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Kevin Stratvert

PowerPoint Tutorial for Beginners

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Hi everyone, Kevin here. Today, we are going to learn how to use Microsoft PowerPoint in under 20 minutes. With PowerPoint, you can create, edit, and share professional-looking presentations so you can land your message. Let’s start with how you can even get PowerPoint. To get PowerPoint, you can head to the following address, PowerPoint.new. This will let you use PowerPoint for free in your web browser. This will drop you into a blank new presentation. If you would like to use the PowerPoint app, head to the following website. You can also click on the card in the top right-hand corner. On this page, click on the text that says get Microsoft 365, and you’ll see the various options available. When you launch PowerPoint, you’ll land on the home screen, and this helps you get started. In the top left-hand corner, you can kick off a blank new presentation. To the right of that, you also have a number of different themes that you can start from. It’s well worth looking through here to see if one of these might match your needs. Right down here, you can view more themes, or over on the left-hand side, you can also click on new. They both go to the same place, and this will show you an exhaustive view of all the different available templates and also themes. Let’s click back into home. Right here, we have a search field, so you can look for an existing presentation that you’ve worked on, and down below, you’ll see all of your recent presentations, making it really quick to get back to work on your presentation. In the top left-hand corner, let’s click into a blank new presentation. This now drops us into a brand-new presentation, and I have lots of work to do to get this ready, but before we start working on this presentation, in the top left-hand corner, let’s click on this floppy disk icon to save the presentation. You can also press the shortcut key control S. This opens up a save dialogue, and I’ll call my file the Kevin Cookie Company All Hands. Down below, you can choose a location for your file, and by default, it places it in OneDrive. I would recommend uploading it to Microsoft’s cloud, or basically Microsoft servers. There are a few benefits to doing that. For one, it’ll automatically save your presentation as you’re working on it. You’ll also be able to jump back to previous versions of your presentation, and it also makes it really easy to share it with others. Right down below, I’ll click on save. I’m now all ready to start working on my presentation, and here I can see my very first slide. Over on the left-hand side, I can see that I have one slide in my presentation. Right over here, I’ll click to add my title, and I want to build out an All Hands deck for the Kevin Cookie Company. I’ll title it All Hands, and for the subtitle, I’ll type in Kevin Cookie Company. Of course, I need more slides. To add another slide, over on the left-hand side of the ribbon, under the home tab, there’s the option to add a new slide. I’ll click on this, and this inserts the second slide into my presentation. If I hover over this, you’ll see that the shortcut key to add a new slide is control M. I’ll press control M, and that adds yet another slide. I can also click down here, and you’ll see this line appear. I can press enter on my keyboard, and that will also add a slide. You might have noticed that the slide layout is a little bit different on this slide compared to my very first slide. As I insert a slide, you can always click on this dropdown, and here you can select your layout up front, but you can also change it retroactively. Up here, I’ll click on this icon, and this allows me to change the layout. I’ll select this one with a section header, and that now changes the layout. I now want to start building out an outline for my deck. To navigate up my slides, I can click on the up arrow, and that’ll move me up, or I can also move down throughout my slides. Right up here, I want to add a slide where we talk about the customer feedback that we’ve been hearing here. It’s not entirely positive, but it’s worth mentioning. On the next slide, I want to discuss opening the new factory. I’ll add a slide for that, and right here, this will be the last slide, and we’ll say thank you. Now, on second thought, we should probably also discuss the revenue numbers that we’ve seen here the last year. To add a new slide in between, I can place my cursor right here and click, and then hit the enter key, and that adds another new slide, and for this, let’s title this revenue. Looking at my outline here, we start with customer feedback, and unfortunately, that’s not entirely positive, so perhaps it makes sense to move this at the end of the presentation. To move a slide, I could simply press and hold on it, and I can move it to a new position. I can also press the control key to select multiple slides, and I can move multiple slides at once. You can also press the shift key to select multiple slides. Down in the bottom right-hand corner, you can also click into the slide sorter, and here too, you can also move slides around to match exactly how you want your presentation to appear. Down below, let’s click back into the normal view. Back in the main view, I’ve been thinking a little bit more about this customer feedback, and it is unfortunately negative, and I don’t know if I want management to see that. What