Microsoft PowerPoint Training Courses

We start this course by getting you comfortable with the PowerPoint window. We show you how the menus and options are structured so that you are happy with finding the various menus and options that you will need when working with your presentation. We also look at where to find information about the current presentation and slide that you are working on.

The key topics trained in this session are:

• Working with Presentations
• Understanding the Start Screen
• Creating a New Blank Presentation
• How Microsoft PowerPoint Works
• Using Ribbon KeyTips
• Showing and Collapsing the Ribbon
• Understanding Backstage View
• Understanding the Quick Access Toolbar
• Adding Commands to the QAT
• Understanding the Status Bar
• Customising the Status Bar

Having got comfortable with navigating around PowerPoint we now move to creating a new presentation or opening an existing presentation. We also look at the various different views that PowerPoint contains, and how to switch between them.

The key topics trained include:

• Opening Multiple Presentations
• Switching Between Open Presentations
• Understanding Presentation Views
• Changing Presentation Views
• Navigating a Presentation

This session focuses on the right way to plan and template a new presentation that you are creating from scratch. We look at how to plan a new presentation and then how to design your presentation. We then move to how to set up the template for your presentation to ensure that its appearance is consistent. Having discussed templates we look at applying a template to a presentation. Having got our presentation set up with the right template we look at adding text and then how to save the presentation we have set up.

The key topics trained include:

• Creating a Presentation in PowerPoint
• Applying Theme Variants
• Typing Text Into a Slide
• Inserting New Slides
• Typing Text Using the Outline Pane
• Applying Slide Transitions
• Previewing a Slide Show

Now that we have got our presentation set up correctly, and using a template for consistency, we look at how you can add text to your slides. We cover how to control your text with placeholders and how to format it for maximum effect using SmartArt and other PowerPoint formatting tools. Next we look at paragraph formatting and ensuring that the presentation of our text is correct.

The key topics trained are:

• Editing Text
• Understanding Font Formatting
• Applying Font Formatting
• Applying Paragraph Formatting
• Changing Bullet and Numbering Styles
• Moving and Resizing Placeholders
• Applying WordArt to Text
• Converting Text to SmartArt

Slide layouts are simple ways to structure a slide. They have various containers into which you can insert your text, graphics or other content. This session covers all aspects of working with PowerPoint slide layouts. We look at title slides, slides containing pictures and charts and also section dividers amongst other topics.

The key topics trained include:

• Understanding Slide Layouts
• Inserting a Title Slide
• Inserting a Title and Content Slide
• Inserting a Section Header Slide
• Inserting a Table
• Inserting a Picture With Caption Slide
• Inserting a Chart
• Changing the Slide Layout

The ability to insert impactful images to illustrate the points that you want to make is one of the key strengths of PowerPoint. This session covers all aspects of working with images so that you can use yours for maximum effect. We look at cropping images, resizing them, rotating and flipping them. Having got our image just right we then work on getting it in the right place in our presentation.

The key topics trained include:

• Understanding Clip Art and Pictures
• Inserting a Picture From File
• Inserting an Online Picture
• Resizing an Image
• Positioning an Image
• Modifying Graphics
• Inserting a Screenshot
• Inserting a Screen Clip/shot
• Creating a Photo Album

SmartArt is an extremely powerful feature in PowerPoint. It contains a large number of standard diagrams which allow you to easily present lists, processes, hierarchies and relationships. Where one of these standard templates isn’t quite appropriate for your needs they are often a very good place to start. Inserting a SmartArt template and customising it is often far faster than creating a diagram from scratch. This session covers all aspects of inserting SmartArt into a PowerPoint presentation. It then looks at working with SmartArt to edit it so that it creates exactly the diagram that you are looking for.

The key topics trained include:

• Understanding SmartArt
• Inserting a SmartArt Graphic
• Inserting Text Into SmartArt
• Adding Shapes Below
• Adding Shapes Above
• Adding Shapes Before and After
• Adding an Assistant
• Promoting and Demoting Shapes
• Switching SmartArt Right to Left
• Resizing SmartArt
• Changing the SmartArt Layout
• Applying a Colour Scheme
• Applying a SmartArt Style
• Deleting SmartArt Shapes

Shapes allow you to emphasise certain aspects of your slide or to illustrate relationships between things. Inserting and working with the various shapes that PowerPoint contains gives you greater control over how to illustrate your slides. This session covers all aspects of inserting, positioning and presenting shapes in your presentation for maximum impact.

