Make Visually Stunning PowerPoints - Training Handout

Make Visually Stunning
PowerPoints: Tips & Tricks
Introduction................................................................................................................................... 2
Recommended Reading ........................................................................................................ 2
A Good Rule of Thumb ............................................................................................................ 2
Don’t Use These Tips for Evil. .................................................................................................... 2
Slide Master ................................................................................................................................... 3
Colors.......................................................................................................................................... 3
Fonts............................................................................................................................................ 3
Quick Styles................................................................................................................................ 3
Layouts ....................................................................................................................................... 3
Text.................................................................................................................................................. 5
Fills and Outlines........................................................................................................................ 5
Autoshapes ................................................................................................................................... 6
Positioning Tricks........................................................................................................................ 6
Pictures........................................................................................................................................... 8
Animations..................................................................................................................................... 9
Four animation types................................................................................................................ 9
Animation Pane ...................................................................................................................... 10
Transitions ................................................................................................................................. 10
Action Buttons............................................................................................................................. 11
Additional Resources ................................................................................................................. 12

Make Visually Stunning PowerPoints: Tips & Tricks 2
Introduction
The goal of this class is not to teach you the theory behind good slide design. There are many
excellent resources, books, presentations, video, that can teach you the basic concepts you’ll
need to create great looking slides. The focus of this class is on what you do after you
understand the theoretical stuff. We’ll focus on how to use PowerPoint as an expert user, and
different techniques that will help elevate your slide deck.
Recommended Reading
If you’re looking for more on slide design theory I would recommend Presentation Zen by Garr
Reynolds or slide:ology by Nancy Duarte. Both are well-respected presenters and both books are
easy to digest. While I like Presentation Zen, I encourage you to remember Garr’s point that the
message is most important, not the exact way you present. So even though Garr’s personal style
is to use big full color stock photos on every slide, that’s not the only way to make a great
presentation.
A Good Rule of Thumb
Think of each slide as a billboard. Text and graphics should be large
enough that they can be easily interpreted from a distance (the back
of your meeting room) and the message should be simple enough
that it can be understand in only a few seconds. You want the
audience focused on what you’re saying, not trying to read
everything on a densely filled slide.
Don’t Use These Tips for Evil.
PowerPoint is just a tool; its effectiveness depends entirely on how you chose to use it. When
used thoughtfully and in moderation the tips shared in this class will enhance your
presentation. If you slap tons of colorful effects and animations on all your slides in an effort to
make them “cool” you’ll probably end up with something worse than when you started.

Slide Master
The Slide Master (View ribbon > Slide Master button) has settings that
effect all slides in the presentation. You can also make changes to
individual slide layouts: adding background graphics, setting
placeholders, etc.
Colors
The color palette that appears when you change colors for text,
shapes, and lines is determined by the slide master color setting.
This also decides the color options for quick styles, smart art, tables,
and charts. There are several built-in color themes to choose fromor
you can also create your own custom set.
Fonts
You can select a pair of fonts as part of the slide master
theme. One font will be used in all title placeholders, and the
other will be used for all other text. Again, there are several
built-in font pairs to choose from or you can create a custom
pair using any fonts installed on your machine. Setting these default fonts is helpful because
then every text box you create will always use your theme font.
Quick Styles
The quick style options that appear for shapes are also set in the slide master under
“Effects”. The differences between the available options are subtle, so I’d
recommend creating a test slide to better see the differences. I’ve never changed
this from the default setting in any of my presentations.
Layouts
The default slide master comes with a large variety of layouts, which
you can edit, or you can create layouts from scratch. The most
common layout people use has a title and a content placeholder (see
screenshot at right).You can also use placeholders that only accept
specific types of content. Any changes you make to a selected layout

will be reflected in all slides in your presentation that use that layout. So if I added a picture of a
shark to this layout, every slide in my presentation using that layout would now have a picture
of a shark on it.
Limitations
Any images, text, or shapes applied to the layout will appear in all slides using that layout and
cannot be changed on those individual slides. So if I create a layout with a picture of a shark,
when I use that layout for a slide I can’t edit the picture in any way, including moving it to the
right side of the title.
That’s why you should only put things in the master that really ought to go on most/every slide
of your presentation.Content placeholders can be edited on layouts to change fonts and styling.
I like to change the bullet styles to a Wingding, although I try to rarely use bullets on my slides.