they don’t know can’t hurt them. I can right-click on this item, and here’s the option to delete the slide. I could also simply press the delete key on my keyboard, and that removes the slide altogether. Now that I’ve finished my outline, I am ready to apply a theme. Otherwise, things will just look a little bit too bland. Up on the top tabs, let’s click into the option titled design, and here I can select any one of these themes. When I hover over it, I can preview it down below on my presentation. I can click on this icon, and I can view the full set of different themes. Now, this one titled organic is very appropriate because we only use organic ingredients here at the Kevin Cookie Company. I’ll select this option. Over on the right-hand side, there’s another category titled variance, and here I can apply different variants of this theme. This applies a slightly darker background, or maybe here a little bit lighter. I have all these different options. If I want to jump back to another theme at any point, I can expand this category, and here I can very quickly change it, or I can even go back to the base theme by clicking on this one right here, and we’re right back to where I started from. Over on the right-hand side, you can also adjust the slide size. You can also format the background, so you could set the background to whatever you want it to be. And one of my favorites, in the top right-hand corner, there’s an option called designer. I’ll click onto my first slide with all hands, and then let’s click on designer. This will look at the content of the slide and recommend a design based on it. So here we see that the slide says All Hands, and here it’s recommending different designs that incorporate hands. That’s pretty clever. I’ll choose this first one where the hands are raising in the air. My manager will really like that touch, and look at that. That looks really slick. Here, the hands raise up in the air. That’s nice. In the top right-hand corner, I’ll close this out. I think I’d like to build out my very own theme. Now, I could go through each individual slide and try to apply a theme, but that’ll take a lot of work. Instead, up on top, let’s click on the view tab, and right here, there’s an option called slide master. Let’s click on that. Over on the left-hand side, I see all the different layouts, and at the very top, I see the root layout. Any changes that I make here will carry through to every single slide throughout my presentation. Here, I could adjust things like the colors. I could adjust the fonts, the effects, the background styles. Let me select this gray gradient background. I’ll move PowerPoint over, and you can even drag in images. I’ll pull in the logo for the Kevin Cookie Company, and here I can click on these handles to resize the logo. I think that’s a good size, and I’ll place it right here alongside the title. I think this slide master looks good. Right up on top, make sure you’re in slide master, and then you can close out of this view. And just like that, it has now applied this style to all of the different slides in my presentation. And here’s the true magic. I can now insert a new slide and look at that. It automatically uses that image and that background. I’ll delete this slide. I now want to start adding some content to my presentation. I’ll go to my second slide for the new factory, and here I could enter in some text. I’ll paste in some details of the new factory. Now, of course, this is just a bulleted list, and it’s a little bit dense. I think I can make it more visual. I’ll highlight all of this text, and on the home tab in the center, there’s an icon for smart art. This will turn it into a visual. I’ll click on this, and I see all these different options for smart art. You can simply hover over them, and you can preview what it’ll look like. I’ll select, let’s go with this option right here. With this option selected, I now get two new tabs up on top. Here I have smart art design and also format. If I click into design, here I could adjust the look and feel. I could also change the colors. Let me click into colors, and I like this one right here. I think that goes along nicely with our logo. Over on the left-hand side, I could also add additional bullets. For example, our general manager of this factory, who else could it be but Cookie Monster? I’ll type that in. This now looks really good. I’ll select this object and move it over to the left-hand side. This is highly sensitive information on this slide, and I want to make sure that everyone knows that this is confidential. Up on top, let’s click on the insert tab, and you can insert all sorts of different items directly onto your slide. You can insert a table. You could insert pictures. You could insert shapes, icons. Here, you could even insert audio and video under media. There are all sorts of different items that you could place on your slide. I just want some basic text. I’ll click on text box, and then I could click anywhere on my slide. I’ll click here, and then I could type in the text, confidential. With this object selected, up on the home tab, here I could adjust things like the font. Now, I want to make sure that everyone takes this seriously, so there’s no better font than Comic Sans. Here, I could also adjust the font size. Let’s make it really large, maybe 72. And here, I can even adjust the color. Now, up on top, I also have shape format, and here, I could adjust all sorts of different settings related to this object. I can