how to make presentation in excel 2007

Microsoft Excel

11 minute read

11 Best Excel Presentation Tips in 2024

Brandon Pfaff

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There’s more to a spreadsheet than just the numbers on the page. It is equally important to make your spreadsheets look professional, easy to read, and visually appealing to your viewers.

The same way a lawyer with a crooked tie and disorganized papers might raise an eyebrow in court, your Excel presentation won’t hit the right marks with your audience if it looks clumsy and bland, no matter how many hours of research goes into making it or how important the information contained within it is.

Whether you are creating a spreadsheet for personal use, to pass information to your team or share with your project manager, the secrets locked away in this post will be of immense use to you. Let’s take a look at the best Excel presentation tips to help you create standout spreadsheets .

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1. Get a template online

If you are a busy person, and you cannot fit an Excel presentation design into your schedule, enter the ex machina: pre-made Excel templates. You can choose from an array of purpose-specific templates with beautiful designs, fonts, and colors. Simply enter your values to customize it, and you are ready to go.

Of course, using a template means you will not get better at designing things yourself. If getting things done is your priority instead of getting better at designing presentations, then, by all means, use a template and be done with it. On the other hand, if you want to know how to make your Excel presentation better on your own, then find someone to teach you or stick around until the end of this post.

Check out our 50 best Excel templates to make your life easier  and our  33 Excel business templates for workplace productivity .

2. Name your worksheets correctly

Excel presentation is all about clarity. For this single reason, the importance of a correct and reliable project or worksheet name cannot be overemphasized. It could be a sentence, a phrase or just a word. Just make sure it is easy to understand by you or by anyone you will be sharing the file with.

You also must make sure it is distinct from the names of other worksheets stored on your computer. After all, what is the use of all the tips you will learn here today if you will not be able to find the worksheet you applied them on?

3. Define your header/title

Your header and title can be anything but it needs to stand out. Your header must be able to speak to the reader and make the reader know at first glance what the header is.

To do this, try a larger font for your header, underline and embolden it. You should center align it and use a different font color. It has to stand out but also blend with the template color scheme and overall aesthetic look. You can also use a different readable for your header. Just remember, we want to make it distinct, not isolated.

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4. Dos and don'ts of fonts

Full transparency: Fonts make or break your spreadsheet. Always use a uniform font for your data, you can use the same font for your header or you can change that of the header. You can use three fonts in a single presentation and that is the recommended maximum, else you would be pushing it. In this case, less is infinitely better.

These are the guidelines to follow in selecting the right format for your font.

Here is a quick tip, fonts of the sans-serif group are the best for your Excel spreadsheet if readability is your goal. Calibri, Helvetica, Arial or Playfair are few examples. If used with the right alignment, spacing, and color, they can bring out the best in your Excel presentation.

This ultimately depends on your presentation but officially, font 12 is often advised with double spacing to improve readability. As stated earlier, the header font can be larger. The headers should be larger than sub-headers which in turn should be larger than data fonts.

You want to create a sharp contrast between the text color and the background colors e.g. a light color text on a dark background and vice versa. This is where the "zebra stripes" rule comes in, which will be discussed later in the post.

People don’t often use the alignment tool in Excel. If you want to make your presentation look beautiful and business-like , you will need to maximize the alignment feature.

5. Create space for breathing room

When you see tightly packed, clumsy or wordy text or spreadsheet, your brain automatically gets tired of reading it before you even start. But when there is breathing space and the spreadsheet is divided up into categories, it becomes more pleasant to the eyes and ripe for interpretation by the brain.

This brings us to the B2 rule. Try to start your presentation on column B, row 2. Leaving the A column and the first row blank. It works like magic. You should also make sure that the column and row dimensions are the same.

Additionally, don't autofit the height and width of your document. You need to have flexibility and creative control of your workspace. Instead, manually adjust the height and width so that they have just enough white space but not too much to give your presentation some breathing room and improve readability.

6. Add an image

Whether it’s a photograph, an artistic sketch or your logo, images go a long way in making your spreadsheet better. Images make your presentation look official and possess the professional feel in many of the beautiful presentations you have seen. Pictures speak a thousand words. While Excel is not designed to accomplish the kind of presentation you can make in PowerPoint, a picture will help you to drive the point home and make your presentation memorable.

7. Go off the grid

Do you know that erasing all grid lines apart from those of your result will have people asking how you did it and if you used the same Excel software they use? Try it today. In your spreadsheet

Go to the View tab on the ribbon.

• Under the Show section, uncheck the box next to Gridlines .

8. Zebra stripes: Excel jungle law

Zebra stripes are alternating dark and light colors on rows lying on top of each other. This helps in a number of ways. First, it has this aesthetic feel that makes your work seem orderly, especially if you are displaying hundreds of rows of data. Second, it helps correlation and readability. A reader can track a row from the right-hand side to the far left and not lose track of what row his or her eyes are set upon.

You can zebra stripe using many methods. When you create a table in Excel, by default this will be zebra striped (Tip- select your data and use the shortcut Ctrl + T on a PC or ^ + T on a Mac to quickly create a table). On the Design tab, under Table Styles, you can change the color and style of your zebra stripes.

It can also be done using a formula in conditional formatting if desired. Conditional formatting is done by highlighting values that satisfy certain requirements (e.g. all odd-numbered rows). It can be copied from cell to cell using the painter tool in the Home toolbar.

9. Use charts, tables , and graphs

Most presentations are incomplete without some form of visual representation. Whether table, graph or chart, you need to visually represent your raw data in mediums that would be understood in a single glance. Charts, graphs, and tables should not be underestimated, especially if you have cumbersome data spanning many columns and rows.

In the Excel ecosystem, the chart, graph, and table features are like symbiotic siblings. You need them to bring out the beauty in the brevity of your work.

10. Create cell styles

Excel has many preset cell styles but you can create your own custom styles that will be more customized, and easier to use and edit because you created it. This is actually an alternative to getting a template if graphics consistency is your goal. After creating a beautiful spreadsheet with the above information, you can save the style so that you can apply it to future presentations.

Now your presentation is perfect with the right feel and style. Simply highlight the cells with your design for saving, then go to the Home toolbar, click on "more" at the base of the style gallery, then select "new cell style". A style dialog box will open, name the style, edit its properties and save.

If it isn't broken and it works efficiently, why change it? You can, however, add a touch of variability by changing the color palette from time to time.

11. Show restraint

You have learned all of these tips and you are ready to start your presentation -  be careful of overdoing it. Use color sparingly and don't combine too many tips at once. You need to tread the fine line between underwhelming and too much to find the "just enough" middle ground. Make sure your presentation is perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

Ultimately, the way your Excel presentation turns out depends on how well you communicate your data to your audience. Although, it does help to know the psychology of colors, good fonts. Browse beautiful spreadsheet presentations online to figure out what the "best" looks like. But at the end of the day, the ball is in your court and we hope that your dedication to practicing, sharpening and perfecting your presentation skills in Excel will be rewarded with cheers.

Ready to design your own Excel presentations?

If you would like to sum up the data on your Excel spreadsheet so that its insights are conveyed in a straight-forward manner, then follow this step-by-step guide. You’ll end up with a presentation that summarizes your data in a way that’s painless to analyze.

If you’re eager to brush up on your Excel skills, check out our Excel course and master the fundamentals to boost your productivity.

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Brandon is a full time CPA specializing in all things tax. When he is not serving clients, he enjoys spending time with his wife and son, real estate investing, and sipping fine bourbon.

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How to create your presentation using Excel?

Hrideep barot.

• Presentation

MS- Excel, widely known as Excel, is famous for its spreadsheets and data handling. But little has been explored of this wonderful software other than the standard features.

Do you know that you can create and give your presentation using Excel? Are you curious of how to create a presentation in Excel?

Read till the end to get familiar with the steps and bonus tips in the end!

This is our game plan for this article.

Is excel presentation a good choice?

Step 1: choose a template, step 2: create slides, step 4: remove the grids, add a background picture, add colors to your data, font size matters, make use of cells, title slide, conclusion slide, product sales, comparative analysis, financial resolution or budget proposal, who all can benefit through excel presentations, does excel have presentation mode, how to export excel presentations.

Now, you might wonder: how can a simple spreadsheet be made presentable, especially a business report or pitch?

Well, using Excel might be more advantageous than you think. Here’s why:

Although PPT or PowerPoint Presentations gives a wide variety of options and templates to choose from, it can sometimes be too stretched out or contain lots of information that can be overwhelming.

Often, the main agenda of the presentation gets blurred, as we tend to emphasize and explain each and everything on the PPT.

If you want to give a crisp, short and effective presentation, then consider going for an Excel presentation.

There are fewer chances of your audience losing focus, as you emphasize only the needed information, especially if you are presenting a business report.

You will also save time of giving and making your presentation.

Now that you know why Excel is a good choice, let us see how we can use an Excel sheet in a presentation.

Creating a presentation in Excel

Creating a presentation in Excel can be the easiest way of making a presentation.

Follow these steps to make your presentation in excel:

The first step is to choose a template that goes with the aim of your presentation.

If your aim is to give a business presentation, you can go for templates like the ones seen in the above picture.

If you aim to present a business idea or budget, then you can choose templates such as planner and checklist or expense budget.

Choosing the right template would make things easier for you and your audience.

You might wonder how can I possibly create a slide in excel? Isn’t that a feature of PowerPoint?

Well, the idea is to create one similar to PowerPoint.

By using the sheets as slides, one can easily create an impactful presentation.

Make sure to name the sheets, and arrange them in order to give a smooth presentation.

Step 3: Organize your data

Now enter your required data and arrange it.

Simply select the required data by pressing the SHIFT key and use the ARROW keys to select.

Then, click on the Insert option from the menu tab and click on the Recommended Charts.

Now, select the type of chart you want.

Here are some possible options:

If you have data that depicts a financial report, and you want to explain the profits annually, then go for Line Graphs.

Remember to name your chart. You can click on the chart title to rename it.

If you want to present a monthly report on the expenses, then go for a pie chart.

Pie charts fit well when you present on a single aspect or topic.

Tables work for almost all purposes.

However, the information presented needs to be simple and short.

You can do this by making colored tables.

You can select your data, and from the Page Layout option from the menu, browse the themes and colors.

Go for lighter tones, as they look aesthetic and professional as well.

Also, the audience won’t find it difficult to read the data, which can happen if you use darker colors.

One of the main features of Excel are the grids, i.e., rows and columns.

Our last step is to get rid of the grids, as they can distract the audience and you may also run the risk of giving a shabby presentation.

To remove grids, go to the Page Layout option in the menu tab and unselect or uncheck the boxes under Gridlines and Headings.

After this step, your presentation would seem as if it was made using a PPT!

Tips for making a creative and professional presentation using Excel

Level up your presentation by setting a background picture in your Excel sheets!

In order to do this, go to the Page Layout and click on Background.

You can choose any of your saved pictures or choose from almost infinite options by searching one.

After you choose your picture, click on insert and your background picture is ready!

Last step is to remove the gridlines for a clean presentation.

You can also remove Headings and Formula Bar by unchecking them from the View tab.

It is quite a task to locate and understand data when everything is of the same color.

In other words, when you have a single color, say white, the audience would be busy tallying the data from right to left and not be able to concentrate on your presentation.

To resolve this issue, make your tables with two color tones.

You can choose them from Themes in Page Layout.

Here is the final result:

This table would take less time to locate the data in one row, as the color makes the task easy!

I bet you took some time to read this, especially if you are looking from a laptop or PC.

Did you feel any difference?

Your eyes were strained as you tried to read what was written.

Hence, make sure to have a decently larger font for making your information visible to everyone as not everyone sees your presentation from the same proximity as you.

If you don’t want a background picture, you can go for an image.

For adding an image, go to Insert and click on Illustrations.

You can add pictures, shapes, icons, 3D models and many more.

Remember to uncheck the Gridlines and Headings, before adding the images.

Cells in a spreadsheet can be used in creative ways.

Apart from entering data and doing calculations in a breeze, they can be turned into text boxes!

So make use of them as far as you can.

You can add in the main heading in the first sheet along with a background picture.

You can also use cells for short descriptions or notes below the tables or data for better comprehension for the viewers.

This is very important for all types of presentations and not just for Excel.

The main reason to categorize is to avoid “data dump”.

This happens when you put in too much information in one chart or sheet.

You might get confused or zoned out while presenting, and it is overwhelming from an audience’s perspective as well.

So, divide your data into various sheets and name them, ensuring they are in right order.

Doing so will also give your presentation a better clarity.

Sample Excel presentation

Suppose you are from the Sales department and are asked to give a presentation to the senior executives about the current vaccination drive status and future prospects.

Considering the period to be Jan-June 2021, here is a possible sample of how you can go about giving your presentation using Excel:

Here you can talk about your views on how the organization should carry forward the vaccination drive, and give suggestions on how to do it more efficiently.

What are some good Excel presentation topics?

Excel is a good medium to present product sales. The sample presentation above is a type of product sales.

It gives the organization a clear idea of the direction of the sales of a product and planning further marketing strategy.

If you have just begun your journey as an entrepreneur or are in the sales and marketing field, here is a useful article for you to enhance your skills of giving a business pitch to your clients! Pitch Perfectly: Crucial Public Speaking Tips for Startup Founders

Some topic ideas for product sales can be:

• Annual product review in XYZ branch
• Sales review of XYZ product
• Review of top-selling products in XYZ zone
• Sales promotion review 2020-21

Comparative analysis can be presented using Excel most effectively.

You can show data in simple charts and graphs, and compare the metrics using parameters such as time( weekly, monthly, annually) or regionally( within a company or branch, across branches, or internationally).

Some topics you can consider:

• Comparative analysis of student population taking XYZ stream/course
• Analyzing weekly donations to XYZ foundation
• Regional analysis of reported crimes in XYZ state
• Health and hygiene: A correlational study

Excel is a go-to application when it comes to finances.

With its easy tools and graphics, you can present budget proposals and financial resolutions with utmost ease.

You can consider these topics:

• FDIs for the year 2018-22
• Shares review 2020-21
• Annual review: Financial department
• Funds report: XYZ branch 2020-21

Although Excel is a great tool, it is not suitable for every type of presentations and professions.

It is an excellent medium for those engaging in quantitative data such as:

• researchers
• sales and marketing
• data analysts
• corporate executives
• logisticians, etc.

You can present your data in full-screen mode or presentation mode in Excel!

To do this, go to the View tab and select Full-screen mode, or press CTRL+ SHIFT+F1.

To go back to normal mode, right-click and choose the close full-screen option, or click on the three vertical dots on the top of the screen.

To export your Excel presentation, follow these steps!

STEP 1: Go to Files tab and select Export option.

STEP 2: In Export, click on create PDF/XPS document and name your file.

STEP 3: Click on Publish. Done!

Although we went through the steps of making an Excel presentation, do not leave the other aspect out!

Your body language and delivery style also matters!

If you are confused on what approach to take regarding body language while giving a speech, follow this article! To walk or stand still: How should you present when on stage?

For preparing your voice, follow along How to prepare your voice for a speech: Step-by-step guide .

We took a look into the steps for creating a creative and effective Excel presentation in just 4 steps!

Hope that the steps and tips would make your next Excel presentation a success and completely reinvent the way Excel is seen!

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Excel Tutorial: How To Make Graphical Presentation In Excel

Introduction.

When it comes to analyzing and presenting data, graphical presentations in Excel can be a game-changer. These visual representations of data not only make it easier to understand complex information but also help in making informed decisions. In this tutorial, we will take you through the process of creating graphical presentations in Excel and explore the benefits of incorporating visuals into your data analysis.

Key Takeaways

• Graphical presentations in Excel are crucial for understanding complex data and making informed decisions.
• Understanding the basics of creating graphical presentations is essential, including the different types of graphs and charts available in Excel.
• Selecting the appropriate data and organizing it effectively is key to creating effective graphical presentations.
• Utilizing Excel's advanced features and customization options can elevate the visual appeal and insights provided by graphical presentations.
• Adding finishing touches such as visual elements and annotations can enhance the overall look and clarity of graphical presentations.

Understanding the basics of creating graphical presentations in Excel

Graphical presentations are an essential tool for visualizing data and conveying information in a clear and concise manner. In Microsoft Excel, creating graphical presentations is a straightforward process that can greatly enhance the impact of your data. In this tutorial, we will explore the basics of creating graphical presentations in Excel.

Excel offers a wide range of graph and chart types, each suited for different data sets and presentation purposes. Some of the most commonly used graph and chart types in Excel include:

• Column and Bar Charts: These charts are used to compare values across different categories.
• Line Charts: Line charts are useful for showing trends and changes over time.
• Pie Charts: Pie charts are ideal for displaying the proportion of different categories in a data set.
• Scatter Plots: Scatter plots are used to show the relationship between two variables.

When creating a graphical presentation in Excel, it's important to include key components that help convey the information effectively.

The title of the graph or chart should clearly indicate the subject of the presentation.

Axis Labels

Axis labels are essential for providing context to the data being presented. The x-axis and y-axis should be clearly labeled to indicate what each represents.

The data being used for the graphical presentation should be clearly defined and organized to ensure accuracy and relevance.

By understanding the different types of graphs and charts available in Excel and the key components of a graphical presentation, you can effectively create visual representations of your data that are both impactful and easy to understand.

Selecting the appropriate data for your graphical presentation

When creating graphical presentations in Excel, it is essential to carefully choose the data that best suits the intended visualization. Here are some key points to consider:

• Look for trends or patterns: Data that shows clear trends or patterns are ideal for graphical representation. This can include sales figures over time, survey responses, or market trends.
• Comparing data: Data that needs to be compared across different categories or variables, such as product sales by region or customer demographics, can be effectively presented graphically.
• Highlighting relationships: If you want to showcase the relationship between different sets of data, such as correlation between variables or cause-and-effect relationships, graphical representation can be very effective.
• Clean and structured data: Ensure that your data is clean and well-structured before importing it into Excel. This includes removing any unnecessary columns or rows, and organizing the data in a logical manner.
• Use proper labels and headers: Clearly label your data and use headers to identify different categories or variables. This will make it easier to interpret and visualize the data in Excel.
• Convert text to numerical values: If your data includes text that needs to be represented graphically, such as categories or labels, consider converting them to numerical values or using a numerical equivalent for easier graphing in Excel.
• Remove outliers or irrelevant data: If there are outliers or irrelevant data points that could skew the visualization, consider removing them or addressing them separately to ensure the accuracy of the graphical presentation.