Text
Don’t immediately jump to the built-in WordArt styles when you want to jazz up your text.
There are a range of visual effects that can be added to create your own unique word art.
Most of these options are self-explanatory, and you’ll learn best by playing around with them.
Find them under Drawing Tools (Format) ribbon > Text Effects.
Fills and Outlines
You can add excitement and create additional contrast with the slide
background by added a text outline. You can also get very creative with the
text fill. In addition to changing the color, you can fill the text with a gradient,
or even an image. The image trick can be nice with texture images, so your text
looks like it’s cut from wood or grown out of grass.
Reminders:
Once you settle on a style you like use the Format Painter tool ( ) to quickly apply it
to other text on your slides.
Remember that changing the font style can do a lot to make text stand out, just don’t
include too many fonts in a single presentation or it will look hectic and confused.
Use the 3-D Rotation and Transform effects cautiously! They inherently make it more
difficult to read the text, so only use it occasionally and when it adds to your message.

Autoshapes
Most people are familiar with autoshapes, but many don’t know about the curved line and
freeform tools ( ). These two options let you create any line or shape you could ever want.
If the standard shapes work, then by all means use those, but if you’ve ever found yourself
thinking “I wish PowerPoint had this shape,” then the freeform tool is for you.
Colors and Effects
All of the color and effect options available for text are also available for Autoshapes.
Additionally, you have the quick style options you set up in your slide master. For more info
see the Text and Slide Master sections that appeared earlier in this training companion.
I also like to add transparency to autoshapes so they are semi-transparent. Do this by selecting
the object > Fill Color > More Fill Colors > there’s a slider for transparency at the bottom.
Positioning Tricks
The following tricks work with any selectable object on the slide (text, autoshapes, images, and any
combination of them) I just chose to talk about these options here.
Grouping
When working with a large number of objects,
or elements that you want to move together as
one, use grouping. Select all of the objects you
wish to group and press Ctrl +g. You can also
group objects using menu options under the
Arrange button, or by right-clicking on one of the objects you have selected. To ungroup a
group of objects so you can work with them again individually, press Ctrl + Shift + g, or select
ungroup from the same menus.
Tip! Instead of using Ctrl + c and Ctrl + v to copy and paste, do it in one command with Ctrl + d to
duplicate.
Align
Align works in two ways, dependent on whether you have a single object selected or multiple
objects. If a single object is selected, it will be aligned relative to the slide. So clicking Align >
Center would align it with the center of the slide.

When multiple objects are selected the alignment works relative to all of the selected objects. So
with three staggered blocks selected, as in the image below, I can choose to align vertically or
horizontally. Creating strong alignments in your slides will make them look polished and well-
designed.
Distribute
The Arrange > Distribute options only work when 3 or more objects are selected. Using the
fixed end points of the object farthest to the left and object farthest to the right it adjusts the
middle objects so they are evenly spaced. This can be done both horizontally and vertically as
shown below.
Rotate
You can use the Arrange > Rotate options to rotate an
object by 90 degree increments and flip it horizontally or
vertically. By using the green handle that appears when
you select an object you can rotate it arbitrarily to any
angle you choose. If you right-click on the object and select
Format Shape > under the Size menu you can enter a
specific number of degrees by which to rotate the object.
Tip! The Format Painter ( ) works with text, but it also works with autoshapes and images.

Pictures
Just like with autoshapes, all of the outline and effects options available for text are also
available for pictures. See the text section for a brief overview of the options.
Tip! If you have a folder open with all of your images you can just drag and drop them from Windows
into your PowerPoint slide.
Simple Editing
PowerPoint has some simple editing tools that I often use: resize, crop, and recolor. If you want
to do anything more complex than that I suggest using the Gimp or another image editing
software application. I like recolor because the options are based on the theme color you set in
your slide master, so you can quickly and easily create watermark images for your slides.
Crop to Shape
This is an awesome trick! It lets you crop an image to any autoshape
(except freeform). See the examples at right, where an image was cropped
using the heart and explosion autoshapes. You can use this in combination
with other effects like outlines or shadows or recoloring.
Reset Picture
This option on the Picture Tools > Format ribbon will
remove all formatting you have applied to the selected
image. If you apply several different effects and decide you don’t like the
outcome, you can click this button to start over. This will not remove
cropping (unless it was crop to shape) and it will not undo resizing.
There’s a hidden option “Reset Picture & Size” that will undo both
cropping and resizing to restore the image to how it appeared when you
first inserted it in the slide.
Picture Layouts
This tool works in the same way as SmartArt. Select
several images and then choose Picture Layout from the Picture Tools >
Format ribbon. There are several options to pick from and most include
textboxes. It provides an easy way to make complex layouts. The available
colors and styles for the layouts are determined by the slide master.