also click on this icon, and this opens up a pane on the right-hand side that exposes all of the different settings. Currently, I’m in text options. Here, I could click on color, and let’s say I apply some transparency to it, just so it sits on top of the content, but it’s not the main focus. That looks about right. I’ll close this out, and here, I could also rotate the text, and let’s place it right on top of the slide. As I move the text object around, you’ll see these guidelines appear that help me align this text on the slide. So here it’s perfectly centered and middle aligned. I think this slide could also use some pictures of the new factory. Up on top, I’ll click on insert, and then let’s click on pictures. You have a few different options. You could pull pictures in from this device, stock images, or also online images. I’ll select stock images, and right up on top, you have all sorts of different categories of stock images, but I just want the basic picture of a factory. I’ll type that in. I like this picture of people working and this exterior shot. They both look good. I’ll click on insert. This now inserts the two photos onto my slide. Now, I could reposition these and adjust these. With these images selected, up on top, I have picture formatting controls, and I could do all sorts of things like adjust the color. I could also apply different artistic effects. Here, you have different picture styles, but I’d rather have Designer just do it for me. I’ll select both of these pictures and press control X. Next, I will insert a new slide by pressing enter, and here, I’ll paste the two pictures onto this slide. On the home tab, let’s go over and click on Designer, and let’s see what it comes up with. Look at these. These are some fancy designs. I like this one where it’s cut out on the edge. I’ll click on that, and here, that’s now changed both of my photos. I can now cut this, and I can now bring it back to slide number two and paste it in, and that looks really nice. I couldn’t have done that on my own. One problem is my confidential text now sits under the photo. If someone shared this, I couldn’t blame them. That’s because this text is a lower layer. I can right click on it, and I can now bring that to the front. Up on top, I can also click into shape format, and there’s something called the selection pane. I’ll click on that, and here, I see all the different objects on my slide. Whatever item is on top is on the topmost layer. That’s the confidential text. Here, if I move it to the bottom, it now sits under everything, and here, I can move it to the top. Now, on second thought, as I’m working on this presentation, I don’t know if I need to be able to see this text until I’m all done. Over here, I can click on this icon, and that’ll hide that object. That looks fine for now. I’ll close out of this pane. This slide contains a lot of information, and when I present it, I just want to talk about each item individually. We can use an animation to bring in each one, one at a time. Let’s click on animations up on top, and then I’ll select this object, and I can choose my animation. I want it to fade in. I’ll select this, but currently, it just all fades in at once. Over here, I can click on effect options, and here, I can have it fade in one by one. So here, it’ll bring in one, then the next, and then the next, and they’ll fade in on click. Over on the left-hand side, I see this star icon indicating that I have an animation on this slide. You can pull off all sorts of fancy animations in PowerPoint. If you’re interested in going deep on animations, be sure to check out the video in the top right-hand corner. Over on the left-hand side, let’s click on slide number three and delete it, and here, I’m now on the revenue slide. Up above, let’s click on insert, and right in the center, you can also insert a chart directly onto your PowerPoint slide. You can bring in a chart from Excel, or you can make it directly within PowerPoint. You have all the different charting options that you would find in Excel. I’ll insert a column chart and then click on okay. This inserts my column chart, and I get a mini version of Excel directly within PowerPoint. Here, I’ll change it to look just at this first column, and over here, I’ll close this out, and right up for the series one, let me change this to cookie revenue in millions. Now, up above with this chart item selected, here, you could add different chart elements. You could adjust the layout. You can change the colors, and you could also change the chart style. Just like with all the other objects that we’ve seen, you can customize an object to your heart’s content. We had such fantastic results in Q4, and I want to make sure to draw attention to that. Up on the top tabs, let’s click on insert, and then click on shapes, and here, I’ll insert an oval. To make it a perfect circle, press the shift key and then drag, and here, I get a perfect circle. I think that looks good. With this object selected, let’s go up to the formatting controls, shape fill, and here, I’ll select no fill. Then, let’s click on shape outline, and I’ll click on the eyedropper, and I can take a color from anywhere else on my slide. I’ll take this yellow color from my logo. I’ll click there, and that applies it to this circle. Right up above, I’ll click on shape outline again, and let’s add some more weight. Let’s increase it to maybe six, just so it really stands out. Now, people won’t miss that we set a new record. I want