Step-by-step guide to creating graphical presentations in Excel

Excel is a versatile tool not only for data analysis and calculations but also for creating visually appealing graphical presentations. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the process of creating simple bar or pie charts using Excel's chart tools and then show you how to utilize Excel's graph customization features to enhance the visual appeal of your presentation.

A. Creating a simple bar or pie chart using Excel's chart tools

Excel's chart tools make it easy to create visually stunning bar or pie charts to represent your data. Follow these simple steps:

• Select your data: Start by selecting the data that you want to include in your chart. This will typically be a range of cells containing your data.
• Insert a chart: Once you have selected your data, go to the "Insert" tab and select the type of chart you want to create, such as a bar chart or a pie chart.
• Customize your chart: Excel will automatically generate a basic chart based on your selected data. You can then customize the chart by adding titles, labels, and modifying the colors and styles to suit your presentation.
• Finalize your chart: Once you are happy with the appearance of your chart, you can further customize it by adding data labels, adjusting the axis scales, or adding a trendline.

B. Utilizing Excel's graph customization features to enhance the visual appeal of your presentation

Excel offers a range of graph customization features that allow you to enhance the visual appeal of your presentation. Here's how to make the most of these features:

• Modify chart elements: Excel allows you to modify various elements of your chart, such as the axis titles, data labels, and gridlines. You can also add or remove chart elements to make your chart more visually appealing.
• Change chart styles: Excel provides a range of pre-set chart styles that you can apply to your chart to change its appearance. You can also manually adjust the colors, fonts, and effects to create a custom look for your chart.
• Add visual effects: Excel allows you to add visual effects to your chart, such as shadows and glows, to make it stand out. You can also adjust the transparency of chart elements to create a more subtle and polished look.
• Format data series: Excel enables you to format individual data series within your chart, allowing you to highlight specific data points or make certain elements stand out.

Adding the finishing touches to your graphical presentation

Once you have created your graphical presentation in Excel, it's time to add the finishing touches to make it visually appealing and easy to understand for your audience.

Visual elements play a crucial role in making your graphical presentation stand out. Here are a few tips on how to use colors and fonts effectively:

• Use a cohesive color scheme: Select a color palette that complements your data and helps in conveying your message effectively. Avoid using too many colors that can make the presentation look cluttered.
• Choose readable fonts: Use clear and legible fonts for your titles, labels, and annotations. Make sure the font size is appropriate for the audience to read comfortably.
• Emphasize important data points: Use different colors or fonts to highlight important data points or trends in your presentation.

Titles, legends, and annotations help provide context and clarity to your graphical presentation. Here's how to effectively incorporate these elements:

• Include a descriptive title: A clear and concise title helps the audience understand the purpose of the graphical presentation. It should convey the main message or insight from the data.
• Utilize legends for clarity: If your graphical presentation includes multiple data series or categories, use a legend to provide clarity on what each element represents.
• Add annotations for additional information: Annotations can help provide additional context or explanations for specific data points. They can be used to highlight outliers, trends, or any other important details in the visualization.

Utilizing trendlines, sparklines, and other advanced chart elements to provide deeper insights

When creating graphical presentations in Excel, it's important to go beyond basic charts and graphs to provide deeper insights. Utilizing advanced features such as trendlines and sparklines can help you achieve this.

• Adding trendlines to your charts can help you identify and visualize patterns and trends in your data. This can be especially useful for predicting future values based on historical data.
• Customizing trendlines allows you to further refine your graphical presentation, adjusting the type of trendline (e.g., linear, exponential, polynomial) to best fit your data.
• Interpreting trendlines is essential for understanding the implications of the data. You can use the equation of the trendline to make predictions or analyze the relationship between variables.
• Integrating sparklines into your data tables or dashboards can provide a quick and concise visualization of trends and variations, without taking up too much space.
• Customizing sparklines allows you to adjust the appearance and layout to best suit your graphical presentation, ensuring clarity and effectiveness.
• Interpreting sparklines involves understanding the patterns and variations they display, providing quick insights into the data at a glance.

Exploring additional tools and features to further customize and polish your graphical presentation

Excel offers a range of additional tools and features to help you further customize and polish your graphical presentation, elevating it to a professional level.

Data Labels and Callouts

• Adding data labels to your charts can provide additional context and clarity, allowing viewers to easily interpret the data points.
• Using callouts to highlight specific data points or trends can draw attention to key insights, making your graphical presentation more impactful.

Interactive Elements

• Utilizing interactive elements such as drop-down menus, buttons, or sliders can make your graphical presentation more engaging and dynamic, allowing viewers to interact with the data.
• Creating interactive dashboards with linked charts and tables can provide a comprehensive view of the data, allowing for seamless exploration and analysis.

Formatting and Design

• Applying consistent formatting across all elements of your graphical presentation can create a cohesive and professional look, enhancing visual appeal and readability.
• Using design elements such as color schemes, fonts, and shapes can help convey a specific message or theme, adding depth and personality to your graphical presentation.

In conclusion, this tutorial covered the essential steps for creating graphical presentations in Excel . We discussed the process of selecting the data, choosing the appropriate chart type, customizing the design, and adding final touches to enhance the visual appeal. Now that you have the knowledge and tools at your disposal, I encourage you to start creating your own graphical presentations in Excel. Practice makes perfect, and with a little creativity, you can transform your data into compelling visuals that effectively communicate your message.

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Excel data into PowerPoint slides

I have already found some helpful sites but I'm still unable to do what I want. My Excel file contains few columns and multiple rows. All the data from one row would be in one slide but data from different cells in that one row should go to a specific elements in PP slide. At first, is it possible to export data from an Excel cell into a specific text box in PP? For example, I would like to have all data from the first column of each row go to a Text box 1. Let's say I have 100 rows so I would have 100 slides and each slide would have Text bow 1 with correct data. Text box of slide 66 would have data from the first column of row 66. Then all data from the second column of each row would go to a text bow 2 and so on.

I tried to do some macros with bad success. I also tried to use Word outlines and export them into PP (New slide -> Slides from Outline) but there seems to be a bug since I got 250 pages of gibberish. I had only two paragraphs and both had one word. First paragraph used Heading 1 style and second paragraph used Normal style.

Sites what I have found, use VB and/or some other programming language to create slides from Excel sheets. I have tried to add those VB codes into my macros but none of them hasn't worked so far. Probably I just don't know how to use them correctly :) Here's some helpful sites:

VBA: Create PowerPoint Slide for Each Row in Excel Workbook

Creating a Presentation Report Based on Data

Question in Stackoverflow

I use Office 2011 on Mac. Any help would be appreciated!

• microsoft-powerpoint
• microsoft-excel-2011

• The first link will do most of the work for you, but instead of pasting the text from the first row into arbitrarily the first text box on the slide, you could step through each shape on the slide and look for, say, text like "Column 1", and replace that with the text from the cell in column 1 of the first row. –  Steve Rindsberg Aug 15, 2011 at 18:44
• I get an error when I try to run the macro. Error is on the line: "Set OWB = Excel.Application.Workbooks.Open("C:\list.xlsx")". I have changed to file path but PP keeps saying "ActiveX component cannot create object". What could be the problem? –  nqw1 Aug 16, 2011 at 6:11
• Have you added the reference to Excel's VBA library in VB Editor (via Tools > References)? Did you create an instance of Excel in your code? [ eg, Dim appXL as Excel.Application then Set appXL = CreateObject("Excel.Application") or Set appXL = GetObject(, "Excel.Application") ] –  variant Aug 16, 2011 at 19:20
• I'm following these instructions: craig-tolley.co.uk/2011/06/08/… and I had also added that reference. I don't know how to modify the code in instructions with the one you gave or is the code in instructions already enough –  nqw1 Aug 17, 2011 at 6:28
• try www.pptxbuilder.com –  Boosted_d16 Aug 28, 2018 at 13:28

3 Answers 3

Try something like this. I've made a few mods so that it replaces any instance of the text @COL1@ on the slide with values from the worksheet. Untested aircode, mind you.

• Thanks for your help! I still get that same error :/ I get an error when I try to run the macro. Error is on the line: "Set OWB = Excel.Application.Workbooks.Open("C:\list.xlsx")". I have changed the file path but PP keeps saying "Error 429: ActiveX component cannot create object". I don't know what I'm doing wrong :/ –  nqw1 Aug 22, 2011 at 5:49
• I'm afraid that the answer to "What am I doing wrong" may be "You're using a Mac." As far as I know, there's no support for ActiveX objects under OSX/Office. There's a very smart guy, Ron DeBruin, an Excel expert, who's just fallen in love with his new Mac and is exploring Mac/PC VBA incompatibilities. He's posting his findings as he goes: rondebruin.nl/mac.htm If you don't find an answer there, you might want to look him up in the Mac Office section of answers.microsoft.com –  Steve Rindsberg Aug 22, 2011 at 14:07
• I extended the solution a bit - of course giving credit to this page where I took the solution for my problem from. locutus-one.blogspot.de/2012/08/… –  user153724 Aug 21, 2012 at 21:10

The PowerPoint Add-In Excel Import can import Excel data to PowerPoint

What it does

• imports Excel data to your open presentation Method: One Excel row per PowerPoint slide, one cell per text field on the current slide
• can choose the Excel sheet to take data from if multiple sheets are present
• can automatically add slides if your Excel file has more rows than slides in Powerpoint
• warns you if there aren't enough text fields (shapes) to contain all data from a row
• works with every Microsoft Office version
• Download the Add-In
• save it in your Micorsoft Office Add-In folder Tip: press Win + R and type %AppData%\Roaming\Microsoft\AddIns
• Excel 2003: Menubar → Tools → Add-ins
• Excel 2007: Start-button → Excel Options → Add-Ins → drop down: Excel add-ins → Go
• Excel 2010: File tab → Options → Add-Ins → drop down: Excel add-ins → Go

• the new Import Excel data button will pop up a File dialog to choose your Excel file. If you have enough text fields, the Add-In will fill them

View this short imgur album to illustrate the Add-in

Note: If want to customize the code you have to add a registry key to see the Add-In code. The source code can be viewed on pastebin

PPTools does not work on 64-bit, which is now standard.

PowerPoint WILL open Word Docs. And Word will open HTML.

• In Excel, insert a column on the left.
• Put the HTML tag <h1> in every cell in that column.
• In a column on the extreme right, put the html tag </h1> in every cell.
• Copy/Paste the entire sheet into notepad.
• Add these tags at the top: <html><body>
• Add these tags at the bottom: </body></html>
• Search/Replace all tabs with nothing, in order to get rid of them.
• Save that as something.html. Now close it.
• Open it in Word.
• Save it as something.docx
• Now close it.
• Open something.docx in PowerPoint (choose "all files" instead of "*.pptx").
• PowerPoint SHOULD import the full content now, with each row as a slide.

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Switch to full or normal screen view in Excel

Important:  The Full screen option is not available in Excel 2013 and later versions. However, you can always hide the ribbon, tabs, or commands, to maximize the screen space in Excel. For more information, see Show or hide the ribbon in Office .

To view more data on the screen, you can temporarily switch to full screen view. Full screen view hides the Microsoft Office Fluent user interface Ribbon, the formula bar, and the status bar. To have access to the hidden elements again, you have to return to normal screen view.

To switch to full screen view, press CTRL + SHIFT + F1 .

To return to normal screen view, press CTRL + SHIFT + F1 again.

Tip:  Still can’t see everything? Press ALT+SPACE and select Maximize .

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PowerPoint 2007 is one of the Office 2007 applications that supports the new next-generation Office interface, complete with the new Ribbon layout and interactive galleries.

Most of the functionality of the older PowerPoint releases is still there — with a few exceptions — but a host of new features will take your PowerPoint presentations to a new level of graphic excellence and functionality.

In this article we look at some of the improvements in PowerPoint 2007 that you can put to work in your presentations today.

Get Started with New Templates PowerPoint has always been very generous in the templates it provides. Now you can access templates from the Office Bar — click New and you can view templates installed on your computer as well as templates available on Microsoft Office online.

These include calendars, schedules and resumes as well as content slides. Click the More Categories link to find more templates including those for instructional presentations, evaluations and sales presentations. Gone is the old Auto-Content Wizard, although some of the templates include the basic structure for a typical presentation of that type.

To match the larger monitors now in vogue, you can configure your presentation to take advantage of letterbox format screens. To do this, on the Design tab click the Page Setup button and from the Slides Sized For option choose On Screen Show (16:9) or On Screen Show (16:10) for a letterbox format presentation.

If the monitor you are designing on is not a letterbox format monitor you can still preview your show — the top and bottom of the screen will be filled with black so your letterbox format slides will show in the correct aspect ratio. To be safe, set up letterbox format before you start designing the rest of the presentation.

Picture Perfect with Themes and Effects When you open a template or start a new blank presentation, you can apply one of PowerPoint’s new Themes from the Design tab. Themes are richly featured tools that provide well-designed and attractive formatting options for your slides. Each theme comes with fonts, effects, background styles and customizable colors. If the built-in themes aren’t enough, you can download more themes from Microsoft Office online.

Once you apply a Theme to a presentation many of the elements that you add will be automatically formatted according to the theme’s design. For example, tables that are inserted using Table on the Insert tab now come preformatted with the theme’s coloring and style. As in other Office 2007 applications, when a table is selected the Table Tools options include Design and Layout tabs from which you can select a look for your table. Those at the top of the gallery are offered as the best match for the document’s theme.

When you change the Theme you’re using, all the elements in the presentation, charts, SmartArt and your tables will change to match the new theme. And all of these elements can have quite sophisticated effects such as shadows, bevels and reflections applied to them using the Effects icon on the Design tab.

If there is a theme that you want to use repeatedly (such as one designed for your business), you can set it as the default theme by right-clicking it in the gallery and choosing Set as default theme. If you have made changes to elements of a selected theme, such as selecting different colors, fonts and effects as well as background styles, you can save this configuration of your theme by selecting the Save Current Theme option in the themes palette.

You can also configure this as the default theme if so desired. As in earlier versions of PowerPoint, you can right-click a theme and select to apply it to all slides in the slide presentation or only to selected slides.

Other theme options include the ability to change the background for any theme. So if you like the theme’s look and feel but need to use a different background, select the Background Styles dropdown gallery from the Design tab and select a different background. These backgrounds vary from light to dark, and when you select a dark background, text on the slides will change color so it can be read on the new background color.

Recoloring Art PowerPoint now has the capability to recolor an image such as a photo in much the same way as you have been able to do in Publisher. The Recolor tool appears on the Picture Tools, Format tab when you have a picture selected. Click the Recolor option in the Adjust area to preview the duotone effects, which range from dark variations to light variations. You can choose one of the color variations or create your own with a color selected from the current theme.

It is also possible to use a photo as a slide background and, for images used this way, you can adjust the image so it works better behind text and other graphics. To do this, from the Background Styles option choose the Format Background , Fill option and select the Picture Or Texture Fill .

Click the File button and locate a file to use as the background and click Insert to insert it. You can now vary the transparency of the image, and from the Picture options adjust its brightness and contrast to wash it out if desired. You can also select the recolor option and recolor the image.

Get Organized with New Layouts There are now nine built-in slide layouts available from the Home tab when you click to create a new slide. These offer plenty of scope for creating slides that have a more designer-styled look than those in earlier versions of PowerPoint.

The new Picture With Caption slide lets you add a picture to a slide — it is displayed at a large size with an attractive caption. Click the Picture Tools , Format tab and you can choose from one of 28 styles for your picture frame. When you change the theme the image is reformatted to suit.

While PowerPoint does a good job of sizing and cropping the image to fit the layout, you can crop the image differently, if desired, to create a unique look.

Unlike previous versions of PowerPoint you can add additional placeholders to your slide layouts; so for example, if you need a two-column layout you can create one with a second placeholder. To do this, select the View tab to get access to the PowerPoint slide master.

Click the Slide Master button, select the layout to alter, click the Insert Placeholder option, and drag a new placeholder of the desired type onto the slide and size it to suit. Click Close Master View to return to the slide-editing window.

Charts in Presentations When you design a chart for your PowerPoint presentation it will be created in Excel rather than using the old PowerPoint charting tool. Excel opens with a worksheet showing the categories and series for a basic chart.

You can edit this data, expand it if desired, and then return to PowerPoint to complete formatting the chart. You select Chart styles from the Chart Tools, Design tab that appears whenever you highlight a chart. Like other elements in PowerPoint, the chart’s look, colors and effects match the theme that you are using and, when you change the theme, the look of the chart changes to match the newly selected theme.

Get Smart with SmartArt You may have read our previous article on SmartArt . SmartArt is a new feature in Office 2007 that offers an easy way to create very smart diagrams and business graphics. Like other elements, these are formatted to match the current PowerPoint 2007 Theme.

Typically you create SmartArt objects by choosing SmartArt on the Insert tab and then type the data for the graphic. If you already have a list prepared, you can select the text and, in the Home tab’s Paragraph area , locate and click the Convert to Smart Art Graphic icon. It’s not easy to see, but it’s there and is only available in PowerPoint.

Ready, Set, Present Come presentation time, PowerPoint offers a much-improved Presenter View that you can use when you have multiple monitors attached to your computer. Presenter View gives you two views of your presentation — one for your audience and one for you.

Your view can include slide notes, which are notes you create for individual slides and which may contain additional information or reminders. You can make your notes as large or small as you like so they are easy to read.

