropriate, Change Picture allows them to replace the picture with a new one, but retain the formatting (unlike deleting a picture and adding a new one, where all formatting is lost and must be reapplied).
Students may not know that when they crop or resize an image within PowerPoint, the full-sized original remains available. If the image was a large file, this can unnecessarily increase the size of the PowerPoint file, making it harder to email (takes longer or may be blocked altogether) and making the presentation run more slowly. As well, the original image may contain information not intended for viewing, but it remains available. Compressing images (and deleting cropped areas of pictures at the same time) deals with this situation, optimizing a presentation for emailing or sharing in other ways.You could show students the size of a PowerPoint file (one that contains many large images) in Windows Explorer before and after compressing the images, to show the effect.This topic is covered again in Lesson 7.
The clip art pane built-in to PowerPoint (and other Office applications) is an easy way to find and clip art and other illustrations and add them to a slide.Review the choices available in the media file types drop-down. If their search returns many results, students may wish to limit the media types to just photographs, for example (as well as add more keywords to their search to narrow the results).Most students will click an illustration that appears from a search, and see it immediately inserted into a presentation. Review also that they can click the arrow next to an illustration and choose Copy, to assemble several illustrations in the clipboard for insertion where needed later.Explain that PowerPoint is installed with a very limited amount of clip art illustrations and that the “Include Office.com” content allows students to access a much greater resource of clip-art, with an internet connection.
Spend some time reviewing the different shapes and demonstrating how to draw them. Be sure to demonstrate how to use Shift, Ctrl, or Ctrl+Shift to draw a straight line and a round circle, for example. Demonstrate adding text to a shape.Discuss ways in which shapes can be used – e.g. to create a diagram, to draw attention to areas of a picture, to use as a text box.
Students should be pretty comfortable by now in moving objects around on the screen, so this demonstration should be quick and simple.
Students have seen these quick styles applied to text boxes and content placeholders, so applying them to shapes should be familiar. Demonstrate how to apply a quick style, how to separately apply shape fill, outline and effect, and how to combine a quick style with changes to the shape fill, outline or effect for a custom design. Demonstrate formatting the text within a shape, using the text formatting features in the Font group on the Home tab, as well as WordArt features.
Most students will likely be familiar with hyperlinks as a way of navigating web sites. They may not know that in PowerPoint a hyperlink can connect to a website, as well as open other documents on the computer, or simply navigate within the presentation. A common example is to connect to a web site related to the slide. Embedding links in a presentation allows the presenter to click to view the site, then return to the presentation and continue on, fairly seamlessly.Hyperlinks and action buttons are similar. While action buttons are covered in Lesson 5, you can mention them here if you wish.
It’s useful to have the ruler visible on the screen much of the time – it gives a more real-world scale to objects on a slide
Students may find gridlines useful, particularly with snap to grid enabled. Be sure to open the Grids and Guides dialog to show how they can adjust the spacing of the gridlines and enable the snap to grid and other objects options.
Dragging shapes on a slide is a quick and easy way to align them. The new temporary visual alignment guide line that appears when you drag one shape near another is very helpful for aligning them. The temporary line is dashed and appears in the middle, top, bottom, left or right of the two shapes, depending on how one is moved in relation to the other. This method works well for quickly and accurately aligning one object to another, but not for aligning multiple objects at once.
These alignment methods should be familiar from the lesson on text boxes, and work well for aligning more than two objects at once.Note that with the selected objects option selected (default for multiple selections), the objects are aligned relative to each other (i.e., align bottom will align objects to the lowest point of all selected objects). If Align to Slide is selected, then all objects are aligned to the slide. If only one object is selected, Align to Slide is the default selection, and objects will align accordingly.
Having worked with text boxes, students should be familiar with the methods for resizing shapes. However, a review here is still a good idea. Demonstrate how using corner handles retains proportions, but side handles does not, as well as the numeric size measurements in the Size group on the Format tab, and in the Shape dialog. You might also work with a shape with text, which is essentially a text box, and review the Autofit text options in the Shape dialog.
Again, students should be familiar with this feature from working with text boxes, but a review is a good idea.