to make sure that no one misses these great results, and I think the morph transition can help me really call this out. Up on top, let’s click on the transitions tab, and there are all sorts of different transitions that you can apply between slides, but a very special one is called morph. To use morph, let’s right click on this slide and then go down to duplicate. I now have two identical versions of this slide. Over on the right-hand side, let’s close out of this pane. On slide number three, I’ll press the control key and then move my mouse wheel out, so I zoom out. You could also use this zoom control in the bottom right-hand corner. And here, I’ll take the oval while pressing the shift key, and I’ll expand it so it’s larger than the slide. I’ll zoom out a little bit more, and let me zoom out. Then on this slide, let me click on this morph icon. Now, it’ll morph from that larger circle to the smaller circle. So with morph, it’ll look at where the object is on this previous slide. It’s this large size, and then it’ll morph down or shrink down to this smaller size, so let’s preview what this looks like. Here, as I call that out, it’ll zoom in on this point, so that way no one will miss it. Up on the top ribbon, over on the right-hand side, I have all sorts of different controls that I can use to modify morph. For example, maybe I want it to take a little bit more time, so I could increase the duration. If you want to learn about all the different fancy ways that you could use morph, be sure to check out the video in the top right-hand corner. While I’m presenting, I also want to make sure that I call out that we’re going to celebrate this milestone. Down at the very bottom, I have this one icon that says notes, and I can click on that, and that toggles on notes at the bottom. I could hover over this line, and I could expand the space for my notes. And here, I’ll type in some text to make sure that I tell the org to celebrate this milestone. You could press the control key with your mouse wheel, and you can zoom in or out on your notes to make it easier to read. Here, I can minimize notes again, or here, I could toggle it away. I’d really like for my teammates to come in and review this deck before I share it out with the organization. In the top right-hand corner, I can click on this share icon, and I have a few different options, but I’ll click on the first one titled share. This opens up a dialogue where I can type in email addresses to share with, and right up here, I can also set the permissions. Once I’m all done, I can click on send, and this will send out a copy of the presentation. Once I share this presentation with others, up on the top tabs, I can click on insert, and over here, I can insert a comment. So, this way, we can have a conversation about this presentation, and I can even at mention different people in my organization. Here, I’ll simply enter, let me know what you think, and then send this out. Here, I’ll close out of this pane. I feel like I’m all ready to present this presentation now. Up on the top tabs, let’s click on the option titled slideshow, and right here, there’s an option called rehearse with coach. This is well worth trying out. This allows you to run through your presentation, and it’ll give you feedback on how you present. It’ll even give you a very handy report at the end. Once you’re ready to share your slides, over on the left-hand side, you can start presenting from the beginning or the current slide. A helpful shortcut key, you can press F5 to start presenting. I’ll click on this. This now opens up my presentation. When I move my mouse, I see various controls on the bottom. I can also right-click my mouse, and I can also see all of those same controls. For instance, let’s say I want to open up a laser pointer. I could go down to pointer options and select laser pointer, and I could then move that around the slide. To exit presentation mode, simply press the escape key. If you have two monitors, you’ll see an experience that looks like this, where you’ll see the current slide that your audience can see here. You have all of your different controls down below. Say, for example, you want to open up the laser pointer. Over on the right-hand side, you see the next slide coming up, and here you’ll see all of your different meeting notes that you attached to the slide. Here too, I could also end the slideshow. Along with presenting your presentation live, you can also prerecord it. Up on the top tabs, click on the record tab, and here you can start recording from the beginning. When you click on this, this opens up the record interface. Here, you’ll see all of your notes up above, and you could even turn on a teleprompter to scroll through your notes. Down below, you’ll see the current slide, and you also have various annotation tools. Once you’re ready to record, you can simply click on this red record button, and this will now record your presentation. Once you’re done, you can stop, then click on export, and you can export your presentation as an MP4. All right, well, that was a quick look at how you can get started using PowerPoint. One important thing to keep in mind, the PowerPoint presentation complements your presentation and helps you convey and land your key message. The PowerPoint itself should not be the center of attention or the focus. To watch more videos like this one, please consider subscribing, and I’ll see you in the next video.

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