You can also see a preview of the slides coming up in the presentation so you can prepare for what’s next. And a handy on-screen indicator tracks how much time you have spent making your presentation so you can keep track of time.

Saving options for your presentation include saving the presentation in the default new file format or as a PowerPoint 97-2003 compatible file. You can also download and use the PowerPoint PDF add-in to save your presentation as a PDF file or, as with PowerPoint 2003 you can use the Publish Options to package the presentation for burning to a CD.

There are plenty of new features in PowerPoint 2007 that will make it easier for you to create graphically consistent and attractive presentations and to craft those presentations more efficiently. Of all the applications in the new Microsoft Office 2007 suite, people will most likely appreciate the new graphic tools such as Themes and SmartArt.

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• PowerPoint 2007 Cheat Sheet

Confused by the app's new look? We can help.

PowerPoint users, your world has changed. The newest version, PowerPoint 2007, features the most thorough changes since the program’s birth.

This is good news. PowerPoint’s new look is more than just a pretty face — it makes it far easier to create powerful presentations. Including multimedia is now simpler than ever, for example, and there are a host of other new tools as well. Get used to the new way of doing things, and you’ll save time, be more productive and create better presentations.

It may take some time to get used to PowerPoint 2007, though. That’s where this article comes in. We’ll give you a guided tour of the new interface, show you what’s new, and offer tips and tricks for getting the most out of PowerPoint 2007.

Get the lay of the land

The PowerPoint 2007 interface represents the biggest change Microsoft Corp. has made to the look and feel of the program and to how you get to its myriad features. No matter what you do — from creating new presentations to editing styles, creating animations or even just using a menu — you’ll find things have changed.

Here’s a quick guided tour to the PowerPoint 2007 interface:

1. The Microsoft Office button. The big button on the upper left-hand corner of the screen replaces the old File menu from previous versions of PowerPoint. You’ll find familiar features for opening files, saving files, printing files and so on, but there’s a lot more here as well, as you’ll discover later in this guide.

2. The Quick Access toolbar. To the right of the Office button is the Quick Access toolbar, with buttons for using PowerPoint’s most common features, including Save, Undo, Redo, Quick Print, Print Preview, showing a slide show from the beginning and more. You can add and remove buttons for any functions you please. More on that later as well.

3. The Ribbon. Love it or hate it, the Ribbon is the main way you’ll work with PowerPoint. Instead of old-style menus, in which the menus have submenus, and the submenus have sub-submenus and so on, the Ribbon groups small icons for common tasks together in tabs on a big, well, ribbon.

So, for example, when you click the Insert tab, the Ribbon appears with buttons for items that you can insert into a presentation, such as a picture, clip art, a chart, movies or audio clips.

If you’ve spent years getting to know PowerPoint’s old interface, you’ll likely be frustrated at having to learn a whole new interface. But even if you hate the Ribbon initially, it can be your friend; check out the section “Learn to love the Ribbon” for details.

4. The View toolbar. There are no longer several sets of toolbars at the bottom of PowerPoint; their functions have been replaced by the Ribbon. The View toolbar, which used to be at the bottom of the slide sorter, has been moved to the bottom of the screen. It lets you choose between Normal, Slide Sorter and Slide Show modes. There’s also a slider that lets you zoom in or out of your presentation or individual slides.

In this series

• Word 2007 Cheat Sheet
• Excel 2007 Cheat Sheet

No right-hand pane. In PowerPoint 2007, the right-hand pane from previous versions has been banished; its functions have been replaced by the Ribbon. So, for example, when you create a new slide and want to apply a new layout to it, you now use the Design group in the Ribbon.

Learn to love the Ribbon

At first, the Ribbon may be off-putting. But the truth is, once you learn to use it, you’ll find that it’s far easier to use than the old PowerPoint interface. It does take some getting used to, though.

The Ribbon, by default, is divided into seven tabs, with an optional eighth one (Developer) that you can display by clicking the Office button and choosing PowerPoint Options > Popular > Show Developer tab in the Ribbon.

Here’s a rundown of the main tabs and what each one does:

Home: This contains commonly used PowerPoint features, such as creating new slides, changing layouts, deleting slides, formatting text and paragraphs, inserting shapes, and creating drawings.

Insert: As you might guess, this one handles anything you might want to insert into a presentation, such as pictures, clip art, charts, tables, movies, audio clips, photo albums (a new PowerPoint feature), headers and footers, text boxes, WordArt … well, you get the idea.

Design: Here’s where you’ll apply different themes to your presentation; change colors, fonts and effects; select background styles; change the slide orientation and page setup; and so on.

Animations: A more accurate name for this might be transitions, because it lets you control the animations used as transitions between slides. Creating transitions is now exceptionally easy: All you need to do is hover your mouse over an icon representation of a particular transition on this tab, and you’ll see a live preview of that transition.

You can also create custom animations, change transition sounds and speeds, and make other changes to animations as well.

Slide Show: Here’s where you’ll accomplish whatever you need to do with your slide show — set it up, create a custom slide show, preview it from the beginning or current slide, rehearse your narration and timings, change the resolution, and so on.

Review: Need to check spelling and grammar, look up a word in a thesaurus, mark up a presentation with comments, or review other people’s markups? This is the tab for you.

View: Here’s where to go when you want to change the view in any way, including changing presentation views — such as slide master, handout master, notes master and slide sorter. You can also show or hide a ruler and gridlines; zoom in and out; choose from color, gray scale, or black and white; and display windows as either split or cascaded.

Developer: If you write or use macros, this is your tab. It also lets you insert controls such as buttons and text boxes, if you have written code for them.

As you can see below, each of these tabs along the Ribbon is organized into a series of groups that contain related commands for getting a specific task done — in our example, handling fonts.

Inside each group is a set of what Microsoft calls command buttons , which carry out commands and display menus. In the example, the featured command button changes the font size of the presentation.

There’s also a small diagonal arrow in the bottom-right corner of some groups that Microsoft calls a dialog box launcher . Click it to display more options related to the group.

All that seems simple enough … so it’s time to throw a curve ball at you. The Ribbon is context-sensitive; it changes according to what you’re doing. Depending on the task you’re engaged in, it sometimes adds more tabs, subtabs and supertitles.

For example, when you highlight a picture, the Picture Tools supertitle appears. Click the Format tab when Picture Tools appears, and several new groups appear, including Adjust, Picture Styles, Arrange and Size, which let you edit and format the picture.

Other “now you see them, now you don’t” supertitles include Chart Tools, Table Tools and SmartArt Tools — all of which appear in response to various actions you take in PowerPoint.

The Office button and Quick Access toolbar:

Your new best friends

There are two more new PowerPoint tools that you’ll want to get to know: the Office button and the Quick Access toolbar. Think of the Office button as a greatly expanded File menu from the PowerPoint 2003 days — the File menu on steroids.

This is where to go for the various Open, Save, New, Print and related options and includes a list of all your recently opened files. But there are two particularly noteworthy new features here as well — Prepare and Publish.

Publish does exactly what it says: It gives options for publishing a document. If your company uses a document management server or SharePoint, you can publish it there. Another Publish option lets you package a presentation by copying the presentation and links to a folder that you can then burn to a CD. And yet another option lets you open the presentation in Word, where you can create custom handout pages.

Use Prepare when you’ve finished your presentation and are ready to share it with others. There are plenty of great options here, such as marking a document as final, encrypting the document, inspecting it for hidden metadata and information you’d prefer remain private, and adding a digital signature. Because PowerPoint 2007 isn’t yet widely deployed, a particularly useful feature here is running the Compatibility Checker, which will let you know whether your presentation contains features not supported by earlier PowerPoint versions.

For those who like to fiddle with the PowerPoint interface and how it works, the PowerPoint Options button, located at the bottom of the Office button’s box, lets you customize PowerPoint in many ways, including determining your overall color scheme and how the slide show should work. It has many of the features that you accessed via Tools > Options in previous versions of PowerPoint, plus more. It’s far better organized and easier to use than Tools > Options was.

Even those who can’t stand the PowerPoint makeover and the Ribbon will find at least one thing to cheer about — the Quick Access toolbar. This nifty little tool seems innocuous enough, but spend some time with it, and you’ll be impressed.

The three buttons on the left — Save, Undo and Redo — are useful but not particularly noteworthy. But you can add buttons to the Quick Access toolbar so that just about any PowerPoint feature or option will be available on it. There are several ways to do this.

To the right of the Redo button, the nearly invisible Down arrow is the key to the Quick Access toolbar. Click it, and you’ll be able to add and remove tool-bar buttons for a preset list of 10 commands. To add buttons for additional commands, select More Commands from this list. The screen below appears. (You can also get to this screen by clicking the Office button and choosing PowerPoint Options > Customize.)

Choose a command that you want to add to the Quick Access toolbar from the left-hand side of the screen and click Add. You can change the order of the buttons by highlighting a button on the right side of the screen and using the Up and Down arrows to move it.

The list of commands you see on the left may seem somewhat limited at first. That’s because PowerPoint is showing you only the most popular commands. There are plenty of others you can add. Click the drop-down menu under “Choose commands from” at the top of the screen, and you’ll see other lists of commands — All Commands, Home Tab and so on. Select any option, and you’ll see plenty more commands you can add.

Finally, there’s an even easier way to add a command. Right-click any object on the Ribbon and choose “Add to Quick Access toolbar.” You can add not only individual commands in this way, but also entire groups — for example, the Cell Styles group.

Once you’ve got the Quick Access toolbar customized to your liking, you will hardly ever have to use the Ribbon.

Five tips for working with PowerPoint 2007

If you’re a longtime PowerPoint user, you no doubt have accumulated a set of shortcuts and customizations. Many of those have gone away under PowerPoint 2007. But fear not, because there are plenty of ways for you to bend PowerPoint 2007 to your will. Here are some tips to get you started.

1. Turn off the Ribbon.

Here’s what may be the best tip you’ll ever come across for PowerPoint 2007 — how to turn off the Ribbon. Doing this will get you back plenty of screen real estate.

The Ribbon will still be available when you want it — all you need to do is click on the appropriate menu (Home, Insert, Page Layout and so on), and it appears. It then discreetly goes away when you are no longer using it, as you can see in the screen shot below.

There are several ways to turn off the Ribbon:

• Click the Down arrow to the right of the Quick Access toolbar button and select Minimize the Ribbon.
• Press Ctrl-F1. (Press Ctrl-F1 to make it appear again.)
• Double-click the current tab above the Ribbon.

2. Get your PowerPoint 2003 toolbars back.

Say you’ve given the Ribbon a fair shake and you just can’t stand it. Although Microsoft doesn’t provide a way to get the old PowerPoint 2003 interface back, a couple of third-party tools, Classic Menu and ToolbarToggle , do. See our story “Hands on: Show Office 2007 who’s the boss” for details.

3. Customize the Ribbon.

Maybe you mostly like the Ribbon, but some of the commands aren’t located where you’d like them to be. Another third-party program called RibbonCustomizer Pro lets you create new Ribbon tabs or customize existing ones the way you like them.

It’s a powerful way to take advantage of the Ribbon’s interface while asserting control over which commands appear where. Again, see “Hands on: Show Office 2007 who’s the boss” for more information.

4. Use keyboard shortcuts.

If you’re a fan of PowerPoint 2003’s keyboard shortcuts, take heart — most of them still work in 2007. So keep using them.

You can also use a clever set of keyboard shortcuts for working with the Ribbon. Press the Alt key, and a tiny letter or number icon appears on the menu for each tab — for example, the letter “H” for the Home tab. (See the image below.)

Now press that letter on your keyboard, and you’ll display that tab or menu item. When the tab appears, there will be letters and numbers for most options on the tab as well.

PowerPoint 2007 Alt key combinations

Once you’ve started to learn these shortcuts, you’ll naturally begin using key combinations. So instead of pressing Alt, then H to display the home tab, you can press Alt-H together.

The table to the right shows the most useful Alt key combinations in PowerPoint 2007.

5. Find your old friends.

In PowerPoint 2007, no features or functions are where they used to be. But it’s easy to find them. Use our PowerPoint 2007 quick reference charts for an extensive list of where to find your favorite commands.

New features in PowerPoint 2007

Changes are more than skin-deep in PowerPoint 2007; there are plenty of new features as well.

New file format

Under the hood, one the biggest changes to PowerPoint is the new Office XML format — all Microsoft Office applications now use it. By default, PowerPoint saves in this new format, which has the .pptx extension, or the .pptm extension if the document contains macros.

For businesses, this can be a big plus, because it allows for easier integration with enterprise-level applications and for exchanging data. In some instances, it also creates files of a smaller size, because files are automatically compressed when they’re saved to disk and then automatically uncompressed when you open them.

In addition, the new format makes it easier to recover damaged files because it saves different data components — such as tables and charts — separately from one another. This means files can be opened even if an individual component, such as a chart, is damaged.

That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news: Most of the world doesn’t use the new format and won’t for some time. If you create a presentation and save it in the PowerPoint 2007 format, no one with a previous version of PowerPoint will be able to view it.

To save your presentations for these users, click the Office button and choose Save As > PowerPoint 97-2003 Presentation.

To save all your presentations in that format by default, click the Office button, select PowerPoint Options > Save, and from the drop-down list at the top of the page, choose PowerPoint Presentation 97-2003, and click OK. From now on, any presentation you create will be saved in the older format.

One of the most welcome new features is Themes, which allows you to quickly apply common colors, backgrounds and fonts to all elements of a presentation for a unified look. In previous PowerPoint versions, you had to make those changes separately for charts, tables and slides, which was time-consuming and difficult and could lead to errors.

To apply a theme to a presentation, click the Design tab and roll your mouse over each theme in the Ribbon to see how each will look. Each theme will be applied to the main document itself as you roll your mouse over it. When you find a theme you like, click it to keep it.

Be aware that Themes only work if you’re using PowerPoint’s new Office XML format; they won’t work on old-style .ppt files.

Custom slide layouts

You can now create and save customized layouts for your presentations, including charts, movies, tables, pictures, SmartArt, clip art and other elements. You can also create and save multiple slide master sets that contain different customized layouts for different topics. You get to it from the View tab by clicking on Slide Master. From there, you can create and save new custom layouts.

In PowerPoint 2007, you get far better prebuilt diagrams and charts via SmartArt. From the Insert tab, click SmartArt, and you’ll be able to insert a wide variety of diagrams and charts, as you can see in the figure below. Click any of the available diagrams or charts, and you’ll get a description of what it’s best used for and how to use it.

In addition, you can add a variety of effects, such as gradients and 3-D effects, to SmartArt and other PowerPoint graphics. You can also convert existing content to SmartArt, for example, by right-clicking a bulleted list and selecting “Convert to SmartArt.” You’ll then be able to port the list into a prebuilt SmartArt template.

Better multimedia integration

It’s now easier to incorporate multimedia into your presentations. Go to the Insert tab, choose either Movie or Sound from the Media Clips group, and insert your multimedia object.

From here, you can also play a CD audio track during the presentation. And you can even record audio directly from within PowerPoint and embed it in your presentation.

New effects

There are a slew of new and better effects in PowerPoint 2007, including warp, bevel, shadow, reflection, soft edges and rotating 3-D shapes. You can get to these effects in a variety of ways, depending upon where you’re using the effect.

For example, if you’re using an effect on a picture, put your cursor on the picture, select the Format tab under Picture Tools (this appears only when you’ve selected a picture). From the Picture Effects drop-down list, select the effect you want to use.

Discontinuous text selection

OK, this one isn’t earth-shaking, but it’s an example of a very small change that can save lots of time. You can now select multiple pieces of discontinuous text and then make changes to them en masse, such as applying a font or size change.

Do it the same way you do it with Word — hold down the Ctrl key as you select text. Then apply changes to all the text simultaneously.

As you can see, PowerPoint is full of new features, even if you may have a hard time finding your way to them. But armed with our cheat sheet and a little elbow grease, you can get to the good stuff in no time.

For more tips and help on PowerPoint 2007, head to Microsoft’s PowerPoint 2007 site .

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How to Embed an Excel File in PowerPoint (5 Easy Ways)

Here’s an overview of how data will be presented from Excel into PowerPoint.

How to Embed an Excel File in PowerPoint: 5 Suitable Examples

Let’s assume we have a “ Sales Data for Fruits ” dataset, which includes the Product ID , Fruits , States , and Sales amount under columns B , C , D , and E respectively.

Method 1 – Embedding an Entire Excel File in PowerPoint

• Select the Insert tab on the Ribbon  in PowerPoint.
• Click on the Object command on the Text group of commands.

• In the Insert Object dialog box, click on the radio button of Create from file option.
• Choose the Browse… button.

• In the Browse window, select your desired file and click OK .

• You can see your file path and name in the highlighted box. Click OK .

Note: Don’t check the box before the Link option to embed the Excel file .

Make sure to attach your intended data on the first page of the Excel file.

Read More: How to Perform Excel to PowerPoint Automation

Method 2 – Embedding a Section of Excel Data in PowerPoint File

• Open the Excel file and select the range of data (e.g. C4:E14 ) you want to embed.
• Press CTRL + C on your keyboard to copy this range.

• Open your PowerPoint slide and navigate to the Home tab.
• Click on the Paste drop-down option and then click on Paste Special .

• Select Paste and click on Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object . Press OK .

• The selected range is copied to the presentation file.

Method 3 – Utilizing Embed Command to Add Unlinked Excel File

• Select the dataset (e.g. B4:E14 ) and right-click.
• Click on the Copy command from the context menu.

• Use the Paste drop-down option in PowerPoint.
• Choose Embed (E) from Paste Options .

• The output in PowerPoint is as follows.

Method 4 – Applying Camera Gadget Tool to Embed Data as Image

• Click on the triangular-shaped Customize Quick Access Toolbar icon and select More Commands .

• This will bring a dialog box as follows. Click on the drop-down icon beside the Popular Command bar to get more options. Then pick Commands Not in the Ribbon from the available options.