As with text boxes, shapes can be ordered one over top of the other. The order may need to be changed to make shapes visible or complete an illustration. Review the different options for moving shapes towards and away from the viewer. You may want to introduce the term "layers". This is a common term used in other programs, and can be applied here.
This topic was not covered with text boxes, although they too can be grouped. Demonstrate how to group multiple shapes together when an illustration is complete, as a means of preventing accidental changes to the illustration, and as a way of more easily moving the complete illustration on the slide, or cutting and pasting it with the clipboard. Using the Selection Pane to select shapes to group may be easier than clicking on them individually on the slide, depending on the complexity of the illustration. Be sure to demonstrate how to temporarily Ungroup objects, make a change, then regroup them (without having to re-select each shape individually).
PowerPoint has a feature specially designed for creating presentations of photos. It’s somewhat like a wizard that walks a student through selecting and inserting images (which they could of course do by hand as well, one picture at a time). Be sure to review all the options in the Photo Album dialog, listed on the next slide. Spend time creating a Photo Album, then editing it to select different options. Students will likely need to practice this on their own to master it.
Now that they have some experience creating shapes and text boxes, students may find that it’s difficult, or at least time consuming, to create complex illustrations, and will appreciate that SmartArt can help them to quickly create professional looking diagrams and illustrations.
The best way to become familiar with SmartArt is to try creating one. A simple list is often a good starting point. Once students have mastered the process for creating a SmartArt graphic and adding text, they can explore some of the other shapes and layouts.
You can briefly review the different types of diagrams available, then return to this list later to explore them in more detail.
The arrows to make the text pane visible, on the left of the SmartArt graphic, are unfortunately quite small, easily missed, and hard to click. However, students can right-click on a SmartArt graphic and choose Show Text Pane, or click the Text Pane button on the Design tab.Once visible, the text pane is quite simple to use and will be familiar from working with bulleted lists (and from Outline view in Word, for those students who have used it). Point out that some graphics have a limited number of shapes available, so students may not be able to continue adding text and have additional shapes appear. As well, not all shapes supported text at multiple levels, so demoting text may not produce the desired results.
Like all quick styles in PowerPoint, SmartArt styles can quickly add more visual interest to a SmartArt graphic. The main difference with SmartArt styles and others is that changing the colors is a separate feature from the outline and effects. Students should try different sets of colors and different styles to see their effect. Some may add just the right amount of enhancement, and others may be too “busy”.
Adding shapes to a SmartArt graphic can be done either using the text pane, or using the buttons in the Create Graphic group on the Design tab, whichever the student is more comfortable with. Be sure to demonstrate both methods.
Students may find it easier to type text into a content placeholder, then convert it to SmartArt later, or may simply decide that text on a particular slide could be made more interesting if done as a SmartArt graphic. PowerPoint provides an easy method to convert selected text to SmartArt. Of course, a SmartArt layout appropriate to the text must be selected, and the text may need to be edited to fit within the shapes.
Similarly to the previous slide, students may wish to remove a SmartArt graphic and use a bulleted list instead, such as when there’s too much text to comfortably fit in the SmartArt shapes.
Sounds can be added to animations (covered in Lesson 5) or directly to a slide, and set to play manually or automatically. Sounds may be inserted because they are important content (e.g. a speech, pronunciation of a name or word, etc.), to attract the audience’s attention at a particular moment in the presentation, or as background sounds or music, such as at the start or end of a slide show.
Spend time reviewing the sound editing features built in to PowerPoint—they work well for adjusting sound clips. The trim tool is much like the crop tool for pictures, useful for shortening a long sound clip to fit a slide, or focussing on the important part of a clip. The fade in effect is especially useful with a loud clip, which may startle the audience if it plays abruptly.
Unlike sounds, movies are not usually used as a background! They’re best inserted when they contain content relevant to the presentation.
The features for adjusting movie playback are very similar to those for sounds.
This feature is more like photos than sounds, in that you can modify the visual appearance of a movie as it plays.
Review the topics covered in this lesson to remind students of what they have learned and accomplished, and to invite questions on any topics not entirely clear.
