PowerPoint Tips
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Drawing Staight Lines In Word and PowerPoint
You can draw a perfectly straight line by holding down the Shift key while you draw the line. You can also draw the straight line at a perfect angle as well. To try this, click the Line tool and then hold down the Shift key while you draw a line. Without releasing the mouse button or the Shift key, move the mouse to drag the line around in a circle. The line will snap into position every 15 degrees. This works in all programs that have the line drawing tool.

A Black-and-White or Grayscale PowerPoint Presentation
If you want to see how your slides would look printed on a black-and-white printer, you can preview your presentation in black and white or grayscale. Choose View, Color/Grayscale, then Grayscale. A Grayscale View toolbar will appear. To go back to Color View, click Close Grayscale View.

Slide Show Pointer
The following keyboard shortcuts will help you quickly control your slide show pointer during a presentation.

Press Ctrl-H to hide the button and the pointer immediately.
Press Ctrl-A to display the pointer as an arrow and to display the button.
Press Ctrl-U to automatically hide the button and pointer in five seconds.

Using Capital Letters
When creating slides in PowerPoint, try to avoid using all caps in your titles (or anywhere in your slides). Concentrate instead on choosing an attractive and easily readable font and font size. All uppercase letters are often less attractive than lowercase and usually more difficult to read.

Add a Picture to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint
Once you save a picture to your computer, there are two easy options for getting it into your document. You can go to Insert, Picture, From File on the Menu bar, or you can click the Insert Picture icon on the Drawing toolbar at the bottom of the screen to browse to and select the picture you want to add to your file.

Show All of the Office Menu Items and Toobar Icons
When you first open Office programs, only certain items, supposedly the most utilized ones, are visible to you when going through the menus. Other menu items require clicking on a down arrow at the bottom of each menu. The shown menu items are supposedly the most recently used commands. Also, your Standard and Formatting toolbars share a row and all of the icons are not visible. If you want all of the menu options and all of the icons available all the time, go to Tools, Customize. On the dialog box that appears, select the Options tab. Put checks by "Show Standard and Formatting toolbars on two rows" and "Always show full menus"; then click the Close button.

Apply Different Slide Designs Within One Presentation
In PowerPoint, you can apply different designs to different slides. Select the slide you wish to apply a design to, then right-click on the design you wish to apply. Choose Apply to Selected Slides. Do this for each slide that you want to have a different design.

Customize the Shape of Your AutoShapes
Once you have drawn your AutoShape, look at it carefully while it is still selected. If there is a small yellow diamond somewhere on the shape, you can reshape your drawing. Click, hold and drag the diamond. You should see a dashed outline of what the new AutoShape will look like once you release the mouse button as you drag it around. Find what you're looking for and release the mouse button.

Change Clip Art Colors
To change the colors in a piece of Microsoft Office clip art, insert the clip art graphic into your document or presentation. Click on it once to select it. Click the Text Wrapping tool on the Picture toolbar and choose Through. Click on the word Draw on your Draw toolbar at the bottom of your screen. Choose Ungroup. Say Yes in the resulting dialog box. Without clicking anything, immediately go back to Draw and choose Regroup. Click away from the graphic. Now, click on the various colors and use the Fill tool (paint can) to change to the color of your choice. To move the graphic, click on the edge of the box and drag it to its new location.

To Turn Off the Office Assistant in Microsoft Office Programs
If you don't wish to use the Office Assistant, you can turn it off. Right-click on the Office Assistant and choose Options. On the Options tab, deselect the arrow in front of Use the Office Assistant. It won't come back until you go to Help, Show Office Assistant. If you just choose Hide, it will come back when it thinks you need help.

Working with the Slide Master in PowerPoint
The purpose of the slide master is to allow you to make global changes to the slides in a presentation. Global changes may include font style, background, placeholder positioning, etc. For example, if you want to change the size of the font for titles on all slides, you can make one change to the slide master. To view the slide master, go to View, Master, and click Slide Master. Once you are in this view, you can edit the slide master the same way you would edit slides in a presentation. Generally you will edit the slide master when you need to making the following changes: formatting for title, body and footer text; placeholder positions for text and objects; bullet styles; background design and color schemes. Changes made to the master and objects inserted on the master will show on all slides.

Working with Text in PowerPoint
If you need to make multiple changes to your text in PowerPoint, you can quickly open the Font dialog box where all of your choices are in one place. To open the Font box, press Ctrl + T.

Add a Picture to a Notes Page in PowerPoint
To add a picture, AutoShape, or other type of object to only one notes page, on the View menu, click Notes Page, and then add the art.