• To bring the Camera tool to the right side, select Camera and click the Add button in the middle.

• This will allow you to have a Camera icon in the Toolbar . Now you’re ready to take snaps of the selected area by using the Camera tool.

• Select the region you want to copy and press the Camera icon.

• Left click anywhere to get an image.

• Copy the image by selecting it and pressing Ctrl + C command.
• Paste the output in the presentation slide as follows:

• Remember that the embedded portion is an image.

Read More: How to Link Excel Data to PowerPoint Chart

Method 5 – Embedding an Excel Chart in PowerPoint File

Charts are perhaps the most commonly-used Excel format in PowerPoint.

• Copy the Excel chart with Ctrl+ C command.
• Paste the chart into the PowerPoint slide by using Keep Source Formatting & Embed Workbook , one of the Paste Options .

Finally, the output in the presentation slide is as follows:

Embed Vs. Link an Excel File in PowerPoint

When you want to add an Excel file to a PowerPoint presentation, you have two options: embedding or linking the file. Here’s a brief overview of the differences between the two:

• Embedding an Excel file in PowerPoint means that a copy of the file is saved within the PowerPoint presentation itself. This can make your presentation larger in file size, but it also means that you don’t need the original Excel file to view or present the data. Any changes made to the original Excel file won’t be reflected in the embedded copy within PowerPoint.
• Linking an Excel file to PowerPoint means that the presentation will display data from the original Excel file. This keeps the file size of the presentation smaller and ensures that any changes made to the Excel file are reflected in the PowerPoint presentation. However, if the Excel file is moved or deleted, the links will be broken and the data won’t display correctly in the presentation.

Read More: How to Link Excel Sheets to PowerPoint

How to Insert Excel File into PowerPoint as Icon

• Open a presentation file and select the intended slide to place the icon.
• Go to the Insert tab and click on the Object tool in the Text group.

• Select the Create from file option.
• Click on the Browse button to attach the Excel file that you want to place as an icon on the slide.
• Make sure to check the boxes beside Link and Display as icon options.

• Use the hooks on the icon’s corners to resize it and drag it into place on the slide.
• Double-click the icon to access the workbook’s contents and edit them.

Read More:  How to Insert an Excel File into PowerPoint as an Icon

How to Link Excel File in PowerPoint That Updates Data Dynamically

• To link an Excel file in PowerPoint, do the same things as you did in Example 1 .
• You have to mark the box before the Link option.
• Press the OK button.

Now, if you make any changes in the Excel file, you’ll get the updated data in PowerPoint.

Note: If you delete the file or change the location of the file, PowerPoint will start throwing errors when trying to display data.

Read More: How to Link Powerpoint to Excel for Dynamic Data Updates

Benefits and Drawbacks of Embedding an Excel File in PowerPoint

When creating presentations, it’s useful to embed the Excel file directly into the PowerPoint file. But, it’s important to consider the benefits and drawbacks of this approach.

• Easy Access to Data: Embedding an Excel file in PowerPoint allows you to easily access and manipulate data without having to switch between programs.
• Increased Interactivity: Embedding an Excel file in PowerPoint allows you to create more interactive presentations with live data that can be manipulated and updated in real time.
• Saves Time: It can save time by eliminating the need to create separate charts and graphs from scratch.
• Better Organization: Embedding an Excel file in PowerPoint allows you to keep all your data in one place, making it easier to organize and manage your presentation.
• Consistent Formatting: Embedding ensures that your data will be presented with consistent formatting and style.
• File Size: Embedding an Excel file in PowerPoint can increase the file size of your presentation, making it more difficult to share and collaborate with others.
• Compatibility Issues: Embedding an Excel file in PowerPoint can lead to compatibility issues between different versions of PowerPoint and Excel.
• Security Risks: Embedding an Excel file in PowerPoint can pose security risks if the Excel file contains sensitive information.
• Limited Editing Capabilities: Embedding an Excel file in PowerPoint limits your editing capabilities, as you may not be able to make changes to the data directly within the PowerPoint slide.
• Refreshing Data: If the data in the embedded Excel file changes, you will need to manually refresh the data in the PowerPoint slide to ensure accuracy.

Things to Remember

• Keep file size in mind when you embed an Excel file in PowerPoint.
• Ensure compatibility with different versions of PowerPoint and Excel.
• Test your presentation to ensure that the embedded Excel file displays correctly.
• Update the presentation file with an embedded Excel file if the data changes or needs to be refreshed.
• Consider security and privacy concerns when embedding Excel files containing sensitive information.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Will embedding an Excel file in PowerPoint increase the file size of my presentation?

Yes, it can increase, especially if the Excel file contains a lot of data. This can make it more difficult to share and collaborate on the presentation.

2. How do I ensure compatibility between different versions of PowerPoint and Excel when embedding a file?

To ensure compatibility, it’s important to save the Excel file in a format that is compatible with the version of PowerPoint you are using.

3. What security risks should I be aware of when embedding an Excel file in PowerPoint?

It’s important to ensure that any sensitive information within the embedded Excel file is appropriately protected and access is limited to authorized individuals.

Practice Section

We have provided a practice section on the right side of each sheet so you can practice yourself. Please make sure to do it yourself.

Download Practice Files

Download the following practice workbook and presentation file. It will help you to realize the topic more clearly and will help you practice yourself.

Related Articles

• [Fixed!] Problems with Embedded Excel Files in PowerPoint
• [Solved] Embedded Excel in PowerPoint Not Showing All Data
• How to Open Existing PowerPoint File from Excel VBA

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• May 13, 2024
• Comments Off on How to create PowerPoint from Excel
• Artificial Intelligence
• How to create PowerPoint from Excel

Creating PowerPoint presentations is essential for sharing ideas and results in business. Creating these presentations can be challenging and time-consuming (especially if integrating Excel data is needed). It involves researching, organizing information, and deciding how to present key points clearly. Designing presentation slides that are visually appealing and adding graphs, charts and tables can further complicate the process. Wouldn’t it be nice to create PowerPoints from Excel with just a few clicks? 👀

It’s very common for consultants, marketing managers or other people to create PowerPoints from Excel data. This can include data like statistics, research findings, or forecasts in your presentations, which might be stored in Excel files. Manually transferring this XLS data to create graphs and charts is a lot of work. Thankfully, Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help simplify this task. AI tools can automatically turn Excel (XLS) data into PowerPoint slides. This is especially useful for consultants and professionals in various fields who need to present complex data efficiently.

There are two types of tools that allow you to create PowerPoint presentations from Excel automatically:

• Tools that directly generate completed PowerPoint presentations.
• Tools that create presentation content that you then need to copy manually.

In this blog post, we’ll cover how to create PowerPoint from Excel using both types of tools (both powered by AI). As a test example, we will use an Excel file containing data on changes in the US population by state from 1910 to 2020.

Note: The file was downloaded from the US Department of Commerce: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data/apportionment/population-change-data-table.xlsx

We’ll explore tools like SlideSpeak, Microsoft Copilot, Beautiful.ai, and ChatGPT and provide a comprehensive guide on leveraging their functionalities to create impactful presentations. Additionally, we’ll list the pros and cons of each tool so that you can make informed decisions based on your specific needs and preferences.

Method 1: Generating PPT from XLSX using SlideSpeak

Website: https://slidespeak.co

SlideSpeak is a powerful AI tool that allows you to automatically convert PDF, Word, and XLSX files into ready-made beautiful presentations in minutes.

To generate a presentation from an Excel (XLS) file using SlideSpeak, you need to perform the following steps:

• Select the Excel file: select the file based on which you want to create a presentation.
• Upload the file: upload the file to SlideSpeak.
• Preview data: preview the uploaded data in SlideSpeak. You can also ask it questions about the uploaded data.
• Create a presentation: select the necessary parameters and start the process of creating the presentation.
• Review the table of contents: review the presentation’s table of contents that SlideSpeak suggests.
• Select a template: choose a presentation template.
• Review the presentation: review and download the finished presentation. 

Step 1: Select the Excel file 

Open SlideSpeak . Drag the Excel file from which you want to create a presentation into the box in the center of the screen, or upload this file using the Click to upload button.

Step 2: Upload a file

To upload a file, click the Upload button under the file name and wait a little.

Step 3: Preview data

After loading the data, it will be displayed on the screen. You can now also ask SlideSpeak questions about the uploaded data.

To start the process of creating a presentation, click the Create Presentation button in the upper right corner.

Step 4: Create a presentation 

After starting the presentation generation process for your Excel file, SlideSpeak asks you to configure some presentation parameters. You can choose the desired number of slides, presentation language, and tone. In addition, you can add stock images to the presentation.

If you use the premium version of SlideSpeak, you can also use the brand logo, color, and fonts.

After setting all the presentation’s parameters, click the Next button at the bottom of the page and wait a few minutes for the presentation to be generated.

Step 5: Review the table of contents

Based on the data from the Excel file, SlideSpeak creates content for the presentation. Review it, and if you are satisfied with it, click the Next button to proceed to the next step of generating the presentation.

Step 6: Select a template

At this step, you will be prompted to choose a presentation template. Select one of the default templates or upload your own and click the Generate button. The presentation will be ready in a few minutes.

Step 7: Review the presentation

You can now review the finished presentation. Users with a paid subscription can also regenerate the presentation and download it as a PDF or PowerPoint file.

Pros and cons

• The ability to upload an Excel file to SlideSpeak without the need for manual copying and pasting;
• User-friendly interface;
• Automated and quick presentation generation process;
• Ability to customize the presentation according to the user’s needs and preferences;
• Ability to choose the presentation language;
• Additional features are available for users with a paid subscription.
• Limited customization options;
• There is no possibility to edit the finished presentation;
• Unlimited use requires a paid subscription.

SlideSpeak is a convenient and fast tool that allows you to automatically create PowerPoint from Excel. However, if you prefer to set up the presentation manually, you may miss some functionality. Therefore, before choosing a tool for creating presentations, it is important to define your needs and analyze the tool’s capabilities.

Method 2: Create PowerPoint from Excel using MS Copilot

Website: https://copilot.microsoft.com/

Microsoft Copilot is an AI-powered tool that integrates with Microsoft PowerPoint. Using advanced natural language processing techniques, it can summarize documents, generate content, and answer questions about content.

Copilot uses advanced AI to let you quickly create presentations based on the provided Excel data. Given that AI is not 100% accurate, you may need to manually edit the presentation after it is automatically generated. However, Copilot can do most of the hard work and significantly speed up the process to create a presentation. It is important to note that you need a paid subscription to use Copilot in PowerPoint.

Here is a brief overview of how to create PowerPoint from Excel using MS Copilot.

• Open Microsoft Copilot in PowerPoint: create a presentation and open the Copilot toolbar.
• Insert data into Copilot in PowerPoint: copy the data from your Excel file and insert it into Copilot.
• Review the presentation: generate and, if necessary, edit the presentation.

Step 1: Open Microsoft Copilot in PowerPoint

Create a new presentation in PowerPoint and click the Copilot button on the right side of the toolbar. A Copilot panel will then appear on the right. The Copilot button is only available to users with a paid Copilot subscription.

Step 2: Insert data into Copilot in PowerPoint

Unfortunately, Copilot does not allow you to upload an Excel file. Therefore, you need to copy the data from your Excel file and paste it into the Copilot chat to generate a presentation. Write the following command in Copilot: “Create a presentation using the following data” and paste the data copied from Excel. However, in Copilot at the moment, the maximum length of a request is 2000 characters. Therefore, when you try to insert data from a large Excel sheet, excess data is cut off and not considered during presentation generation.

Step 3: Review the presentation

Wait a few minutes, and the presentation will be generated and displayed on the screen. You can edit the finished presentation, change the design and text, add slides, and more.

In our experience the results based on copy pasted data from Excel were very poor in quality. So we decide to use Excel Copilot to see if it can create us some nice charts from our Excel file that we can then copy over into our PowerPoint presentation.

Step 4: Generate charts using Copilot in Excel

As you can see from the slides, Copilot in PowerPoint creates text analysis of the data and inserts images associated with the data into the presentation. However, if you want to automatically generate charts based on Excel data, you can do this using Copilot in Excel.

Open Copilot in Excel by clicking the Copilot button on the right of the toolbar.

Select a table with data and write the following request in the Copilot chat: “Create a chart that shows the dynamics of population change in different states”. Wait for the chart to be generated. Then click the “ Add to a new sheet ” or “Insert PivotChart” button to insert the chart into a new Excel sheet.

After the chart opens in a new Excel sheet, you can edit it by adding new columns. Once the chart is ready, copy it into your PowerPoint presentation.

Pros and Cons

• Increasing the efficiency and productivity of creating presentations;
• Smart suggestions for slide layout based on analysis of its content;
• The ability to automatically generate charts;
• Wide possibilities for customization of the finished presentation.
• A paid subscription is required;
• Security and privacy risks of providing data access to an AI cloud service;
• The maximum length of the request is 2000 characters;
• The presentation may contain incorrect data as AI is not 100% accurate.

Copilot can fast and easily create PowerPoint from Excel. It also provides intelligent advice on the presentation’s content and design. However, users may still miss advanced features like the possibility of uploading Excel files. Additionally, a paid subscription is required even to use the limited features of Copilot.

Method 3: Create Presentation from Excel using Beautiful.ai

Website: https://www.beautiful.ai/

Beautiful.ai is cloud-based AI-powered presentation generation software. It provides customers with many professionally designed templates, layouts, and design elements that can be customized to match customers’ content and brand. Beautiful.ai simplifies and speeds up the process of creating visually attractive presentations. It saves users time and effort with design assistance and intuitive AI-driven tools.

Beautiful.ai is a paid tool, so you need to create an account and subscribe before you can get started. You can use a 14-day trial version for the preliminary study.

Below is a quick overview of the steps needed to create PowerPoint from Excel using Beautiful.ai.

• Open Beautiful.ai: go to Beautiful.ai and create a new presentation.
• Load data: load data from an Excel file into Beautiful.ai.
• Generate a presentation: check the uploaded data and initiate the process of creating the presentation.
• Review presentation: review and, if necessary, edit the finished presentation.

Step 1: Open Beautiful.ai

Open Beautiful.ai and ensure you are logged in to your account and have a subscription. After that, on the left side of the page, click Create Presentation -> Generate with AI .

Step 2: Load data

At this step, you need to enter the presentation topic and upload data from Excel. Enter your presentation topic in the text box at the top of the page. After that, click on the Train AI with Additional Context button and select the data input method. Beautiful.ai does not provide the function of uploading Excel files, so in the drop-down list, select the Text option.

Step 3: Generate a presentation

Copy the data from your Excel and paste it into the text box that appears on the page. After that, click the Generate Presentation button.

Step 4: Review presentation

You can review and edit the created presentation. The presentation editor provides functions for changing colors, fonts, images, and layouts. You can completely change the content of the slides and add new ones. 

You can export the final presentation as PowerPoint and PDF files or Google Slides. 

• Simple and intuitive user interface;
• Visually attractive design;
• Integration with Google Slides, PowerPoint, and PDF;
• Ability to collaborate with team members in real-time and securely share presentations.
• It is not possible to import Excel files;
• A paid subscription is required to access Beautiful.ai features;
• Limited customization options compared to creating presentations manually. Users may find it difficult to create a custom design or include certain branding elements.
• There are possible errors, as the AI is not 100% precise.

Overall, Beautiful.ai allows customers to create visually attractive presentations, saving time and effort. However, it is worth analyzing all its pros and cons to determine whether it meets your needs.

Method 4: Create presentation content using ChatGPT

Website: https://chat.openai.com/

ChatGPT is an AI tool that can perform natural language processing and generate text based on input data. It can answer questions, create summaries, perform translation, and generate text that looks natural and fits the context.

It is important to note that ChatGPT does not currently provide the ability to create PowerPoint from Excel. However, you can use it to greatly simplify and speed up the process of creating a presentation. You can do this in two ways:

• Generate titles and slide content with ChatGPT that you can copy and paste into your presentation.
• Generate VBA code that you can use to create your presentation in PowerPoint.

To generate presentation content from Excel using ChatGPT, perform the following steps:

• Ask to create a table of contents for the presentation.
• Generate slides’ content.
• Review the proposed content.
• Copy the finished content in PowerPoint.

Step 1: Ask to create a table of contents for the presentation

Write the following request in the ChatGPT chat: “Please suggest a table of contents for 8 slides for a presentation for this data: ” and paste the data from your Excel file. With the paid version, you can directly upload XLS files in ChatGPT and let it generate stuff for presentations.

Review the proposed presentation structure and ask clarifying questions or request revisions.

Step 2: Generate slides’ content

Ask ChatGPT to generate a few key phrases for each slide. For example, write in the following request: “Please provide 3–5 bullet points about Population Trends in the United States.”

Step 3: Review the proposed content

Review suggested content for each slide. Ask for content to be corrected or clarified as needed. You can also adjust the content manually.

Step 4: Copy the finished content in PowerPoint

Create a presentation in PowerPoint. Copy the title and content to each slide separately. Customize the design and add images and your brand logo to suit your needs.

• On-demand generation of presentation content;
• Ability to send an unlimited number of requests for free;
• The possibility of improving the content of the presentation.
• It is not possible to generate a ready-made presentation;
• Unable to generate graphic content;
• You need to do many settings manually;
• To upload an Excel file, you need the paid version.

Using ChatGPT to create presentations can be helpful for efficiently generating ideas and content. However, you may also need to make manual edits and manually transfer content generated by ChatGPT to PowerPoint.

Therefore, AI-based tools, such as SlideSpeak, Microsoft Copilot, Beautiful.ai, and ChatGPT, provide powerful solutions for converting Excel files into PowerPoint presentations. These instruments allow you to create beautiful presentations, significantly saving time and effort.

However, before choosing the best tool for you, it is impotant to clearly define your needs and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each instrument. You can utilize the trial version to try the functions of each tool and make an informed decision based on your individual needs.

