January 21, 2010 The Power of PowerPoint Handout

UNIT 1
Meeting PowerPoint
• Trusty Toolbars
• Handy Help
• Techie Terms
• Cool for School

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Nice to see you, PowerPoint. Or can I just call you Power? You’re looking great
by the way, I bet you’ve been working out.

I can’t help but notice those toolbars of yours. They look just loaded with
features. Schwarzenegger has nothing on you in terms of muscle. Can you
folks back home see this? With toolbars like that, you can put together some
really nifty presentations.

Finding the toolbars

The toolbars contain graphically illustrated buttons that you click to perform specific tasks in
a program. PowerPoint 97 has four main toolbars, which can help you create your
presentations quickly and easily.

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ian.williams@gemssip.com
January 21, 2010 The Power of PowerPoint Handout

The Standard Toolbar is located at the top of the PowerPoint window, below the menu bar.
It has buttons for common tasks such as saving, printing, checking spelling, and inserting
charts and tables.

The Formatting Toolbar is located just below the standard toolbar. Most of its buttons are
for formatting text. Use these buttons to change the font type or size, make text bold or
italic, indent text, and insert bullets.

The Drawing Toolbar is located at the bottom of the PowerPoint window. It has tools for
drawing shapes, adding lines and curves, and inserting text boxes and WordArt. It also has
buttons for manipulating and formatting the objects you draw.

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Ian Williams
robertian.williams@yahoo.co.uk
ian.williams@gemssip.com
January 21, 2010 The Power of PowerPoint Handout

The Common Tasks toolbar is initially a floating toolbar. That is, it isn’t anchored to an edge
of the PowerPoint window. Use this toolbar to create a new slide, change the layout of a
slide, or apply a design.

Note: If you can’t see the Common Tasks Toolbar, you can make it appear using these
steps: Click the View menu, point to Toolbars, then click the check box beside Common
Tasks. A check mark indicates that a toolbar is activated.

Hmmm. With all these powerful toolbars, things can get pretty tangled up on
your desktop. All those buttons must look like the freeway during rush hour. I
bet you have a funny story about that.

Not really. People can move my toolbars where they need to at will. It’s easy.

You mean you’re powerful but fully flexible too?

Part boxer and part ballerina. I think I’m in love.

Moving the toolbars to new locations

All PowerPoint toolbars can be moved or docked to any side of the PowerPoint
window. As well, docked toolbars, including the Standard Toolbar, the
Formatting Toolbar, and the Drawing Toolbar, can be converted to floating
toolbars.
A move handle on the left or top of the toolbar indicates that the toolbar is
docked. A title bar indicates that the toolbar is floating.

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Ian Williams
robertian.williams@yahoo.co.uk
ian.williams@gemssip.com
January 21, 2010 The Power of PowerPoint Handout

Here’s how to move one of the toolbars to a new location:

1. Click the move handle on a docked toolbar, or click the title bar on a
floating toolbar.
2. Holding down the mouse button, drag the toolbar to the new location.
Docking a toolbar
Try docking the Common Tasks toolbar to the top of the PowerPoint window.
This will give you more working area on your PowerPoint window.
1. Click the title bar on the Common Tasks toolbar.
2. Drag the toolbar upwards, until the toolbar outline snaps into place
along the edge of the program window.
If you see move handles on the toolbar, you know it is successfully docked.

My producer is telling me we need to cut to a commercial break. Is there

anything else you want to mention about toolbars?
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Ian Williams
robertian.williams@yahoo.co.uk
ian.williams@gemssip.com
January 21, 2010 The Power of PowerPoint Handout

Well, I have other toolbars... one for working with images, one for creating animation
effects... and more...

Gee, you have a toolbar for everything. You’re like James Bond with all these
gadgets. Do you have a toolbar for making milkshakes?

I think that’s planned for PowerPoint 2000. Ha ha ha . But seriously... I do need to be a

little bit like James Bond when it comes to handling my mission of making good
presentations.

Adding and removing toolbars

PowerPoint has several other toolbars to help you accomplish your tasks.
The Picture Toolbar has several buttons that are useful when you work with images. There
are buttons for Contrast, Brightness, and Cropping. This toolbar will automatically appear
when you insert clip art or pictures.

The Animation Effects Toolbar has buttons for working with animations, and the Web Toolbar
helps you create presentations on the Internet. There’s also a Reviewing Toolbar, a WordArt
Toolbar, and a Control Box Toolbar.
When you’re a more advanced user, you may wish to add some of these toolbars to your
PowerPoint window. Let’s say you want to add the animation effects toolbar. Here’s what you
do:
1. Click the View menu, and then point to Toolbars.
2. In the submenu, click the check box next to animation effects. An animation
effects toolbar appears in the PowerPoint window.