The key topics include:

• Drawing Shapes
• Resizing Shapes
• Editing Shapes
• Positioning Shapes
• Arranging Shapes
• Merging Shapes
• Formatting Shapes
• Using the Eyedropper (exact match colours)
• Copying Shapes
• Aligning Shapes Using the Ribbon
• Aligning Objects Using Smart Guides
• Inserting and Formatting Text
• Connecting Shapes
• Grouping Shapes
• Rotating Shapes

The final session of this course covers how to output your completed presentation from PowerPoint. We look at printing your presentation as notes pages, in hand-out format and in outlines as well as printing the slides themselves.

The key topics trained include:

• Understanding Printing
• Previewing Slides
• Printing Slides
• Printing Handouts
• Printing Notes Pages
• Printing the Outline

• Understanding How Help Works
• Accessing the Help Window
• Navigating the Help Window
• Using the Office Website
• Googling Help
• Printing a Help Topic

• Planning a Presentation
• Make It Readable
• The Four Pillars of Great Design
• Perfect Presentation Layouts
• Presenting Polished Presentations
• Presentation Methods and Hardware

The opening session of this course reviews some of the basics of using PowerPoint before introducing some more advanced topics.

• Understanding Electronic Presentations
• Applying a Theme
• Typing Text Into a Slide
• Saving a Presentation
• Inserting New Slides
• Typing Text Using the Outline Pane
• Inserting an Online Picture
• Presenting a Slide Show
• Printing Handouts
• Safely Closing a Presentation

This session looks at the techniques to ensure that you set up a new presentation correctly so that it is quick and simple to create and manage going forward.

• Using Slide Sorter View
• Reusing Slides
• Adding Sections
• Adding Notes to Your Slides
• Slide Numbers
• About Hyperlinks
• Creating an Internal Hyperlink
• Creating a Hyperlink to Another Presentation
• Creating a Hyperlink to Another Application
• Keyboard Shortcuts for Navigating Slide Shows
• Using Resume Reading
• Presenting a Slide Show

The ability to use images to demonstrate key points is one of PowerPoint’s key strengths. This session covers all aspects of advanced image management within PowerPoint. It covers how to use PowerPoint to correct and recolour an image as well as applying effects to pictures. It also looks at using screenshots and other images.

The key topics trained include:

• Understanding Picture Enhancements
• The Format Picture Pane
• Removing an Image Background
• Applying Colour Corrections
• Recolouring an Image
• Applying a Picture Style
• Applying Picture Effects
• Applying Artistic Effects
• Cropping an Image

Animations can bring a presentation to life, although they should be used carefully. This section will show you how to add animation to your presentation whether it’s text or other objects. It will also show you how to control the timing and path of an animation as well as how to animate SmartArt.

• Understanding Animation
• Animating Text
• Animating Objects
• Applying Multiple Effects
• Applying Motion Paths
• The Animation Pane
• Setting the Timing
• Animating SmartArt Graphics
• Using Slide Transitions

Breaking up presentations with videos and audio clips can be a very effective way to make a point. PowerPoint makes working with video and audio clips very simple. This session shows you how. It also covers how to compress your clips so that your PowerPoint files don’t become difficult to work with.

The key topics trained include:

• Understanding Media in PowerPoint
• Inserting an Online Video
• Inserting an Online Audio Clip
• Formatting Media Clips
• Editing Audio Clips
• Optimising and Compressing Media
• Understanding Action Buttons
• Inserting Action Buttons

A slide master stores information about the theme and slide layouts of a presentation. They can be reused again and so can save heavy PowerPoint users from recreating them from scratch each time. Understanding Slide Masters includes:

• Viewing the Slide Master
• Changing the Master Font
• Modifying Bullets
• Inserting an Image
• Applying Slide Transitions to the Slide Master
• Inserting Slide Numbers
• Creating Custom Slide Layouts
• Modifying Slide Layouts

Templates allow presentations to be quickly and consistently produced in PowerPoint. A template is a file that usually includes a background, layouts, fonts, and other design elements. These are combined into a template that creates the basis for an attractive presentation.