Is it possible to convert Excel to PPT (with AI)?

Yes. There are free and paid AI tools that can upload data from Excel file, automatically analyze it, and create ready-made, visually attractive presentations customized to the content. Examples of such tools are SlideSpeak, Microsoft Copilot, and Beautiful.ai.

How to automatically create PowerPoint from Excel?

AI-based platforms like SlideSpeak, Microsoft Copilot, Beautiful.ai, and others allow you to create PowerPoint from Excel automatically. The step-by-step process of creating a presentation depends on the platform you choose. However, in general, to generate a presentation from an Excel file, you need to do the following:

• Select and upload an Excel file.
• Generation presentation.
• Review and adjust the finished presentation according to your requirements.

How to create PPT using ChatGPT?

ChatGPT cannot directly generate a PPT file. However, you can use it to generate the title and content of the slides and get advice on the visual design of your presentation. To do this, enter the appropriate requests in the ChatGPT chat and provide the data you need to generate a presentation. If you want a full AI solution to generate presentations with AI you can use SlideSpeak or design friendly tools like Canva.

Why don’t I have Copilot in PowerPoint?

For the Copilot button to appear in PowerPoint, you must have a paid Copilot subscription. Create a subscription and refresh PowerPoint. Then, the Copilot button should appear. You can find more info on this here: https://copilot.cloud.microsoft/en-us/copilot-powerpoint .

How can I create a PowerPoint with Copilot from an Excel file?

To create a PowerPoint presentation from an Excel file using Microsoft Copilot, make sure your Excel data is well-organized with clear column headings. Open Excel and then use Copilot to generate charts and graphs for your data. Afterwards copy the charts into PowerPoint. Microsoft Copilot in PowerPoint will then help you to figure out a suitable design for your slides. You have to use PowerPoint Copilot and Excel Copilot in combination to get good results.

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PowerPoint 2007: The Missing Manual by E. A. Vander Veer

Get full access to PowerPoint 2007: The Missing Manual and 60K+ other titles, with a free 10-day trial of O'Reilly.

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Chapter 1. Creating a Basic Presentation

PowerPoint 2007 is the great equalizer. Even if you’re familiar with previous versions of PowerPoint, when it comes to PowerPoint 2007 you’re pretty much in the same boat as someone who’s never even heard of presentation software. That’s because the entire PowerPoint interface has changed. As you saw in the Introduction, Microsoft has done away with toolbars, renamed and reorganized menu options, and even axed a couple of features.

Fortunately, the new interface makes quite a bit of sense once you get used to it. That’s what this chapter is for: to familiarize you with PowerPoint 2007 by walking you through the creation of a basic bullets-and-background slideshow presentation. You’ll learn how to create a new slideshow, choose a look and feel, add text and slides, print speaker notes and handouts, and finally, how to unveil your masterpiece.

Part 3 shows you how to jazz up your basic slideshow with diagrams, charts, sounds, animations, and more.

Beginning a New Presentation

You’ve got two basic choices when it comes to creating a new presentation:

You can start from scratch, using a blank canvas. If you’re familiar with earlier incarnations of the PowerPoint program, or if you’re interested in learning the ins and outs of PowerPoint quickly, then you’ll probably want to choose this option. (As daunting as “from scratch” sounds, you don’t have to do all the work yourself; Section 1.2 shows you how to apply a canned look and feel—or theme —to your new presentation.)

You can create a new presentation based on an existing template, theme, or presentation. A template is a generic presentation file designed for you to reuse. Complete with themes (see the box ), background images, and even generic content (such as page numbers and placeholder text), templates let you jump-start your presentation by giving you everything you need except your specific content. If you’re creating a presentation for your local school board, for example, then you’ll need to add the content that describes your findings, conclusions, and suggestions.

Templates are the better option when you need to crank out a presentation in a jiffy. PowerPoint comes with a handful of professionally designed templates and themes, but you can also create presentations based on a template, theme, or presentation that you’ve previously created, or one that you’ve found online and downloaded onto your computer.

PowerPoint divides these two basic choices into six specific options that are based on whether you want to piggyback your new presentation on an existing template, theme, or presentation. When you fire up PowerPoint and select Office button → New, you see the following six choices for creating a presentation, each of which is described in detail in the following sections:

Blank and recent. Lets you create either a blank presentation or a presentation based on one of the themes or templates you recently applied to a PowerPoint presentation.

Installed Templates. Lets you create a presentation based on one of the handful of generic templates that comes with PowerPoint, such as Classic Photo Album or Corporate Presentation.

Installed Themes. Lets you create a presentation based on one of the canned look and feel options that comes with PowerPoint, such as Apex, Metro, or Opulent.

My templates. Lets you create a presentation based on a template that you created, or that you downloaded from the Web.

New from existing. Lets you load an old presentation into PowerPoint 2007, make changes, and save the newly changed presentation using a new filename.

Microsoft Office Online. Lets you hunt for professionally designed templates and themes on Microsoft’s Web site.

Creating a New Presentation from Scratch

When you launch PowerPoint, the program starts you off with a brand-new presentation cleverly named Presentation1 ( Figure 1-1 ).

Typically, you dive right in, adding a look and feel ( Section 1.2 ), text, pictures, and so on to the blank presentation PowerPoint hands you. But if you’ve closed or saved your freebie, here’s how you create an additional blank presentation:

Clear back in 1994, as part of PowerPoint 4—spurred by reports that thousands of folks were firing up PowerPoint and then just sitting there sipping coffee while they stared at the screen, unsure of how to proceed—Microsoft debuted a feature called the AutoContent wizard. The AutoContent wizard asked a series of questions, beginning with what type of presentation you wanted to create, such as “Communicating Bad News” or “Project Post-Mortem”. Then, based on your answer, it suggested possible titles, bullet points, and so on. The result: a quick-and-dirty presentation for next to no effort.

Some folks loved the AutoContent wizard. Others blamed it for the fall of Western civilization, insisting it was responsible for millions of boring, cookie-cutter presentations devoid of meaning. Whether or not those accusations affected Microsoft’s decision to pull the AutoContent wizard from PowerPoint 2007 is anyone’s guess. But pull it they did, leaving you just two options for creating a new presentation: from scratch, or from an existing template, theme, or presentation, as described in this chapter.

Select Office button → New.

The New Presentation window ( Figure 1-2 ) appears.

On the left side of the New Presentation window, make sure the “Blank and recent” option is selected.

If it’s not, click it to select it.

In the New Presentation window, double-click Blank Presentation (see Figure 1-2 ). Or you can click Blank Presentation and then click Create.

Either way, a new blank presentation named Presentation2 (or Presentation3, or Presentation4 depending on how many new presentations you’ve created since you launched the program) appears in your PowerPoint workspace.

To create a new blank presentation without going through the New Presentation window, press Ctrl+N.

To find out how to add content and design elements to your newly created presentation, zip down to Section 1.3 . Section 1.8 shows you how to save your new presentation.

Creating a Presentation from an Existing Template, Theme, or Presentation

PowerPoint lets you get a jump on your new presentation by starting with an existing template, theme, or presentation and then filling in your content. You can choose from the many templates and themes that come with PowerPoint, or you can go online and search for a specific template or theme that matches your needs. You can also reuse any of the templates, themes, or presentations that you (or your co-workers) have previously created. The following sections describe each of your options.

From an existing template

A template is a generic presentation designed (by Microsoft, by a third-party vendor, by you, or by whoever created the template) to be used again and again. Templates help you crank out presentations quickly, because all the design work has been done for you. All you have to do is add your content: the text, charts, graphics, and other elements that convey your particular message.

Templates vary widely, but all contain predefined themes (color schemes, background images, title and bullet point layouts, and text fonts). Some templates contain additional format and design elements and even some generic or placeholder content. Some templates are businesslike, with sober colors and artwork; some are whimsical, with wacky fonts and brightly colored balloons all over the place. The template motifs you can find are nearly endless, which makes it relatively easy to choose a template that fits the mood and structure you want to create for your presentation.

The downside to using PowerPoint’s pre-built templates is that you can end up with a presentation that looks exactly like the one Bob in Accounting presented last week. If that happens, then not only do you look bad, but your audience may tune out, assuming they’ve heard the same message before.

Another potential downside to using templates is that you may be tempted to shoehorn your presentation into the template—which is almost never a good idea.

On the other hand, tons of graphic designers sell PowerPoint templates on the Web, so if you look hard enough—or spend the time to create your own template—you should be able to come up with something both original and appropriate.

Just keep in mind that to create an effective presentation, you need to focus first and foremost on your message, and then choose a template (or a theme, which are described on Section 1.1.2.2 ) that supports your message. You may also want to consider tweaking the template—adjusting the font or replacing the background image with a tasteful gradient, for example—both to fit your message and to help ensure your presentation is as original and memorable as you are.

PowerPoint gives you four different options for creating a new presentation using an existing template: Recently used templates, Installed Templates, “My templates” (templates you’ve created yourself), and Microsoft Office Online. The option you choose depends on where you want PowerPoint to hunt for the template, as described in the following sections.

Recently used templates

PowerPoint keeps track of the templates you apply to your presentations and displays the last few in a list. So if you tend to use the same two or three templates to create all your presentations, chances are you’ll find this option the easiest.

Here’s how to create a new presentation using a template you recently applied to another presentation:

The New Presentation window appears.

In the left side of the New Presentation window, make sure the “Blank and recent” option is selected. (If it’s not, click to select it.)

In the middle of the New Presentation window, scroll through the template thumbnails.

Mousing over a template briefly displays the location of the template (for example, C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\QuizShow.potx for a built-in template stored on your computer, or “Office Website” for a template located on Microsoft’s Web server). You might find this information useful if, for example, you’re hunting for a template you remember finding online.

Click to select the template you want to base your new presentation on.

In the right side of the New Presentation window, a preview appears (see Figure 1-3 ). Depending on whether the selected template is stored on your computer or on Microsoft’s Web server, PowerPoint displays a Create or Download button, respectively, at the bottom of the New Presentation window.

Click Create (or Download).

The New Presentation window disappears. (If you clicked Download, then a Downloading Template message flashes briefly on the screen.) PowerPoint then loads the selected template into a new presentation it names Presentation1 (or Presentation2, or Presentation3, depending on how many presentations you’ve created since you launched PowerPoint).

Installed templates

When you installed PowerPoint, you automatically installed a handful of professionally designed templates, including templates that let you set up photo albums (Classic Photo Album and Contemporary Photo Album), corporate-style slideshows (Corporate Presentation), layouts for print publications (Pitchbook), animated question-and-answer tutorials (Quiz Show), and big-screen slideshows (Wide Screen Presentation 16×9).

To use one of these built-in templates to create a new presentation, follow these steps:

In the left side of the New Presentation window, click Installed Templates.

Several template thumbnails appear in the middle of the New Presentation window.

Click a template to select it.

A larger version of the template appears in the preview area (the right side) of the New Presentation window.

Click Create.

The New Presentation window disappears, and you see a new presentation file based on the template you selected. Figure 1-4 shows you an example.

Instead of clicking a template and then clicking Create, you can save a step by simply double-clicking the template.

My templates

Each time you create your own template ( Section 1.9 ) or download a template from Microsoft’s Web site ( Section 1.1.2.1 ), PowerPoint automatically stores the template in a special directory on your computer similar to this one: C:\Documents and Settings\[Your Name]\Application Date\Microsoft\Templates .

PowerPoint controls where you store the templates you download from Microsoft’s Office Online Web site, and it suggests where to store the templates you create from scratch. But if you bypass Microsoft’s Office Online Web site and download a template from another Web site—or if you override PowerPoint’s suggestion of where to store a template you create from scratch—then you won’t be able to reuse these rogue templates using the steps described in this section. Instead, you want to follow the steps you find on Section 1.1.2.3 for creating a new presentation from an existing presentation file.

To use one of these templates to create a new presentation, follow these steps:

On the left side of the New Presentation window, click “My templates.”

The New Presentation window vanishes, and the New Presentation dialog box shown in Figure 1-5 appears.

In the New Presentation dialog box, select the template you want to use and click OK.

The New Presentation dialog box disappears, and PowerPoint displays a new presentation file based on the template you selected.

Although lots of Web sites offer PowerPoint templates for download, you should check Microsoft’s Office Online Web site first for a couple of reasons. One, Microsoft’s templates are free; and two, checking Microsoft’s site is one-click easy, as described next.

Because Microsoft lets its customers upload templates willy-nilly, the quantity and quality of the templates you find on its site can vary widely. Figure 1-6 shows how to weed out customer-submitted templates, leaving only those designed by official Microsofties.

On the left side of the New Presentation window, under Microsoft Office Online, choose the type of template you’re looking for, such as Brochures or Content Slides.

Template thumbnails appear in the center of the New Presentation window ( Figure 1-6 ).

Click a template thumbnail to select it; then click Download.

A validation message box appears, letting you know that Microsoft is gearing up to check your copy of PowerPoint to make sure it’s not bootlegged. (If Microsoft doesn’t find a legitimately purchased copy of PowerPoint on your computer, then you won’t be able to download templates.)

In the validation message box, click Continue.

Microsoft checks out your copy of PowerPoint. If it passes muster, a Downloading Template message appears briefly, after which PowerPoint displays a new presentation file based on the template you selected.

The rest of this chapter shows you how to add text and change the look of your newly created presentation.

Earlier versions of PowerPoint let you customize your presentations using design templates and color schemes .

But in PowerPoint 2007, your customization choices have changed: now you’re working with templates and themes .

Templates in PowerPoint 2007 are similar to the design templates found in pre-2007 versions. A template is any presentation you plan to reuse. You tell PowerPoint—and remind yourself and your coworkers—that you plan to reuse it by saving it in the special template file format, .potx. Templates typically define custom slide layouts and, in some cases, generic content. Every template has a theme.

Themes in PowerPoint 2007 are more accurately referred to as Office Themes, since you can use the same .thmx theme files in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel as you can in PowerPoint. A theme tells PowerPoint what color to use for your slides’ titles, subtitles, body text, background, and so forth. It also describes which fonts and graphic effects to use; for example, some themes automatically add shadows to title text and blurring to the shapes you add to your slides.

From an existing (built-in) theme

If you know which theme you want to apply to the new presentation you’re creating, then you can save a click or two by applying it when you create the presentation file. (The alternative is to create the presentation file and then apply the theme, as described on Section 1.2 .)

PowerPoint only lets you apply PowerPoint-supplied themes when you create a presentation. If you’ve created your own theme or downloaded one from the Web, then you need to create your presentation first and then apply the theme (see Section 1.2 ).

To create a new presentation based on one of the themes that comes with PowerPoint:

On the left side of the New Presentation window, click Installed Themes.

Several theme thumbnails appear in the middle of the New Presentation window.

Click a theme to select it.

A larger version of the theme appears in the preview area (the right side) of the New Presentation window.

The New Presentation window disappears and you see a new presentation based on the theme you selected. Figure 1-7 shows you an example.

Instead of clicking a theme and then clicking Create, you can save a step by simply double-clicking the theme.

From an existing presentation

If you’ve already got a presentation on your computer—created in any version of PowerPoint—then you can load that presentation into PowerPoint 2007 and use it as the basis of a new presentation.

You’ve got two options for loading an existing presentation: the Existing Presentation window, which is a good choice if you’ve never used PowerPoint before; and the Open window, which is handy if you’re familiar with PowerPoint.

A third, quickie alternative exists for creating a new presentation from an existing one—but this alternative works only if you’ve recently edited the existing presentation. To try it out, click the Office button and then, from the list of Recent Documents that appears, choose an existing document. After PowerPoint opens the document, immediately save it (Office button → Save As) with a different name.

The New from Existing Presentation window

If you’re new to PowerPoint, then you’ll appreciate the New from Existing Presentation window, which simplifies the process of opening an existing presentation. And unlike using the Open window, using the New from Existing Presentation window automatically generates a new file name, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally overwriting your original presentation.

To create a presentation using the New from Existing Presentation window:

Click “New from existing.”

The New from Existing Presentation window appears.

Select the file you want to open, as described in Figure 1-8 , and then click Create New.

The New from Existing Presentation window disappears, and the presentation you selected appears in your PowerPoint workspace. PowerPoint gives the presentation a new, generic name (PowerPoint2, PowerPoint3, and so on) to remind you to rename the file before you save it. ( Section 1.8 shows you how to rename files.)

Creating a new presentation from an old one is very similar to creating a new presentation from a template, as you saw on Section 1.1.2 .

The Open window

The Open window gives you more options for opening an existing presentation than the New from Existing window does. You’ll find these options useful in certain situations, such as when you want to protect an existing presentation by opening it in read-only mode, read through all the slides to make sure it’s the one you want, and then save a copy.

To open an existing presentation using the Open window:

Choose Office button → Open (or press Ctrl+O).

The Open window shown in Figure 1-9 appears.

Select the file you want to open, either by clicking the folder icons you see on the left side of the window, or by clicking the “Look in” drop-down menu. When the PowerPoint file you’re looking for appears in the list, click it to select it.

To see a preview of each file on the right side of the Open window as you select it, click the Open window’s Views icon ( Figure 1-9 ) and select Preview.

Choose one of the following options:

Open. Opens the selected file.

Open → Open Read-Only . Opens a protected version of the file that lets you make changes to the presentation, but doesn’t let you save them unless you specify a new filename.

Open → Open as Copy. Opens the presentation file, but renames it Copy(1)filename.pptx .

Open → Open in Browser. Opens the selected HTML file in Internet Explorer (or your default browser).

Open → Open and Repair. Tells PowerPoint to fix a corrupted file before it tries to open it.

The file you selected appears in your PowerPoint workspace.

Choosing a Theme for Your Presentation

No matter which approach you use to create a presentation—from scratch, from an existing presentation, from a template, or from a built-in theme—once you have a presentation, you can change how it looks in one fell swoop by changing its theme .