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Ian Williams
robertian.williams@yahoo.co.uk
ian.williams@gemssip.com
January 21, 2010 The Power of PowerPoint Handout

Removing a toolbar
PowerPoint lets you remove toolbars you don’t need. Try removing the animation effects
toolbar you just activated.
1. Click the View menu, and then point to Toolbar.
2. In the submenu, click the check box next to animation effects to deselect it.
The check mark disappears and the animation effects toolbar is removed from your
PowerPoint window.

Your rise to stardom has been meteoric. You’re at the top of the software heap,
my friend. How do you do it? How do you handle all the pressures of churning out
hit presentations? I bet it hasn’t been easy.

It’s been easy because I’ve had good help. My parents. My girlfriend. My agent. But
especially, the Genius. He’s my adviser, my friend, a shoulder to cry on. He’s always there
to give advice on making the best presentation. He anticipates problems and is there to
help.

I could use a little advice myself. But I bet a big shot like him is impossible to get
in touch with.

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Ian Williams
robertian.williams@yahoo.co.uk
ian.williams@gemssip.com
January 21, 2010 The Power of PowerPoint Handout

Actually, Jim, he’s available for everyone. And he’s just a click of the button away.

Activating and using the Office Assistant:

The Office Assistant is an animated help system that answers your questions, and offers tips and
helpful suggestions as you work. The standard Office Assistant character is Mr. Clipit, an animated
paperclip, but you can change the Office Assistant’s character at any time.
To activate the Office Assistant, click the Office Assistant button on the Standard Toolbar.

Or click the Help menu, then click Microsoft PowerPoint Help.

The Office Assistant appears, ready to assist you.

Once the Office Assistant is activated, it "observes" your work and offers tips or suggestions. A
yellow bulb above the Office Assistant indicates that it has a tip. To see the tip, click the bulb.
You can ask the Office Assistant to help you perform tasks in PowerPoint. Let’s say you want to find
out how to insert a graphic. Here’s what you do:
1. Click the Office Assistant. A callout appears, asking you what you want to do.

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Ian Williams
robertian.williams@yahoo.co.uk
ian.williams@gemssip.com
January 21, 2010 The Power of PowerPoint Handout

2. Type in your request. For example, type "insert a graphic". A list of related help topics
will appear.

3. Select a help topic from the list. The help topic is displayed.

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Ian Williams
robertian.williams@yahoo.co.uk
ian.williams@gemssip.com
January 21, 2010 The Power of PowerPoint Handout

Using PowerPoint vocabulary

Here are some terms in PowerPoint 97 that are useful to know.
Slide: An individual screen in a slide show.
Presentation File: The file you save to disk that contains all the slides, speaker’s notes,
handouts, etc. that make up your presentation.
Object: Any element that appears on a PowerPoint slide, such as clip art, text, drawings,
charts, sounds, and video clips. You can refer to a clip art object, a text object, a title
object, a drawing object, etc.

Slide Show: A series of slides displayed in sequence. A slide show can be controlled
manually or automatically.
Transition: A special effect used to introduce a slide during a slide show. For example, you
can fade in from black, or dissolve from one slide to another.

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Ian Williams
robertian.williams@yahoo.co.uk
ian.williams@gemssip.com
January 21, 2010 The Power of PowerPoint Handout

UNIT 1
Obviously you’re a teacher with a pioneering spirit. So, no doubt, you’ll want to teach your
students how to create multimedia presentations using PowerPoint. Before you get your
students all excited about funky animations and nifty sound effects, you’ll have to equip
them with a few PowerPoint essentials.
First and foremost, you have to talk the talk. Introduce your students to PowerPoint
vocabulary by doing a live demonstration of all the different terms you will be using. Explain
the difference between a slide and an object. Show how a transition is a part of a slide
show. And just to make sure everyone is on the same wavelength, follow-up your
demonstration with a worksheet.
PowerPoint comes with many toolbars-fifteen of them, to be exact. Don’t worry about
introducing your students to all of them. Concentrate on the four main toolbars that appear
when you first open the program.
You might want to consider introducing the toolbars one at a time. To start, you can hide all
of the toolbars. When your students need to format text or add graphics, show them how to
add the appropriate toolbar and teach them the function of each button.
The toolbar-by-toolbar approach sounds radical, but what better way to prevent your
students from clicking every button in sight. Teaching PowerPoint one toolbar at a time also
keeps your students focused and gives you a nice, systematic way of introducing the
program’s features and functions.
Before you introduce the Office Assistant to your students, consider whether it will be
beneficial to them. Will your students be able to read and comprehend the words in Office
Assistant? Can they navigate through the Help files without your assistance? Do you have
enough class time to let students explore this feature? Will your students become as
addicted to animating with the Office Assistant as you are?

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Ian Williams
robertian.williams@yahoo.co.uk
ian.williams@gemssip.com
January 21, 2010 The Power of PowerPoint Handout

Note: If you haven’t discovered this yet, hold your mouse over the Office Assistant and
click your "right" mouse button. Choose Animate! from the pop-up menu and be prepared
for a surprise.

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Ian Williams
robertian.williams@yahoo.co.uk
ian.williams@gemssip.com