PowerPoint Tip
PowerPoint is a presentation software program that is part of the Office package. It comes with a host of options for creating professional presentations. However, in my experience it is a program that people aren’t as comfortable with as they are with others like Excel, Word, etc.
I have sat with a lot of people helping them with putting together presentations and there is one PowerPoint tip that I give every time – take a couple of minutes to prepare your file.
I see people getting hung up on repeatedly applying the same formats (colors, font, borders, etc) which can take up time. Follow the steps below and try them out on your next presentation.
- Make sure that you can see the outline pane (can be seen in normal layout)
- Delete the default placeholders on the first slide
- Copy and paste the blank slide in the outline pane and paste it again – repeat as many times as you want for blank slides
- On the first slide insert all the text, shapes, arrows, etc that you think you might need
- Format these shapes, etc as you want them
- Now when you put together your presentation you can copy the formatted shapes and texts from the first slide. You don’t have to repeated the same formatting tasks time and time again
- Delete the first slide when finished
Point 1 – The Outline Pane in PowerPoint
Point 2 The default placeholders on a new slide
That’s my first PowerPoint Tip – take a minute or two to plan your presentation before diving in and getting bogged down in formatting.
The video below shows these steps. The video has been slowed down a bit, but when you are used to doing this, you will see yourself how fast it can be.
If you have problems playing the video, you can see it here on YouTube.