A theme is a collection of characteristics including colors, fonts, and graphic effects (such as whether the shapes you add to your slides have drop shadows). For example, applying the built-in Deluxe theme turns your background a tasteful shade of blue and displays your title text (which appears in the Corbel font) in an attractively contrasting, gently shadowed shade of yellow—all thanks to the theme.

You can change all of these characteristics individually, of course, as you’ll see in Chapter 3 . But applying themes gives you more bang for your buck in several important ways:

Using themes is quicker than changing individual settings one at a time. Applying a theme is a two-click proposition. Changing the dozen-plus settings controlled by a theme would exercise your click finger a lot more than that. And themes save you time you’d otherwise spend figuring out which colors look good together.

Using themes helps ensure a decent-looking, readable slide . Consistency is an important design principle: it sets the tone for your presentation and lets your audience focus on your message. When you change settings manually, you can end up with a distracting mishmash of colors and fonts on a single slide or across slides. Not so with themes. Once you apply a theme, the theme takes control of your settings. If you change the background color of your slides, then the theme automatically changes the title and subtitle fonts to compatible colors—colors that aren’t just readable against your new background, but attractive, too.

You can change the color scheme, fonts, effects, background, and layering order for any given theme without “breaking” the theme. For example, if you change the subtitle color from white to black, then PowerPoint automatically adjusts the background color and other settings so that your subtitle text is still readable. But you can also override theme settings. Section 3.2.4 shows you how.

Using themes lets you create a consistent look and feel across Microsoft Office-produced materials. You can use the same themes you use in PowerPoint in Word and Excel, too. That’s handy if you use Microsoft Office to produce multimedia presentations: no more Arial 12 spreadsheets paired with Baskerville 10 reports and purple Helvetica PowerPoint slides. When you apply the same theme to your Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint slides, you end up with a consistently presented, harmonious whole.

Here’s how to apply a theme to a PowerPoint presentation:

Click the Design tab.

The Design ribbon appears, complete with a Theme gallery ( Figure 1-10 ). (For more on PowerPoint 2007’s new ribbons, check out Section 3.2 .)

Click the More icon at the bottom-right corner of the Themes section ( Figure 1-10 ).

Additional themes appear in the gallery, as shown in Figure 1-11 .

Mouse over the themes in the gallery one by one.

PowerPoint previews each theme as you mouse over it ( Figure 1-12 ) so you can get an idea of how each will look applied to your presentation’s content and layout.

If you mouse over a theme and PowerPoint doesn’t immediately preview it on your slide, wait a few seconds: the process is quick, but it’s not instantaneous.

PowerPoint applies the selected theme to all of the existing slides in your presentation, as well as all the new slides you create.

In addition to letting you apply a theme to all the slides in your slideshow—which is normally what you want to do, and what’s described in this section—PowerPoint lets you apply a theme to only selected slides. Applying more than one theme to a slideshow is useful when you’re creating a distinct before-and-after presentation or other multi-section slideshow and want each section to look distinct. For details, check out Chapter 4 .

Adding Text

You’ll want to add at least some text to most, if not all, PowerPoint presentations you create. (See the box for advice on how much prose to add to your presentation.) Knowing that, the PowerPoint designers made it easy for you to add text to your slides. The following sections show you how.

Adding Text to an Existing Text Box

When you start to work with a new presentation, the ribbon displays the Home tab, which should look somewhat familiar if you’ve used PowerPoint 2003 ( Figure 1-13 ).

Blank presentations come complete with title and subtitle placeholder text boxes. To replace the placeholder text in either of these two text boxes with your own text, simply click inside the placeholder and begin typing. When you do, two things happen:

PowerPoint displays the Drawing Tools | Format tab and, on the Home ribbon, activates many of the text formatting options ( Figure 1-14 ). You can use these options to change the font, size, and color of your text, turn your text into a right-justified paragraph or a bullet point, and much more. ( Chapter 3 describes your options in detail.)

Resize and transform handles appear at the corners and edges of the text box ( Figure 1-14 ). Tiny white resize handles , which are square on the edges of the text box and circular on the corners, let you stretch or shrink your text box by dragging them. The circular green transform handle appears above the top of your text box and lets you tilt it. Drag the handles to tilt or resize your text box.

Adding a New Text Box

You’re not limited to the placeholder text boxes PowerPoint starts you off with: you can add as many additional text boxes to your slides as you like.

Chapter 3 shows you how to format text boxes, as well as the text inside them. Chapter 5 shows you how to add placeholder text boxes to slide masters.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to using text in PowerPoint presentations. One says text is king; the other advises PowerPointers to use as little text as possible. Here’s the rationale for each approach:

Text rules—always has, always will. According to the more-bullets-the-better crowd, a presentation is text. Period. It’s how we think, it’s what we’re used to, and it helps us organize our thoughts, reactions, and questions. Folks who subscribe to this approach may quibble about the number of words an effective bullet point should be limited to (the number five comes up a lot), and whether to put the most important bullets at the beginning of the presentation or at the end; but the focus is always on how—not whether—to use text.

Text distracts. The other school of thought is that it is nearly impossible for audiences to read more than a couple of words on a slide, even if they’re sitting up front and wearing their glasses. And if your audience does read your slides, that means they are busy reading and forming opinions instead of paying attention to the actual presentation (which is you ). According to these folks, using a lot of text results in lazily constructed, ineffective, and boring brain-dumps-disguised-as-presentations. These folks believe the best use of PowerPoint is carefully chosen charts, graphs, and worth-a-thousand-word pictures. The theory is that pictures pique your audience’s curiosity without satisfying it: your audience has to listen to you for explanation and clarification. (And you can always give them handouts containing those all-important bullet points after the show, if you must.)

So which approach should you take? It depends. In a perfect world, you’d have time to find or create super-compelling graphics and animations that beautifully complement your presentation. You’d deliver the message of your presentation by engaging your audience with your wit, knowledge, body language, and persuasive powers. You’d use text sparingly and appropriately: to pose questions (which you’d answer in your talk) and to hammer home main points.

But not everyone’s comfortable with this freewheeling presentation style. Plus it’s a lot more work (which explains why most of the PowerPoint presentations you’ve sat through in your life have been riddled with bullet points). And in some cases—academic lectures, for example—using text as a springboard for discussion and audience note-taking just makes more sense.

Ultimately, you get to make the call. As long as you choose an approach that supports your presentation goals, you’re golden.

To add a new text box to a slide:

Click the Insert tab.

The Insert ribbon ( Figure 1-15 ) appears.

On the Insert ribbon, click Text Box.

In the status bar at the bottom of the screen, PowerPoint displays a helpful hint (“Click and drag to insert a text box”). When you mouse over your slide, you notice that your cursor looks like a tiny down arrow.

On the slide, click where you want your new text box to appear.

A text box appears with the cursor handily positioned inside ( Figure 1-16 ). The Drawing Tools | Format tab pops up, and on the Home ribbon, PowerPoint activates most of the formatting options, ready for you to format your text.

Alternatively, you can click and drag to draw the outline of your text box before you begin typing. It’s another step, but it’ll help you get an idea of how much space your text will take up on your slide before you actually type it in.

Type your text.

The text box expands automatically to accommodate your text.

In addition to adding text directly to your slides, as shown here, you can also paste or type text onto shapes (for example, a Stop sign). Chapter 9 shows you how.

If you choose to include text in your presentation, then keep these tips in mind:

Distill. Your audience’s eyes will glaze over if you hit them with a barrage of text on every slide, so you want to distill your message into as few words as possible. (Three to six bullets and a dozen or so words per slide is a good guideline.) In other words, reserve text for the few salient points you want your audience to take home with them. When you need back-up documentation, examples, supporting facts and figures, and so on, distribute hard-copy handouts—don’t try to cram the information onto your slides.

Carefully consider word placement . The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster a few years back put PowerPoint in the limelight for a sobering reason: In a PowerPoint presentation delivered to NASA officials before the disaster, engineers mentioned the problem that, ultimately, contributed to the tragic breakup of the shuttle over Texas in 2003. But the crucial information was buried in an avalanche of bullet points near the end of a long presentation, and none of the decision-makers in the audience realized its significance. Your presentation may not address life-and-death issues, but you still want to reserve the first and last slides of your presentation for critical information.

Adding More Slides

When you create a new blank presentation, PowerPoint spots you one slide. But in most cases, you’ll want your presentation to contain a lot more slides than that. Fortunately, adding a new slide is easy, as you’ll see in the following sections.

PowerPoint gives you two options: adding a slide with layout identical to the current slide, and specifying a different slide layout. A slide layout is a description of what content appears where on a slide. For example, applying a Title Slide layout to a slide positions title and subtitle text placeholders near the middle of your slide, and nothing else. Applying a Title and Content layout positions a title text placeholder near the top of a slide, and an object placeholder beneath that.

To add a slide with a layout identical to the current slide:

Select any non-title slide.

PowerPoint doesn’t automatically duplicate title slides for a pretty obvious reason: 99 percent of the time, you don’t want two title slides in a single presentation.

For the one percent of the time when that’s exactly what you want, add a slide, and then change the slide’s layout to Title Slide as shown on Section 4.1.1 .

Click the Home tab.

The ribbon you see in Figure 1-17 appears.

Click the New Slide button.

PowerPoint inserts a new slide after the current slide. If that’s not what you want (for example, if you want to add a slide to the beginning of your presentation), then you can easily change the order of your slides. Section 5.2.3 shows you how.

PowerPoint gives you another way to add a new slide with a layout similar to the current slide. In the Slides pane (at the left side of your workspace, as shown in Figure 1-16 ), you can right-click the page after which you want to create a new slide. Then, from the menu that appears, select Duplicate.

To add a slide with a different layout:

On the Home ribbon, click the down-arrow next to New Slide.

A menu similar to the one you see in Figure 1-18 appears.

Click to select the slide layout you want. Your choices include Title Slide, Title and Content, Section Header, Two Content, Comparison, Title Only, Blank, Content with Caption, and Picture with Caption.

PowerPoint adds your new slide after the current slide.

To make an exact copy of the current slide—content and all—make sure you have the slide selected in the Slides pane, and then press Ctrl+D.

Moving Around Inside a Presentation

Moving around your presentation when you only have one slide isn’t much of an issue. But once you start adding slides, you’ll want a way to hop quickly from your first slide to your last. You’ll also want to jump to specific slides in the middle of your presentation; for example, to tweak a particular slide’s layout, to add content, or to delete it.

PowerPoint gives you several ways to flip through your presentation. This section acquaints you with the easiest and most useful options: using your workspace scroll bar, using the View pane on the left side of the screen, and using the Home ribbon’s Find function.

Navigating with the Scroll Bar

In PowerPoint, you see a scroll bar on the right side of your workspace similar to the one in Figure 1-19 .

To scroll through your presentation, all you need to do is click the scroll bar and drag up (to scroll toward the beginning of your presentation) or down (to scroll toward the end). As you go, PowerPoint displays each slide in turn.

To flip forward (or back) through your presentation one slide at a time, click the Next Slide (or Previous Slide) arrow shown in Figure 1-19 .

Navigating with the Slides and Outline Tabs

Slides and Outline tabs are not views (they both appear in Normal view) but are tabs that let you see slide thumbnails or an outline of your slideshow, respectively, in the Slides ( Figure 1-20 ) or Outline ( Figure 1-21 ) pane.

PowerPoint assumes you want to use Slides view until you tell it otherwise. To change views, click the Outline tab shown in Figure 1-21 . To switch back to Slides view, click the Slides tab ( Figure 1-20 ).

If you don’t see the View pane at all, select View → Normal (or click the Normal icon shown in Figure 1-20 ) to display it.

The View ribbon offers you a bunch of additional ways to view your presentation, including Slide Sorter ( Chapter 5 ) and Notes .

When you’ve got a lot of slides and you’re looking for one containing a specific word or phrase, you’ll want to bypass Views in favor of the Find function. Similar to the Find feature in other Windows programs, PowerPoint’s Find function lets you search for specific words quickly and easily. Here’s how to use it.

Press Ctrl+F.

The Find dialog box appears ( Figure 1-22 ).

In the “Find what” box, type in the text you want to find (in Figure 1-22 , the text is marshmallow ).

If you like, you can click to turn on the “Match case” checkbox (which tells PowerPoint to look for marshmallow but not Marshmallow, MARSHMALLOW , or MaRsHmAlLoW ) or the “Find whole words only” checkbox (which tells PowerPoint to look for marshmallow but not chocolatemarshmallowgraham ). When you finish, click Find Next.

PowerPoint displays the slide containing your text. If it doesn’t find a match, it shows this message: “PowerPoint has finished searching the presentation. The search item wasn’t found.”

Adding Speaker Notes

Speaker notes are optional text notes you can type into PowerPoint. You can associate a separate speaker note with each slide of your presentation. Your audience can’t see speaker notes, but you can. You may find speaker notes useful:

While you’re putting your presentation together. If you know you need to add a graphic to slide six and a couple of bullet points to slide 33, then you can jot down reminders to yourself in the Speaker Notes pane ( Figure 1-23 ). Then, before you put your presentation to bed, you can view your speaker notes and double-check that you’ve caught everything.

While you’re delivering your presentation. You can set up your presentation so that your audience sees your slideshow on the screen while you see your notes (on your own computer monitor). Or, if you’re the tactile type, you may prefer to print out your speaker notes and keep them with you during your presentation.

Chapter 8 covers speaker notes in more detail.

To add speaker notes for a particular slide, click in the Speaker Notes pane ( Figure 1-23 ) and type away.

If you don’t see the Speaker Notes pane, then click the Speaker Notes pane’s resize bar at the bottom of the workspace and drag upward, as shown in Figure 1-24 .

Creating and Printing Handouts

You don’t have to do anything special to create handouts in PowerPoint. That’s because handouts in PowerPoint are nothing more than slides printed one or more to a page.

The value of handouts depends both on your presentation and your audience. If you think your audience will benefit from printouts of your slides, then by all means, go for it. Say, for example, that your presentation slides consist of graphic images accompanied by a few well-placed questions. What you want is a participatory, interactive presentation. Your audience should listen to you and jot down the answers to those questions—and what better way to encourage this interaction than to pass out hard copies of each slide?

But for some presentations, slide printouts are pretty worthless. Instead, you’re going to want to give your audience printouts containing facts, figures, contact information, and other in-depth supporting information that you didn’t have room for in your actual presentation.

One way to jump-start the process of creating truly useful handouts is to pull your PowerPoint presentation text into Word 2007 (assuming you have a copy installed on your computer). Using your presentation text as a starting point, you can add information until you’ve built handouts your audience will actually take back to their homes and offices.

To pull your slides into a Word document, click Office button → Publish → Create Handouts in Microsoft Office Word.

To print handouts:

Select Office button → Print → Print Preview.

The Print Preview ribbon appears, and PowerPoint’s best guess at how you want your handouts printed appears in the workspace.

You can change the way your handouts print on a presentation-by-presentation basis, as described in this section. But if you find yourself making the same changes time after time, then you’ll want to customize PowerPoint’s printing assumptions. Chapter 13 shows you how.

Click the “Print what” drop-down box and then, from the menu that appears, choose how you want PowerPoint to print your handouts ( Figure 1-25 ).

PowerPoint redisplays the handouts preview based on your selection.

Click Print.

The familiar Print dialog box appears.

Chapter 8 , which shows you how to print your presentation, walks you through the Print dialog box step by step.

PowerPoint prints your handouts.

Click Close Print Preview ( Figure 1-25 ) to dismiss the Print Preview ribbon and return to your workspace.

Saving and Closing a Presentation

Lightning storms hit, coffee cups spill, and power cords work themselves out of walls (especially if you have a dog who likes to chase squeaky toys). After you’ve created a new presentation file and spent some time working on it, you’ll want to save it every so often so that when your system crashes, you can recover your work. And if you’re like most folks, you’ll also want to save and close your presentation each time you wrap up a work session.

Saving and closing a PowerPoint presentation are both straightforward tasks. If you’re familiar with any other Windows programs, then you’ll recognize most of the steps.

To save a newly created presentation:

Select Office button → Save.

The Save As dialog box appears ( Figure 1-26 ).

Alternatively, you can press Ctrl+S or click the Save button (the little diskette icon) that appears in the Quick Access toolbar.

Click the “Save in” drop-down box to choose a directory to store your file in.

In the File name field, type a new name for your file.

Shoot for short, unique, and memorable; you don’t want to have to spend a lot of time hunting for your file a week from now.

Click the “Save as Type” drop-down box to select a file format. (The box explains your options.) Most of the time, you’ll choose the .pptx format.

Click Save.

The Save As dialog box disappears and PowerPoint saves the file in the format you specified.

You can set PowerPoint’s AutoRecovery options so that the program saves your files automatically every few minutes—a boon for folks whose computers tend to crash frequently. Chapter 13 shows you how to customize PowerPoint’s AutoRecovery options.

An easy way to save your presentation as a PowerPoint 2003 (or earlier) file is to select Office button → Save As → PowerPoint 97–2003 Format.

To close a presentation, simply select Office → Close. When you do, PowerPoint closes your presentation with no fanfare. If you’ve never saved this particular file, however, a dialog box pops up asking you if you want to save the changes you made. Click Yes to display the Save As dialog box shown in Figure 1-26 and proceed as described above.

Running a Presentation

Chapter 7 shows you everything you need to know about setting up and running special types of presentations: for example, recording narration, hiding certain slides, and creating stand-alone presentations that run on kiosks.

But for running through a basic presentation on your very own computer, the process is simple:

Press F5 or click the Slideshow icon you see at the bottom of the screen, as shown in Figure 1-27 .

PowerPoint replaces your workspace with a full-screen version of your slideshow, beginning with the currently selected slide.

PowerPoint 2007 (and Office 2007 more generally) introduces a slew of new file types, complete with unfamiliar file extensions. The Introduction describes these file types in more detail, and Chapter 7 describes why you’d want to choose one over the other. But here they are, in a nutshell:

.pptx (PowerPoint 2007 presentation). Most of the time, you want to save your file in this format.

