PowerPoint 2007

Usually PowerPoint presentations are built to be delivered on-screen.  Using the print options you can create handouts and notes pages that you can then print out and hand to your audience. 

But did you know that you can use PowerPoint to design presentations built specifically to be delivered in the print format.  One slide per A4 or Letter page (and not a cropped or zoomed version of an onscreen slide)

To do so, all you need to do is change the page size of the PowerPoint slides in your deck.

1) Click on the “Design” tab

2) Click on “Page Setup” in the “Page Setup” group on the left hand side of the ribbon

3) In the “Page Setup” window, in the drop down box “Slides sized for:” select your preferred paper size

This is a great way to design slides specifically for transparencies or over-head projectors as well.

‘till next time!
TNP

Do you want a great looking presentation, but without all the design elements you find in the themes that come out of the box in PowerPoint 2007?

Well the simple, and great looking option is to use a Slide Background.  A slide background is a simple gradient that will turn any standard barebones deck into one that looks very professional.

To add a simple background to your PowerPoint 2007 presentation:

1) Click on the “Design” tab of the ribbon

2) Look for the “Background” group – on the right hand side of the ribbon

3) Click on “Background Styles”

4) Select your preferred background

You will notice that not all the colours of the rainbow are available.  Background styles are linked to the current colour palette that you have selected in the document.  If you play around with the colors by clicking on the “Colors” button whilst you are still on the “Design” tab of the ribbon, you will notice the background colour change to match the new palette.

‘till next time!
TNP

Do you want to create a slide that is Portrait, instead of the default Landscape slide orientation?

To change to Portrait in PowerPoint 2007:

1) Make sure you are on the “Design” tab of the ribbon

2) Look for the “Page Setup” group – on the left hand side of the ribbon

3) Click on “Slide Orientation”

4) Click on “Portrait”

To reverse back to Landscape, just repeat the process above, but instead of clicking “Portrait” at step 4, click on “Landscape”.

‘till next time!
TNP

Do you want to copy one, two, three or more slides and reuse them in your PowerPoint 2007 slide deck?

There are two ways you can go about it – the first is plain old copy and paste.  The other is to use the “Duplicate Slide” feature.

To duplicate slides in PowerPoint 2007:

1) Select the slide or slides you want to duplicate

2) Make sure you are on the “Home” tab of the ribbon

3) Look for the “Slides” group

4) Click on the little arrow underneath “New Slide”

5) Click on “Duplicate Selected Slides”

‘till next time!
TNP

I have had a lot of feedback from readers of TheNewPaperclip.com, and those that subscribe to the Office 2007 tips newsletter.  People are screaming out for short, concise courses that will help them do overcome annoying challenges, and do amazing things with Office 2007. 

These people – maybe you – have had thoughts like “How do I get Outlook to do this?…”, “How can I get my document to look as great as Jenny’s?…”.  “How come everyone says how good Brad’s PowerPoint slides are?”

There are plenty of different ways to answer those questions – maybe you have tried some of them, like courses or books.  But they are not for everyone:

• Maybe you live in a remote area and can’t get to an instructor lead class because the closest one is 1, 2, 3, or even 6 hours away by car.
• Maybe you think that reading a bland text book that is 600 pages long is not fun (I AGREE!)
• Maybe you just want to interact with someone who will be able to give you the answers you need?

If you answered yes to just one of the above – then it sounds like the Office 2007 workshops I will be delivering during the next few months will be exactly what you need.

Are you like many of your fellow TheNewPaperclip.com readers and want to improve your capability and confidence with Office 2007?

If so – these four 2 hour workshops are designed just for you. 

• Overcome Email Overload with Outlook 2007
  Get to know the key features of Outlook 2007 to help you mange your mail – plus time saving techniques that will enable you to conquer your inbox
• Crunch Numbers Faster with Excel 2007
  Confidently apply formulas, create charts, and communicate complex data with meaning using Excel 2007
• Create Better Looking Documents with Word 2007
  Build documents for your workplace, club or school that you can be proud of using Word 2007
• Deliver Better Presentations with PowerPoint 2007
  Forget boring bullet points – learn the techniques professional speakers (and their designers) use to build compelling slide decks using PowerPoint 2007

The workshops will be delivered online, will be interactive, and attendance will be strictly limited to ensure everyone in the workshop gets the results they are after.

