PowerPoint Tutorials For Beginners - The PowerPoint Software

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

The PowerPoint software can be a bit daunting when you're new to it, and it's difficult to know just what everything does, and what you're looking at. In this section, we'll explain the various areas you need to get to grips with. Let's start with a picture.

The Various Areas of PowerPoint

The image above shows what your presentation should look like after the AutoContent Wizard has finished. The arrows point to the main areas of PowerPoint.

Menu Bar
As well as the standard menu option for things like opening files, saving your work, creating new presentations, cut, copy and paste, this is where all the PowerPoint tools can be found. You'll meet lots of these menu options as we go along.

Outlines
This shows you an Outline of your presentation. The headings next to the numbers are taken from the title of a particular slide. Change the title and you change the heading in the Outline view. There's also a bullet list of other text on your slide. The Outline is so that you can quickly see what an individual slide is all about.

Slide Show Views
Click on these icons to change to a particular PowerPoint View. Here's the available options in PowerPoint 2000:

Slide Show Views

Later versions of PowerPoint have two of these icons missing. Here's what your Slide Show Views look like:

The missing two are Outline View and Slide View. But you can see both of these on the left hand side, in PowerPoint 2003.

The best way to see what these icons do is to click on them. Watch what happens to your screen when you click one of the above icons. Clicking the Slide Show icon is the same as pressing the F5 key on your keyboard, or selecting Slide Show > View Show from the menu bar. To get back to the main view, click the icon for Normal View.

Notes Area
You can add notes to a slide. These notes can then be available just for you, rather than the entire audience seeing them. You shouldn't type your entire speech here, but just a rough guide to what the slide is about, and any points you want to cover in more depth. You can also add a few notes for any ideas you may have about how that particular slide should look. You can then come back to a slide later, and apply your changes.

Main Stage
This is your slide as the audience will see it. You'll be doing most of your work in the main area. As we go along, you'll see how to change each slide, and the various things you can to in PowerPoint.

Now that you've had a look at the main areas of the PowerPoint software, we'll make a start with our first presentation.