.potx (PowerPoint 2007 template). Lets you save a presentation as a reusable design template.

.potm (PowerPoint 2007 macro-enabled design template). Lets programmers save a macro-filled presentation as a design template.

.ppsx (PowerPoint 2007 show). Lets you save this file as a PowerPoint show that folks can run using the PowerPoint viewer, as described in Chapter 7 .

.ppsm (PowerPoint 2007 macro-enabled show). Lets programmers save a macro-filled presentation as a show.

.ppam (PowerPoint 2007 add-in). Lets programmers save presentations that actually add to PowerPoint’s interface; see Chapter 13 .

.pptm (PowerPoint 2007 macro-enabled presentation). Lets programmers save presentations that contain VBA macros; see Chapter 14 .

.thmx (Microsoft Office Theme). Lets you save your presentation as a reusable collection of colors, fonts, and graphic effects so that you can apply it to another PowerPoint slideshow, Word document, or Excel spreadsheet.

.ppt (PowerPoint 2003—and earlier—presentation). Lets you save your presentation in a form that folks running PowerPoint 2003 can edit.

In addition to .ppt, earlier versions of PowerPoint handled the following file types (PowerPoint 2007 handles them, too):

.pot (PowerPoint 2003—and earlier—design template). Lets programmers save a macro-filled presentation as a design template that folks running PowerPoint 2003 can edit and apply.

.pps (PowerPoint 2003—and earlier—show). Lets you save a presentation as a show that folks can run using the PowerPoint viewer.

.ppa (PowerPoint 2003—and earlier—add-in). Lets programmers save a macro-filled presentation as a design template that folks running PowerPoint 2003 can edit and apply.

.mht/.mhtml/.htm/.html (Web pages). Lets you save your slides as a series of Web pages.

.gif, .jpg, .png, .tif, .bmp, .wmf, .emf (Image files). Lets you save your slides as a series of image files.

rtf (Rich text format [word processing file]). Lets you save your slides as editable text.

Pressing Shift+F5 and clicking the Slideshow icon both tell PowerPoint to run your slideshow beginning at the current slide (not necessarily the first slide). To run your slideshow from the beginning, you have three choices: press F5, click the Slideshow icon, or select Slide Show → Start Slide Show → From Beginning.

Click the forward and backward arrows that appear at the bottom of the screen ( Figure 1-28 ) to step through your presentation. ( Figure 1-28 describes how to end the presentation before the last slide.)

After the last slide, PowerPoint displays a black screen containing the words “End of slide show, click to exit.”

Click anywhere on the screen (or press the Space bar or Enter).

PowerPoint returns you to your workspace.

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Excel 2007  - Working with Charts

Excel 2007  -, working with charts, excel 2007 working with charts.

Excel 2007: Working with Charts

Lesson 16: working with charts.

/en/excel2007/using-whatif-analysis/content/

Introduction

Download the example to work along with the video.

Creating a chart

Charts can be a useful way to communicate data. When you insert a chart in Excel, it appears in the selected worksheet with the source data by default.

To create a chart:

• Select the worksheet you want to work with. In this example, we use the Summary worksheet.
• Select the cells you want to chart, including the column titles and row labels .
• Click the Insert tab.
• Hover over each Chart option in the Charts group to learn more about it.
• Select one of the Chart options. In this example, we'll use the Columns command.
• Select a type of chart from the list that appears. For this example, we'll use a 2-D Clustered Column. The chart appears in the worksheet.

Identifying the parts of a chart

Have you ever read something you didn't fully understand but when you saw a chart or graph, the concept became clear and understandable? Charts are a visual representation of data in a worksheet. Charts make it easy to see comparisons, patterns, and trends in the data.

Source data

The range of cells that make up a chart. The chart is updated automatically whenever the information in these cells changes.

The title of the chart.

The chart key, which identifies what each color on the chart represents.

The vertical and horizontal parts of a chart. The vertical axis is often referred to as the Y axis, and the horizontal axis is referred to as the X axis.

Data series

The actual charted values, which are usually rows or columns of the source data.

The axis that represents the values or units of the source data.

Category axis

The axis identifying each data series.

Chart tools

Once you insert a chart, a new set of Chart Tools , arranged into three tabs, will appear above the Ribbon. These are only visible when the chart is selected.

To change the chart type:

• Select the Design tab.
• Click the Change Chart Type command. A dialog box appears.
• Select another chart type .

The chart in the example compares each salesperson's monthly sales to his or her other months' sales; however, you can change what is being compared. Just click the Switch Row/Column Data command, which will rotate the data displayed on the x and y axes . To return to the original view , click the Switch Row/Column command again.

To change chart layout:

• Locate the Chart Layouts group.
• Click the More arrow to view all of your layout options.
• Left-click a layout to select it.

If your new layout includes chart titles, axes, or legend labels, just insert your cursor into the text and begin typing to add your own text.

To change chart style:

• Locate the Chart Style group.
• Click the More arrow to view all of your style options.
• Left-click a style to select it.

To move the chart to a different worksheet:

• Click the Move Chart command. A dialog box appears. The current location of the chart is selected.
• Select the desired location for the chart (i.e., choose an existing worksheet, or select New Sheet and name it).

Use the Company Sales workbook or any other workbook to complete this challenge.

• Use worksheet data to create a chart .
• Change the chart layout .
• Apply a chart style .
• Move the chart to a separate worksheet.

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How to Make a PowerPoint Presentation (Step-by-Step)

• PowerPoint Tutorials
• Presentation Design
• January 22, 2024

In this beginner’s guide, you will learn step-by-step how to make a PowerPoint presentation from scratch.

While PowerPoint is designed to be intuitive and accessible, it can be overwhelming if you’ve never gotten any training on it before. As you progress through this guide, you’ll will learn how to move from blank slides to PowerPoint slides that look like these.

Table of Contents

Additionally, as you create your presentation, you’ll also learn tricks for working more efficiently in PowerPoint, including how to:

• Change the slide order
• Reset your layout
• Change the slide dimensions
• Use PowerPoint Designer
• Format text
• Format objects
• Play a presentation (slide show)

With this knowledge under your belt, you’ll be ready to start creating PowerPoint presentations. Moreover, you’ll have taken your skills from beginner to proficient in no time at all. I will also include links to more advanced PowerPoint topics.

Ready to start learning how to make a PowerPoint presentation?

Take your PPT skills to the next level

Start with a blank presentation.

Note: Before you open PowerPoint and start creating your presentation, make sure you’ve collected your thoughts. If you’re going to make your slides compelling, you need to spend some time brainstorming.

For help with this, see our article with tips for nailing your business presentation  here .

The first thing you’ll need to do is to open PowerPoint. When you do, you are shown the Start Menu , with the Home tab open.

This is where you can choose either a blank theme (1) or a pre-built theme (2). You can also choose to open an existing presentation (3).

For now, go ahead and click on the  Blank Presentation (1)  thumbnail.

Doing so launches a brand new and blank presentation for you to work with. Before you start adding content to your presentation, let’s first familiarize ourselves with the PowerPoint interface.

The PowerPoint interface

Here is how the program is laid out:

• The Application Header
• The Ribbon (including the Ribbon tabs)
• The Quick Access Toolbar (either above or below the Ribbon)
• The Slides Pane (slide thumbnails)

The Slide Area

The notes pane.

• The Status Bar (including the View Buttons)

Each one of these areas has options for viewing certain parts of the PowerPoint environment and formatting your presentation.

Below are the important things to know about certain elements of the PowerPoint interface.

The PowerPoint Ribbon

The Ribbon is contextual. That means that it will adapt to what you’re doing in the program.

For example, the Font, Paragraph and Drawing options are greyed out until you select something that has text in it, as in the example below (A).

Furthermore, if you start manipulating certain objects, the Ribbon will display additional tabs, as seen above (B), with more commands and features to help you work with those objects. The following objects have their own additional tabs in the Ribbon which are hidden until you select them:

• Online Pictures
• Screenshots
• Screen Recording

The Slides Pane

This is where you can preview and rearrange all the slides in your presentation.

Right-clicking on a slide  in the pane gives you additional options on the slide level that you won’t find on the Ribbon, such as  Duplicate Slide ,  Delete Slide , and  Hide Slide .

In addition, you can add sections to your presentation by  right-clicking anywhere in this Pane  and selecting  Add Section . Sections are extremely helpful in large presentations, as they allow you to organize your slides into chunks that you can then rearrange, print or display differently from other slides.

The Slide Area (A) is where you will build out your slides. Anything within the bounds of this area will be visible when you present or print your presentation.

Anything outside of this area (B) will be hidden from view. This means that you can place things here, such as instructions for each slide, without worrying about them being shown to your audience.

The  Notes Pane  is the space beneath the Slide Area where you can type in the speaker notes for each slide. It’s designed as a fast way to add and edit your slides’ talking points.

To expand your knowledge and learn more about adding, printing, and exporting your PowerPoint speaker notes, read our guide here .

Your speaker notes are visible when you print your slides using the Notes Pages option and when you use the Presenter View . To expand your knowledge and learn the ins and outs of using the Presenter View , read our guide here .

You can resize the  Notes Pane  by clicking on its edge and dragging it up or down (A). You can also minimize or reopen it by clicking on the Notes button in the Status Bar (B).

Note:  Not all text formatting displays in the Notes Pane, even though it will show up when printing your speaker notes. To learn more about printing PowerPoint with notes, read our guide here .

Now that you have a basic grasp of the PowerPoint interface at your disposal, it’s time to make your presentation.

Adding Content to Your PowerPoint Presentation

Notice that in the Slide Area , there are two rectangles with dotted outlines. These are called  Placeholders  and they’re set on the template in the Slide Master View .

To expand your knowledge and learn how to create a PowerPoint template of your own (which is no small task), read our guide here .

As the prompt text suggests, you can click into each placeholder and start typing text. These types of placeholder prompts are customizable too. That means that if you are using a company template, it might say something different, but the functionality is the same.

Note:  For the purposes of this example, I will create a presentation based on the content in the Starbucks 2018 Global Social Impact Report, which is available to the public on their website.

If you type in more text than there is room for, PowerPoint will automatically reduce its font size. You can stop this behavior by clicking on the  Autofit Options  icon to the left of the placeholder and selecting  Stop Fitting Text to this Placeholder .

Next, you can make formatting adjustments to your text by selecting the commands in the Font area and the  Paragraph area  of the  Home  tab of the Ribbon.

The Reset Command:  If you make any changes to your title and decide you want to go back to how it was originally, you can use the Reset button up in the Home tab .

Insert More Slides into Your Presentation

Now that you have your title slide filled in, it’s time to add more slides. To do that, simply go up to the  Home tab  and click on  New Slide . This inserts a new slide in your presentation right after the one you were on.

You can alternatively hit Ctrl+M on your keyboard to insert a new blank slide in PowerPoint. To learn more about this shortcut, see my guide on using Ctrl+M in PowerPoint .

Instead of clicking the New Slide command, you can also open the New Slide dropdown to see all the slide layouts in your PowerPoint template. Depending on who created your template, your layouts in this dropdown can be radically different.

If you insert a layout and later want to change it to a different layout, you can use the Layout dropdown instead of the New Slide dropdown.

After inserting a few different slide layouts, your presentation might look like the following picture. Don’t worry that it looks blank, next we will start adding content to your presentation.

If you want to follow along exactly with me, your five slides should be as follows:

• Title Slide
• Title and Content
• Section Header
• Two Content
• Picture with Caption

Adding Content to Your Slides

Now let’s go into each slide and start adding our content. You’ll notice some new types of placeholders.

On slide 2 we have a  Content Placeholder , which allows you to add any kind of content. That includes:

• A SmartArt graphic,
• A 3D object,
• A picture from the web,
• Or an icon.

To insert text, simply type it in or hit  Ctrl+C to Copy  and Ctrl+V to Paste  from elsewhere. To insert any of the other objects, click on the appropriate icon and follow the steps to insert it.

For my example, I’ll simply type in some text as you can see in the picture below.

Slides 3 and 4 only have text placeholders, so I’ll go ahead and add in my text into each one.

On slide 5 we have a Picture Placeholder . That means that the only elements that can go into it are:

• A picture from the web

To insert a picture into the picture placeholder, simply:

• Click on the  Picture  icon
• Find  a picture on your computer and select it
• Click on  Insert

Alternatively, if you already have a picture open somewhere else, you can select the placeholder and paste in (shortcut: Ctrl+V ) the picture. You can also drag the picture in from a file explorer window.

If you do not like the background of the picture you inserted onto your slide, you can remove the background here in PowerPoint. To see how to do this, read my guide here .

Placeholders aren’t the only way to add content to your slides. At any point, you can use the Insert tab to add elements to your slides.

You can use either the Title Only  or the  Blank  slide layout to create slides for content that’s different. For example, a three-layout content slide, or a single picture divider slide, as shown below.

In the first example above, I’ve inserted 6 text boxes, 3 icons, and 3 circles to create this layout. In the second example, I’ve inserted a full-sized picture and then 2 shapes and 2 text boxes.

The Reset Command:  Because these slides are built with shapes and text boxes (and not placeholders), hitting the  Reset button up in the  Home tab  won’t do anything.

That is a good thing if you don’t want your layouts to adjust. However, it does mean that it falls on you to make sure everything is aligned and positioned correctly.

For more on how to add and manipulate the different objects in PowerPoint, check out our step-by-step articles here:

• Using graphics in PowerPoint
• Inserting icons onto slides
• Adding pictures to your PowerPoint
• How to embed a video in PowerPoint
• How to add music to your presentation

Using Designer to generate more layouts ideas

If you have Office 365, your version of PowerPoint comes with a new feature called Designer (or Design Ideas). This is a feature that generates slide layout ideas for you. The coolest thing about this feature is that it uses the content you already have.

To use Designer , simply navigate to the  Design tab  in your Ribbon, and click on  Design Ideas .

NOTE: If the PowerPoint Designer is not working for you (it is grey out), see my troubleshooting guide for Designer .

Change the Overall Design (optional)

When you make a PowerPoint presentation, you’ll want to think about the overall design. Now that you have some content in your presentation, you can use the Design tab to change the look and feel of your slides.

For additional help thinking through the design of your presentation,  read my guide here .

A. Picking your PowerPoint slide size

If you have PowerPoint 2013 or later, when you create a blank document in PowerPoint, you automatically start with a widescreen layout with a 16:9 ratio. These dimensions are suitable for most presentations as they match the screens of most computers and projectors.

However, you do have the option to change the dimensions.

For example, your presentation might not be presented, but instead converted into a PDF or printed and distributed. In that case, you can easily switch to the standard dimensions with a 4:3 ratio by selecting from the dropdown (A).

You can also choose a custom slide size or change the slide orientation from landscape to portrait in the Custom Slide Size dialog box (B).

To learn all about the different PowerPoint slide sizes, and some of the issues you will face when changing the slide size of a non-blank presentation,  read my guide here .

 B. Selecting a PowerPoint theme

The next thing you can do is change the theme of your presentation to a pre-built one. For a detailed explanation of what a PowerPoint theme is, and how to best use it,  read my article here .

In the beginning of this tutorial, we started with a blank presentation, which uses the default Office theme as you can see in the picture below.

That gives you the most flexibility because it has a blank background and quite simple layouts that work for most presentations. However, it also means that it’s your responsibility to enhance the design.

If you’re comfortable with this, you can stay with the default theme or create your own custom theme ( read my guide here ). But if you would rather not have to think about design, then you can choose a pre-designed theme.

Microsoft provides 46 other pre-built themes, which include slide layouts, color variants and palettes, and fonts. Each one varies quite significantly, so make sure you look through them carefully.

To select a different theme, go to the  Design tab  in the Ribbon, and click on the  dropdown arrow  in the  Themes section .

For this tutorial, let’s select the  Frame  theme and then choose the third Variant in the theme. Doing so changes the layout, colors, and fonts of your presentation.

Note: The theme dropdown area is also where you can import or save custom themes. To see my favorite places to find professional PowerPoint templates and themes (and recommendations for why I like them), read my guide here .

C. How to change a slide background in PowerPoint

The next thing to decide is how you want your background to look for the entire presentation. In the  Variants area, you can see four background options.

For this example, we want our presentation to have a dark background, so let’s select Style 3. When you do so, you’ll notice that:

• The background color automatically changes across all slides
• The color of the text on most of the slides automatically changes to white so that it’s visible on the dark background
• The colors of the objects on slides #6 and #7 also adjust, in a way we may not want (we’ll likely have to make some manual adjustments to these slides)

Note: If you want to change the slide background for just that one slide, don’t left-click the style. Instead, right-click it and select Apply to Selected Slides .

After you change the background for your entire presentation, you can easily adjust the background for an individual slide.

Inside the Format Background pane, you can see you have the following options:

• Gradient fill
• Picture or texture fill
• Pattern fill
• Hide background

You can explore these options to find the PowerPoint background that best fits your presentation.

D. How to change your color palette in PowerPoint

Another thing you may want to adjust in your presentation, is the color scheme. In the picture below you can see the Theme Colors we are currently using for this presentation.

Each PowerPoint theme comes with its own color palette. By default, the Office theme includes the Office color palette. This affects the colors you are presented with when you format any element within your presentation (text, shapes, SmartArt, etc.).

The good news is that the colors here are easy to change. To switch color palettes, simply:

• Go to the  Design tab in the Ribbon
• In the Variants area, click on the  dropdown arrow  and select  Colors
• Select  the color palette (or theme colors) you want

You can choose among the pre-built color palettes from Office, or you can customize them to create your own.

As you build your presentation, make sure you use the colors from your theme to format objects. That way, changing the color palette adjusts all the colors in your presentation automatically.

E. How to change your fonts in PowerPoint

Just as we changed the color palette, you can do the same for the fonts.