Once created, templates can be reused which saves large amounts of time whether they are slide templates that you’ve created yourself or downloaded from other sites. For example, slidehunter.com is one of many sites that offers free PowerPoint templates.

We look at all aspects of creating, customising and controlling a template in this section of the course.

• Understanding Templates
• Setting a Custom Templates Location
• Using an Existing Template
• Creating a Template From a Template
• Saving a Custom Template
• Creating a Template From a Theme
• Modifying a Template
• Using a Custom Template

Once you have completed your PowerPoint presentation you will need to present it. PowerPoint obviously makes this very straightforward and offers a number of different ways that you can do this. This session covers creating self-running presentations. It includes how to record a slide and also how to set up a speaker-led presentation.

The key topics trained include:

• About Self Running Presentations
• Recording a Slide Show
• Setting Up a Self-Running Presentation
• Rehearsing Timings
• Setting Up a Speaker-Led Show
• Creating a Custom Show
• Understanding Presenter View
• Using Presenter View

Having completed your presentation you will want to save it and probably share it as well. We look at saving and recording presentations to cd, PDF and video in this session. We also look at distributing and broadcasting presentations.

• Packaging Presentations for CD
• Saving a Presentation as a PDF Document
• Saving a Presentation as a Video
• Sending a Presentation via Email
• Presenting a Slide Show Online
• Saving to a Storage Device

This looks at working with objects in other Microsoft Offices packages. We look at how you can easily link elements of your presentation to other Microsoft Office files as well as copying and linking to tables and charts in Excel and Word.

The key topics trained include:

• Understanding Object Linking and Embedding
• Copying Word Tables as Embedded Objects
• Inserting a New Excel Table
• Copying and Linking Excel Tables
• Copying and Linking Excel Charts

• Understanding Themes
• Applying a Theme
• Changing the Theme Colours
• Creating Custom Theme Colours
• Changing the Theme Fonts
• Changing the Slide Background
• Saving a Customised Theme
• Using a Customised Theme
• Deleting a Customised Theme

Tables are a very good way to present factual information that is related. This session covers all aspects of working with and presenting tables in PowerPoint. It covers everything from inserting a table to formatting, styling and editing it. It also shows you how to add effects like shadows to the table and how to control the presentation of the data within the table cells.

The key topics trained include:

• Adding a Table to a Slide
• Table Tools – The Design Tab
• Table Tools – The Layout Tab
• Formatting and aligning table data
• Applying a table style
• Inserting rows and columns
• Merging and splitting cells
• Resizing and positioning a table
• Applying borders
• Applying shading
• Adjusting column width
• Adjusting row height

Charts are an extremely good way to present data. They allow relationships between variables to be very simply demonstrated. This session shows you how to insert a chart into a PowerPoint presentation, and then how to control all elements of that chart. From the chart itself to the data series it presents and how the data is presented, this session shows you how to get your chart looking exactly as you would like it to.

The key topics trained include:

• Understanding Charts
• Inserting a Chart Using the Ribbon
• Changing the Chart Type
• Chart Elements
• Using Quick Layouts
• Understanding Chart Buttons
• Changing the Layout of Chart Elements
• Applying a Chart Style
• Understanding the Chart Format Panes
• Formatting Chart Elements
• Editing a Data Series
• Hiding a Data Series
• Working With Pie Charts

• Planning a Presentation
• Make It Readable
• The Four Pillars of Great Design
• Perfect Presentation Layouts
• Presenting Polished Presentations
• Presentation Methods and Hardware

Click on the PowerPoint logo for full details of our the Introduction/Intermediate course

Click on the PowerPoint logo for the full details of our Advanced PowerPoint course.

• Different types of presentations
• Core messaging to use in your presentation
• Using visual metaphors consistent with your messaging
• Structure your presentation for impact

• The importance of storytelling in communication
• How you can build a strong narrative

• Do’s and Don’ts of using images and videos
• Where to find suitable, high-quality media

• Balance
• Emphasis
• Contrast
• Repetition
• Proportion
• Form & Space
• Colour

• Master slides & visual themes
• Typography and fonts
• Diagrams
• Arranging your text
• Margins, grids and placement
• Should you use animations?
• Presenting