Mouse Pointer in PowerPoint Presentations
If you need to use your mouse pointer while viewing your presentation, press the letter A and the pointer will appear. To make it disappear, press the letter A again.

Layering Graphics In PowerPoint
If you have several pictures or objects on a PowerPoint slide, they are placed on the slide in the order that you create them. If you need to overlap them, and they aren't in the correct order, right-click the picture that appears on top and choose Order, Send Backward. The next picture will now appear on top. If there are multiple objects and you want the top picture to go behind all of them, choose Order, Send to Back.

Change Fonts on a PowerPoint Presentation
If you finish your presentation and realize that you would like to change the font, there is an easy way to do so. On the Menu Bar, choose Format, Replace Fonts. In the Replace: field use the drop-down list to pick the font you want changed. Below that, in the With: field, use the list to select the font that you want to take its place. Click Replace and then Close. Throughout the entire presentation the old font is changed to the new font. Font size and formatting stays the same.

Shortcut to Change Case of PowerPoint Text
You can quickly cycle through three case options by pressing Shift + F3. Select the text you wish to modify and press Shift + F3. If the text is all lowercase, it changes to title case. If you want to make it all caps, all you have to do is press Shift + F3 again. To return the text to its original state, press Shift + F3 a third time. If the text is already title case, Shift + F3 changes it to all caps the first time you press the keys and to lowercase the second time you press them. This technique also works in Word.

Using Scanned Photos in PowerPoint
If you used scanned photos in PowerPoint, be sure to resize them to a smaller size before inserting them into the presentation. Very large pictures can slow down your slide show when they start to load. Even if a picture takes only a few seconds to load, it can throw off your entire presentation, as well as your timing.

Rearrange Order of Slides in PowerPoint
Normally, you would go to Slide Sorter to rearrange your slides. In the newer versions of PowerPoint, you can rearrange slides while still in Normal view. Click on the Slides tab, which is found on the left side of the screen when you're in the Normal view. If you've previously closed this tab, return to the View menu and choose the Normal view. This will restore the panes, giving you access to the Slides tab again. Once you have the Slides tab open, just click-hold-and-drag to rearrange your slides.

Create a Duplicate of the Current Slide
If you have spent a lot of time creating a slide in PowerPoint and need to create a similar one, it is easy to create a duplicate slide from any slide in your current presentation. This way, you can create one slide and customize it, then make duplicate slides, only changing text, graphics, animations, and multimedia as necessary.

1. In the left pane of PowerPoint, select the Slides tab.
2. Click on the slide to duplicate.
3. Go to Insert, Duplicate Slide.
4. Your new duplicate slide will appear underneath your selected slide.

Insert Automatically Updated Time and Date on Each PowerPoint Slide
If you frequently use the same presentation and wish to show the current date and time each time you open it, go to Insert, Date and Time. When the Header and Footer dialog box appears, click the Slide tab. Check Date and Time, and click Update Automatically. Underneath Update Automatically, use the down arrow to choose your desired date and time format. If you wish, check Don't Show on Title Slide. Click Apply to All. The date and time will update whenever you reload the PowerPoint document or start the slide show.

Add Slides From Other PowerPoint Presentations
You can insert previously-made slides from one presentation into another. Open the presentation to which you want to insert slides. Go to Insert, Slides From Files. In the Slide Finder dialog box, click Browse to find the slide show from which you want to insert files. Underneath Select Slides choose the slides you want to insert. Click a slide to toggle inserting on or off. Click Insert to insert the selected slides, or click Insert All to insert all slides.

If you want the inserted slides to keep their formatting, be sure to check Keep Source Formatting in the bottom left corner. If you don't select this, the inserted slides will take on the formatting of your current presentation.

Before you click the Close button, you can click Add to Favorites to keep track of this inserted presentation. This way, when you once again select Insert, Slides From Files, you can click on the List of Favorites tab and your Favorite slide shows will be visible.

Add More Levels of Undo
If you make a mistake while editing a PowerPoint presentation or feel that a change is just not right, you can usually undo the change by selecting Edit, Undo or pressing Ctrl + Z. However, PowerPoint is set to remember only 20 changes. You can set PowerPoint to remember up to 150 operations, but note that if you increase the level of remembered undos from 20 to 150, PowerPoint will eat up much more of your available memory. Thus, it may be best to remember a lesser number of undos, such as 40 or 50. Go to Tools, Options, and click the Edit tab. Next to Maximum Number of Undos, use the arrows to change the 20 as desired, from 3 up to 150. Click OK when finished. Note that if you started with 20 levels of undo, and change the number to 30, you won't be able to immediately access 30 levels of undo. PowerPoint will only remember the extra levels after you make this change.