Each PowerPoint theme comes with its own font combination. By default, the Office theme includes the Office font pairing. This affects the fonts that are automatically assigned to all text in your presentation.

The good news is that the font pairings are easy to change. To switch your Theme Fonts, simply:

• Go to the  Design tab  in the Ribbon
• Click on the  dropdown arrow  in the  Variants  area
• Select  Fonts
• Select  the font pairing you want

You can choose among the pre-built fonts from Office, or you can customize them to create your own.

If you are working with PowerPoint presentations on both Mac and PC computers, make sure you choose a safe PowerPoint font. To see a list of the safest PowerPoint fonts, read our guide here .

If you receive a PowerPoint presentation and the wrong fonts were used, you can use the Replace Fonts dialog box to change the fonts across your entire presentation. For details, read our guide here .

Adding Animations & Transitions (optional)

The final step to make a PowerPoint presentation compelling, is to consider using animations and transitions. These are by no means necessary to a good presentation, but they may be helpful in your situation.

A. Adding PowerPoint animations

PowerPoint has an incredibly robust animations engine designed to power your creativity. That being said, it’s also easy to get started with basic animations.

Animations are movements that you can apply to individual objects on your slide.

To add a PowerPoint animation to an element of your slide, simply:

• Select the  element
• Go to the  Animations tab in the Ribbon
• Click on the  dropdown arrow  to view your options
• Select the  animation  you want

You can add animations to multiple objects at one time by selecting them all first and then applying the animation.

B. How to preview a PowerPoint animation

There are three ways to preview a PowerPoint animation:

• Click on the Preview button in the Animations tab
• Click on the little star  next to the slide
• Play the slide in Slide Show Mode

To learn other ways to run your slide show, see our guide on presenting a PowerPoint slide show with shortcuts .

To adjust the settings of your animations, explore the options in the  Effect Options ,  Advanced Animation  and the  Timing  areas of the  Animation tab .

Note:  To see how to make objects appear and disappear in your slides by clicking a button,  read our guide here .

C. How to manage your animations in PowerPoint

The best way to manage lots of animations on your slide is with the Animation Pane . To open it, simply:

• Navigate to the  Animations tab
• Select the  Animation Pane

Inside the Animation Pane, you’ll see all of the different animations that have been applied to objects on your slide, with their numbers marked as pictured above.

Note: To see examples of PowerPoint animations that can use in PowerPoint, see our list of PowerPoint animation tutorials here .

D. How to add transitions to your PowerPoint presentation

PowerPoint has an incredibly robust transition engine so that you can dictate how your slides change from one to the other. It is also extremely easy to add transitions to your slides.

In PowerPoint, transitions are the movements (or effects) you see as you move between two slides.

To add a transition to a PowerPoint slide, simply:

• Select the  slide
• Go to the  Transitions tab in the Ribbon
• In the Transitions to This Slide area, click on the  dropdown arrow  to view your options
• Select the  transition  you want

To adjust the settings of the transition, explore the options in the  Timing  area of the Transitions tab.

You can also add the same transition to multiple slides. To do that, select them in the  Slides Pane  and apply the transition.

E. How to preview a transition in PowerPoint

There are three ways to preview your PowerPoint transitions (just like your animations):

• Click on the Preview  button in the Transitions tab
• Click on the little star  beneath the slide number in the thumbnail view

Note:  In 2016, PowerPoint added a cool new transition, called Morph. It operates a bit differently from other transitions. For a detailed tutorial on how to use the cool Morph transition,  see our step-by-step article here .

Save Your PowerPoint Presentation

After you’ve built your presentation and made all the adjustments to your slides, you’ll want to save your presentation. YOu can do this several different ways.

To save a PowerPoint presentation using your Ribbon, simply:

• Navigate to the  File tab
•  Select  Save As  on the left
• Choose  where you want to save your presentation
• Name  your presentation and/or adjust your file type settings
• Click  Save

You can alternatively use the  Ctrl+S keyboard shortcut to save your presentation. I recommend using this shortcut frequently as you build your presentation to make sure you don’t lose any of your work.

This is the standard way to save a presentation. However, there may be a situation where you want to save your presentation as a different file type.

To learn how to save your presentation as a PDF, see our guide on converting PowerPoint to a PDF .

How to save your PowerPoint presentation as a template

Once you’ve created a presentation that you like, you may want to turn it into a template. The easiest – but not technically correct – way, is to simply create a copy of your current presentation and then change the content.

But be careful! A PowerPoint template is a special type of document and it has its own parameters and behaviors.

If you’re interested in learning about how to create your own PowerPoint template from scratch, see our guide on how to create a PowerPoint template .

Printing Your PowerPoint Presentation

After finishing your PowerPoint presentation, you may want to print it out on paper. Printing your slides is relatively easy.

To open the Print dialog box, you can either:

• Hit Ctrl+P on your keyboard
• Or go to the Ribbon and click on File and then Print

Inside the Print dialog box, you can choose from the various printing settings:

• Printer: Select a printer to use (or print to PDF or OneNote)
• Slides: Choose which slides you want to print
• Layout: Determine how many slides you want per page (this is where you can print the notes, outline, and handouts)
• Collated or uncollated (learn what collated printing means here )
• Color: Choose to print in color, grayscale or black & white

There are many more options for printing your PowerPoint presentations. Here are links to more in-depth articles:

• How to print multiple slides per page
• How to print your speaker notes in PowerPoint
• How to save PowerPoint as a picture presentation

So that’s how to create a PowerPoint presentation if you are brand new to it. We’ve also included a ton of links to helpful resources to boost your PowerPoint skills further.

When you are creating your presentation, it is critical to first focus on the content (what you are trying to say) before getting lost inserting and playing with elements. The clearer you are on what you want to present, the easier it will be to build it out in PowerPoint.

If you enjoyed this article, you can learn more about our PowerPoint training courses and other presentation resources by  visiting us here .

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Embedd Excel workbook in PPT and modify while presenting

Hi everyone, I have this small economic model that changes according to certain inputs. It is an Excel with some worksheets. I embedded the file in PowerPoint and I display certain bits from the worksheets. If I change data in the input section in Excel, the data on my PPT will also update. I want this to happen also in presentation mode. I want the user to be able to modify the model while presenting, without going through too many steps, cause as of now, the only solution I found is to have the Excel open on one screen, change the data, go on the PPT(the editing window, not the presentation window) and manually updated the excel components by right-clicking and selecting "Update". Is there any other way to embed a similar object or an excel file into a presentation? I can't seem to find anything that works.

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Replies (1) 

• Microsoft Agent |

Dear Alexandru Popescu,

I understand your concern and to my knowledge, I would like to convey that there is no setting or feature in the PowerPoint to update the links in the presentation mode.

I agree with you having the ability to update the links in the PowerPoint presentation automatically during the presentation mode in the PowerPoint will benefit the users and I suggest you to add your valuable idea as a feedback in the  PowerPoint · Community (microsoft.com)  which is the best place to share our ideas and improve the Microsoft PowerPoint product.

In addition, I believe your requirement can be achieved with the help of the VBA, I request you give a shot by posting your concern in the Office 365 VBA community to get the detailed help from the Office 365 VBA experts. Reference:  Office VBA support and feedback | Microsoft Learn

In addition, I will keep this thread open so that PowerPoint MVPs and experts in this community can share their ideas on this requirement.

Appreciate your patience and understanding. Have a great day!!

Best Regards,

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How to & Tips

How to Convert PPT to Video in Office 2007 with 3 Effective Ways

Updated on Feb 21, 2023

Until now, PowerPoint 2007 still has a group of loyal fans. However, it is an obstacle for these users that it cannot directly save PowerPoint as video 2007. Hence, this article summarizes 3 most effective methods to solve how to convert PPT to video in office 2007 issue. Let’s go for it!

• How to Convert PPT to Video in Office 2007?

Method 1 - Convert PowerPoint 2007 to Video with Windows Movie Maker

Method 2 - convert powerpoint 2007 to mp4 in microsoft powerpoint 2010/2013/2016, method 3 - convert powerpoint 2007 to video converter online.

If you have followed our articles, you may have learned how to convert PowerPoint to video in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010/2013/2016. It takes only a few steps for you to convert PPT to MP4 or WMV. However, there are still many people using Microsoft Office 2007, and have been accustomed to PowerPoint 2007 interface and operation. However, PowerPoint 2007 does not come with Create a video feature, then how to convert PPT to video in office 2007? Don't worry, you will find a satisfactory answer below.

We have solved “ Troubleshooting for Playing Embedded Video in PowerPoint ” issue, if you have the same issue, just take a view!

PowerPoint Video Downloader

In order to make PPT presentation more vivid, it is very important to insert a video in PPT. This PowerPoint video downloader will help you download videos from YouTube, Facebook, etc. It also supports simple editing. Download it to have a try!

3 Practical and Effective Methods about How to Make Video from PPT 2007

Since it is not possible to export video formats directly from PowerPoint 2007, you can save each slide as .jpg or .png image files and then import them into Windows Movie Maker to convert to video. The specific steps are as follows:

Step 1. How to convert PPT to video in office 2007? Firstly, use PowerPoint 2007 to open your PPT.

Step 2. Click the Office icon in the upper left corner > Save As > Other Formats.

Step 3. Define the file name. Select JPEG or PNG format in Save as type. Click Save and you will be asked "Do you want to export every slide in the presentation or only the current slide". Click Every Slide. Your PPT will be converted into many pictures in this way.

Step 4. Run Windows Movie Maker and click on the Add Videos and photos in the toolbar to import all the slides.

Step 5. (optional) You can also click Add music to add background music for your video , set transition effects, add title, recorded narrations, and other editing operations.

Step 6. Finally, click on the icon in the upper right corner > Save movie to convert your PowerPoint 2007 to video.

Also see: Convert MSWMM to MP4 with WMM | Convert WLMP to MP4 using Windows Live Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker has been laid to rest after many years of distinguished service, while there are some other excellent Windows Movie Maker alternatives available that are also easy to use.

If you use PowerPoint a lot, it is best to update to Microsoft Office 2010 or higher version. For one thing, PowerPoint 2010/2013/2016 are more powerful, for another, they will be downward compatible with PowerPoint 2007. This means that you can import PPT created in PowerPoint 2007 on the new version, and then convert it to video. The steps of PowerPoint 2007 to video are as follows:

Step 1. How to convert PowerPoint 2007 to video? Firstly, import PPT 2007 into PowerPoint 2010/2013/2016.

Step 2. Click File > Export on the menu bar.

Step 3. Click Create a Video to select the resolution, size, and quality of the video in Presentation Quality. If you need to add timings and narration, you can record it yourself.

Step 4. Fill in Seconds spent on each slide or keep the default for 5 seconds, then click the Create Video button.

Step 5. Customize video output directory, video file name and video output format (WMV or MP4).

Step 6. Click the Save button to start to save PowerPoint as video 2007.

If you think the above methods are troublesome, then you could also choose online PowerPoint 2007 to video converter apps to save PowerPoint as video 2007.

After testing and comparing, we recommend (http://www.mp3care.com--INVALID) online-convert.com to solve “how to convert PPT to video in office 2007” issue.

Step 1. For the sake of converting PowerPoint 2007 to video online, firstly, please visit http://www.mp3care.com/powerpoint-to-video.aspx https://video.online-convert.com/convert-to-mp4 .

Step 2. Upload PowerPoint file (ppt, pptx, pps or ppsx) you want to convert to video.

Step 3. Set video parameters such as resolution, bitrate, frame rate, etc., before conversion.

Step 4. Once the settings are ready, hit START to begin converting PPT 2007 to video at once. The video will automatically be saved to your computer.

Tips: When converting PPT to video online, please don’t click on ads or other plugins to avoid loss.

Hot search: Top 5 Free Online Video Converters | Top 5 Free Online Audio Compressors | Top 5 Free Online Video Cutters

Now, all three methods of how to convert PPT to video in office 2007 have been explained, have you mastered them? In fact, the actual operation is far less complicated than it seems. I hope this article will do help you, and you can share it at will.

Download Video for PPT Presentation

With HD Video Converter Factory Pro, you can download videos from YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo and other video-sharing sites. And then you can insert downloaded videos to your PPT for better presentation.

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How-To Geek

How to get microsoft office for free.

Don't want to pay for a subscription or buy the standalone version?

Quick Links

Use office online in a browser; it's free, sign up for a free one-month trial, get office free as a student or teacher, try the mobile apps on phones and small ipads, join someone's microsoft 365 home plan, free microsoft office alternatives, key takeaways.

There are a few ways to get Microsoft Office for free: You can use Office for free in your browser, you can sign up for a one-month free trial, or you may get access through your educational institution if you’re a student or teacher.

Microsoft Office normally starts at $70 per year, but there are quite a few ways to get it for free. We'll show you all the ways you can get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office applications without paying a cent.

Whether you're using a Windows PC, Mac, or Chromebook, you can use Microsoft Office for free in a web browser. The web-based versions of Office are simplified and won't work offline, but they still offer a powerful editing experience. You can open and create Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents right in your browser.

To access these free web apps, just head to Office.com and sign in with a free Microsoft account. Click an application icon—like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint—to open the web version of that application.

You can also drag and drop a file from your computer onto the Office.com page. It will be uploaded to your Microsoft account's free OneDrive storage, and you can open it in the associated application.

Office's web applications have some limitations. These applications aren't quite as full featured as the classic Office desktop applications for Windows and Mac, and you can't access them offline. But they do offer surprisingly powerful Office applications, and they're completely free.

If you just need Microsoft Office for a short period of time, you can sign up for a one-month free trial. To find this offer, head to Microsoft's Try Microsoft 365 for free website, and sign up for the trial.

You will have to provide a credit card to sign up for the trial, and it will automatically renew after the month. However, you can cancel your subscription at any time—even right after signing up—to ensure you won't get billed. You can continue using Office for the rest of your free month after canceling.

After joining the trial, you can download full versions of these Microsoft Office applications for Windows PCs and Macs. You'll also get access to the full versions of the apps on other platforms, including larger iPads.

This trial will give you full access to a Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) Home plan. You'll get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and 1TB of storage in OneDrive. You can share it with up to five other people. They'll each get access to the apps via their Microsoft account, and will have their own 1TB of storage for a combined 6TB of storage.

Microsoft also offers free 30-day evaluations of Microsoft 365 for Business , which is intended for businesses. You might be able to take advantage of both offers for two months of free Microsoft Office access.

Many educational institutions pay for Office 365 plans, allowing students and teachers to download the software for free.

To find out if your school participates, head to the Office 365 Education website, and enter your school email address. You'll be offered a free download if it's available to you through your school's plan.

Even if a university or college doesn't participate, it may offer Microsoft Office at a reduced cost to students and teachers through its bookstore. Check with your educational institution—or at least look on its website—for more details.

Microsoft's Office apps are free on smartphones, too. On an iPhone or Android phone, you can download the Office mobile apps to open, create, and edit documents for free.

On an iPad or Android tablet, these apps will only let you create and edit documents if you have a "device with a screen size smaller than 10.1 inches." On a larger tablet, you can install these apps to view documents, but you'll need a paid subscription to create and edit them.

In practice, this means Word, Excel, and PowerPoint offer a full experience for free on the iPad Mini and older 9.7-inch iPads. You'll need a paid subscription to get document-editing capabilities an iPad Pro or newer 10.2-inch iPads.

Microsoft 365 Home subscriptions are meant to be shared among multiple people. The $70 per year version offers Office for a single person, while the $100 per year subscription offers Office for up to six people. You'll get the full experience, with Office for Windows PCs, Macs, iPads, and other devices.

Anyone who pays for Microsoft 365 Home (formerly known as Office 365 Home) can share it with up to five other Microsoft accounts. It's very convenient: Sharing is managed through an Office "Sharing" page on Microsoft's account website. The main owner of the account can add five other Microsoft accounts, and each of those accounts will receive an invitation link.

After joining the group, each person can sign in with their own Microsoft account to download the Office apps—just as if they were paying for their own subscriptions. Each account will have a separate 1TB of OneDrive storage.

Microsoft says the subscription is meant for sharing among your "household." So, if you have a family member or even a roommate with this service, that person can add you to their subscription for free.

The Home plan is definitely the best deal if you're going to pay for Microsoft Office. If you can split a $100 per year subscription among six people, that's under $17 every year per person.

By the way, Microsoft partners with some employers to offer a discount on Office subscriptions for their employees. Check Microsoft's Home Use Program website to see if you qualify for a discount.

If you're looking for something else, consider choosing a different office application. There are completely free office suites that sport good compatibility with Microsoft Office documents, spreadsheets, and presentation files. Here are some of the best:

• LibreOffice is a free and open-source office application for Windows, Mac, Linux, and other operating systems. It's similar to the desktop versions of Microsoft Office , and it can even work with and create Office documents in common file types like DOCX documents, XLSX spreadsheets, and PPTX presentations. LibreOffice was based on OpenOffice. While OpenOffice is still around, LibreOffice has more developers and is now the more popular project. You can even make LibreOffice look like Microsoft Office .
• Apple iWork is a free collection of office applications for Mac, iPhone, and iPad users. This is Apple's competitor to Microsoft Office, and it used to be paid software before Apple made it free. Windows PC users can access a web-based version of iWork through the iCloud website, too.
• Google Docs is a capable collection of web-based office software. It stores your files in Google Drive , Google's online file storage service. Unlike Microsoft's Office web apps, you can even access Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides offline in Google Chrome.

There are many other alternatives, but these are some of the best.

If you just don't want to pay a monthly fee, you can still purchase a boxed copy of Microsoft Office. However, Office Home & Student 2021 costs $150, and you can only install it on one device.

Microsoft is slated to release a standalone version of Office 2024 , but it has not been released yet. Be sure to keep an eye out for it.

You won't get a free upgrade to the next major version of Office, either. If you're going to pay for Office, the subscription is probably the best deal —especially if you can split a paid plan with other people.