For more information as it becomes available over the next few weeks – including dates, times, and workshop prices – and to be one of the first to find out when bookings for each of the workshops have opened – register your details here:

By the way… if you pre register you will have access to a multiple workshop discount as well!

So if you are ready to get the most out of Office 2007 – make sure you register for more information, and then book into one of the workshops… coming soon.

‘til next time!
TNP

Don’t you hate it when you accidently click on a text box on your slide and move it?  Before you know it, your heading one one slide, or the body text on another is completely out of whack with the rest of your presentation.

The good news is that there is a way to reset the slide back to normal.  Funnily enough, it is called “Reset”.  The best of this feature is, that it only resets the layout of the slide – your text will remain intact!

To reset a slide in PowerPoint 2007:

1) Select the slide you want to reset

2) Make sure you are on the “Home” tab of the ribbon

3) Look for the “Slides” group, close to the left hand side of the ribbon

4) Click on the “Reset” button – the button that looks like a slide with a blue arrow pointing to the left

‘till next time!
TNP

If you have ever printed handouts for your PowerPoint presentations before, you know that they can be pretty bland.  Just the slides all stacked up on a page, with plenty of whitespace.

Well did you know that you have complete control over how those handouts actually look?  You can add your company logo, or a copyright statement, or remove the date or the page numbers.  You can do whatever you want!

All of this is controlled from what is called the “Handout Master”.  Those of you familiar with the “Slide Master” will know exactly what we are talking about.  The easiest way to describe the handout master is that it is the template for all the handouts printed from the presentation.

To access the Handout Master in PowerPoint 2007:

1) Click on the “View” tab in the ribbon

2) In the “Presentation Views” group on the left hand side, click on “Handout Master”

Once you are in the master, you can control all manner of different things, including the page setup, the handout orientation (portrait or landscape), the slide orientation on the handouts, and how many slides will appear on each page.

To get out of the “Handout Master” view… simply click the “Close Master View” button on the right hand side of the ribbon

‘till next time!
TNP

Are you sick of clicking your mouse, hitting a key, or pressing next on your wireless presenter?

Well in PowerPoint 2007, you can set up your presentation so that each slide automatically advances after so many seconds.

To make a slide automatically advance after a certain amount of time:

1) Make sure you are looking at the slide you want to apply the timing to

2) Click on the “Animations” tab of the ribbon

3) Look for the “Advance Slide” section at the far right hand side of the ribbon

4) Check the “Automatically After:” box, and then input the number of minutes and seconds you would like the slide to be visible before advancing to the next.

If you are unhappy with automatically advancing slides, don’t worry – you can still use the mouse click to move to the next one.  And if you really hate it, you can simply uncheck the “Automatically After:” check box to stop the timed slide advance from occurring.

‘till next time!
TNP

Have you ever noticed that your PowerPoint Presentations are running a little sluggish?  Maybe they jump through every transition, or just take a long time to load up?

There is one way to help accelerate your PowerPoint deck – and that is to lower the resolution that it displays at.

To alter the resolution that your PowerPoint presentation uses:

1) Make sure you are on the “Slide Show” tab of the ribbon

2) Look for the “Monitors” group

3) Select your preferred resolution from the “Resolution” drop down box

To put it simply, the lower the resolution, the higher the performance of your presentation will be, but at a cost of lower fidelity.  On the flip side if you want to turn up the visual quality of the presentation, and don’t mind a little performance hit, crank up the resolution to as high as your computer (or more importantly your projector) can handle.

‘till next time!
TNP

Have you ever built an awesome slide with lots of different objects?  Well then I am sure you will understand how frustrating it can be when you need to select an object that is behind 3 or 4 other ones!

Did you know there is a great tool you can use called the “Selection Pane”, that will help you select those pesky, hard to get to objects?

Selection Pane simply lists all the objects that are on a slide, in a simple to use task pane to the right hand side of your PowerPoint 2007 screen.  Using Selection pan you can quickly select any object, not matter how far to the back of the slide it is.

To turn on the selection pane:

1) Make sure you are on the “Home” tab of the ribbon

2) Look for the “Editing” Group – you will find it on the far right hand side of the ribbon

3) Click on the little arrow beside the “Select” button

4) Click on “Selection Pane…”

‘till next time!
TNP