Remove Black Slide at End of PowerPoint Slide Shows
PowerPoint ends presentations with a black slide. If you do not need this and want the black screen to go away at the end of slide shows, go to Tools, Options, and click the View tab. Uncheck End with Black Slide. Click OK to close the dialog box.

Change Text Case in PowerPoint
You can easily change the text case of a text box. Select the text you want to change, go to Format, Change Case. Choose from the following options: Sentence case, lowercase, UPPERCASE, Title Case, or tOGGLE cASE. When finished, click OK.

Preview Slides in PowerPoint
For a quick preview of a slide show while you're editing a presentation, hold down the Ctrl key, go to Slide Show, View Show on the Menu bar (or hold Ctrl and click the Slide Show button in the bottom left corner of the PowerPoint screen). Instead of launching in full-screen mode, the presentation, starting with the current slide, will appear in a small window atop the slide being edited. To edit the slide and see your changes in real time, resize the PowerPoint window so the preview slide is in view. Any modifications you make will instantly appear in the preview window. Press Esc when finished previewing.

Align Objects on a PowerPoint Slide
There is a way to automatically place or align objects evenly with other objects in a slide. Hold down the Ctrl key while you select the objects by clicking on them. Then click the Draw button at the bottom left of the screen, and choose Align or Distribute. Select one of the options in the pop-up menu, and the objects will be aligned or distributed automatically.

Hide a Particular Slide
Before showing a PowerPoint slideshow, there may be instances where you wish to hide a particular slide from the audience. Perhaps a slide is not complete. Or, a slide may not relate to a particular group. To hide a slide from the slide show without deleting it from the presentation file, select the desired slide and then go to Slide Show, Hide Slide. A quicker way is to right-click the slide in the slide pane and choose Hide Slide. Once the slide is hidden, you will see a line through the slide number. Right-click and deselect Hide Slide to show it again.

PowerPoint Fonts
Are your fonts large enough for your audience? A good test for this is to print the presentation on paper at nine slides per page. To do this, go to File, Print, then change Print What to Handouts, and set Slides Per Page to 9. If you can't read all of the text on each slide, the people at the back of the room probably won't be able to read it either.

Start a PowerPoint Presentation
To quickly start your presentation, press the F5 key on your keyboard. Press the Esc key to end.

Beginning to End in PowerPoint
If you are working on a presentation that has a lot of slides, you can quickly go from one end to the other with your keyboard. Pressing the Home key will take you to the first slide. Pressing the End key will take you to the last slide. When you do this, be sure that you are not typing in a text box when you press the keys.

Sounds in PowerPoint
If you have ever had a problem with the sound not being with your presentation, it could be because of the way PowerPoint treats sounds. If the sound file is below a certain size, it is embedded into the presentation. If it is above a certain size, it is linked. That means that if you play the presentation on another computer, the sound may not be there. There is a way to correct this so that the sound file is embedded. Of course, it will make the presentation file larger. Go to Tools, Options, and click on the General tab. Where it says, "Link sounds with file size greater than...," up the size to fit your sound file. It will then be embedded into the presentation.

Using a Mouse Pointer in PowerPoint Presentations
If you are giving a presentation and would like to use a mouse pointer, press the letter A and the pointer will appear. To make it disappear, press the letter A again.

Create a Numbered List in PowerPoint
An easy way to create a list in PowerPoint is to type the number 1, press the Tab key, and then type the text next to it. Press Enter, and PowerPoint will automatically enter the number 2 and align the insertion point to the first entry. As long as you continue with your list, PowerPoint continues to insert consecutive numbers. To end the list, just press Enter twice. Whatever punctuation you put after the 1, it will continue the list with that same punctuation.

Save a PowerPoint Slide as a Picture File
Once you have created your PowerPoint presentation, you can make picture files of all or certain slides in the presentation. Click on the slide that you wish to save as a picture. Choose File, Save As... Give the file a name. In the Save as type: drop down list, choose the .jpg format. Click the Save button. You can then open the file and edit it as you would any graphic.

Select Hidden Objects on PowerPoint Slides
If you are trying to edit an object on your slide that is covered by another object, click the mouse outside of the slide area, (or press the Esc key on the keyboard) so that nothing on the slide is currently selected. Use the Tab key on the keyboard to cycle through the graphic objects on the slide until the one you want to edit is selected.

Recording a Narration in PowerPoint
You can easily record a narration into a PowerPoint slide if you have a microphone. Go to the slide you wish to add a narration to. Go to Insert, Movies and Sounds. Click Record Sound. When ready, click the Record button (the red circle). When finished recording, click the black Stop button. Click OK.