Animations
Animations get a bad reputation because we’ve all seen them used poorly, especially the ones
like “checkerboard” that have been in PowerPoint since I started using it in 1997. If you limit
yourself to a few animations and use them wisely they can greatly enhance your message. I
enjoy working with animations because I see it as making a movie to tell a story. There’s
definitely a learning curve for designing complex animation sequences because there is so much
flexibility in how you do it. It would be impossible to cover all of the options here, so I’ll try to
highlight the most important ones. The best way to learn is to play around with it when you
have some time.
Four animation types
Entrance
Entrance effects control when/how an object first appears on the slide. The object is
invisible on the slide until the entrance effect occurs. You can occasionally use an
exciting entrance, but I usually stick with the following: Appear, Fade, Float In, and
Wipe. Some effects have Effect Options that let you further customize the direction of the effect,
for example, with Float In you can choose either Float Up or Float Down.
Emphasis
Emphasis effects do nothing to change when an object appears, they simple change
some feature of the object. Most of the options relate to color, but you can also
grow/shrink objects, wiggle, and spin. I rarely use these effects on their own;
typically I include them in parallel with other effects as part of a sequence.
Exit
Exit effects are the opposite of entrance effects. Once the Exit effect plays the object will
no longer be visible on the slide. I use the same list of effects for exits: Appear, Fade,
Float In, and Wipe.
Motion Path
Motion Paths are the most exciting animation option in my opinion. There are
several pre-defined paths: line, arc, curve, shapes, loops, or custom paths. Similar
to the freeform autoshape tool, the custom path lets you create any shape you
want. There are some advanced editing options with the custom path that can give you expert
control by editing individual points in the path.

Combinations
Now that you know about each individual type of animation, I hope you can see that the real
power in animation is combining the different effects in sequence or in parallel to tell a story. A
single object can have any number of animations applied to it. Just remember to select “Add
Animation” or you’ll be changing the current effect.
Animation Pane
If you’re serious about animations, then the Animation
Pane should become your best friend. It shows the current
order the animations will play in, and lets you reorder
them by clicking and dragging. For each animation you can
change whether it starts on mouse click, with the previous
animation, or after the previous animation. You can also set
the duration of the animation (how long it lasts from start
to finish) and the delay (how long it waits to actually start).
Look at the slides from this class for examples, and try it
yourself for the best understanding.
Tip! You can resize and undock the Animation Pane. Making it
larger can help with long or complex animations.
Selection Pane
The one thing you can’t do from the Animation Pane is
rename the objects you’re animating; luckily you can do
that with the Selection Pane. Find it with the Arrange options:
Transitions
Transitions are animations that occur when you move between slides.
Again, I would use these sparingly. The Transition ribbon also has the
option to automatically advance a slide after a specified number of
seconds. This is useful in creating animations that span multiple slides, or
creating a slide deck that doesn’t need a presenter (like the slides that run before Staff Meeting).
The Push transition can create the illusion of a camera panning over a larger space. See the Real
World Examples in the class directory for a demo. Remember that the transition you select will
work as the entrance effect for that slide.

Action Buttons
Action buttons provide a level of interactivity for the audience. These work best for
presentations that will be viewed by someone on their own computer (like a self-study you
would work through in your office). Action buttons can also be used by presenters for better
control over their presentation, one classic example is the use of hyperlinks in slides to launch a
web browser to a specified page.
To add an action, first select the object then go to the Insert ribbon and select
Action. This only works on single objects, not a group. Most people know they
can make text into a hyperlink, but you can also link from images or
autoshapes. A dialog box will open with options for the type of action you can add.
Navigation
Use the navigation options to move to the previous, next, first, last, or any specific slide in the
presentation. Using these buttons you could create a branching
presentation where the viewer could take one path to its end and then
return to the beginning to pick a new path.
Play Sound
Sounds can play automatically or on-click of an object. You can also make them part of an
animation sequence.
Open File / Program
This is basically creating a hyperlink or shortcut to the specified file/program. So you can click a
button to open a PDF or anything else you want.
OLEs and Macros
You have to insert the OLE object or macro first before you can create an action involving it.
This is beyond the scope of the class, but I wanted to mention it so you know it’s an option.
Animation Triggers
Animations can be triggered by clicking a specific object.On the Animations
ribbon, set up the animation you want and with the animation object selected click
Trigger > then from the list select the object you want to click to start the animation.In the
Animation Pane, anything listed above the Trigger acts normally,
but everything below it waits for the trigger before it plays.

Additional Resources
Remember to look through the other materials found in this folder: the PowerPoint from the
class, the demo, and the real world examples.
Slide Design Theory
Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte – Amazon link
Duarte Design’s Five Rules for Presentations – YouTube link (5 min)
Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds – Amazon link
Garr Reynolds @Google – YouTube link(1 hr presentation summarizes Presentation Zen)
External Examples
Ted Talks – http://www.ted.com (Most presenters have excellent visual aids.)
Hans Rosling – Ted link (A favorite of mine; shows dense stats in an exciting way)
My bookmarks - http://delicious.com/tmjbeary (updated with lots of design tips)
Find free images
Open ClipArt – Public domain images, can download in any size.
Flickr (Creative Commons) – Huge variety of photos, some better than others.
Stock.xchng – Requires free registration, but professional quality images are worth it.

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