Introduction
In This Introduction
Sure, you could go and spend your money on a book that calls you a dummy, but where’s the dignity in that? Instead, imagine that a book exists that provides a detailed, under-the-hood look at PowerPoint 2007. Suppose that the two people who wrote this book actually work for Microsoft on the PowerPoint team, implemented PowerPoint 2007 features, and can write intelligently about them. Well, stop dreaming because you’re holding it.
Who Should Buy This Book
So, you’re wondering if this book is right for you and how it could possibly be different from the 20 other PowerPoint books on the shelf.
Not for Newbies
If you have never used PowerPoint before and you are looking for a book to teach you the bare basics, this is not it. We’re not going to walk through how to turn on your computer. Unlike every other PowerPoint book currently on the market, we’re not even going to walk through creating a basic presentation. Chances are you already know how to do that. We assume that you are reasonably comfortable using a computer, at ease with the bare PowerPoint basics, and have survived creating a presentation or two. That lets us focus our time on what you probably don’t know.
Not a Comprehensive Dictionary
If you’re looking for an exhaustive guided tour through every single PowerPoint feature, this is not it. Many basic PowerPoint tasks won’t even be mentioned. Unlike those other books, we do our best not to baby you through every single feature, just to claim that it’s in the book.
The exception to this rule is if we present to you a feature that is new to PowerPoint 2007, and not in previous versions. We might go into more detail, which might seem basic, to introduce you to how it works.
No Tips on Improving Your Presenting Skills
If you want to learn how to present in front of large audiences without your voice cracking, you will get better tips from joining Toastmasters than reading this book. We cannot help you deliver your presentations any better than you already do. What we can do is turn you into a PowerPoint power user, making your presentations better.
PowerPoint is a tool. Consider us the rugged hardware store employee ready to help you understand exactly what potential you can unleash with the tool. With these tools, you will be able to create richer, more interesting presentations in less time, which gives you more time to focus on the content and delivery.
So What’s in Here?
Consider this a tour through the back roads of PowerPoint—an advanced insider look at what PowerPoint can do from two guys who have worked on the product itself. Our goal with this book is to provide a sampler of what’s out there. We hope to show you things you didn’t know were in PowerPoint and demonstrate the value in features you’ve long cursed or glossed over as uninteresting.
If you have recently upgraded to Office 2007, want to know what cool new features are included in PowerPoint 2007, and are curious how to use them, you will enjoy our introduction to those as well. If you are already a seasoned PowerPoint veteran and feel as if you have mastered it all, give us a shot, and we’ll show you something that you didn’t know existed.
Applying to Business School?
Recently, the University of Chicago School of Business decided to require applicants to submit a PowerPoint presentation as part of the application. This book will definitely help if you plan on applying to business school or are already in business school and want to become a PowerPoint expert.
How This Book Is Organized
If you read this book front to back, you might think that two separate books have somehow been interleaved. This is because every section in this book belongs to one of two categories:
- An advanced feature that is not well-known and contains many tips and tricks for saving you time and energy
- A feature that is new to PowerPoint 2007 and did not exist in previous versions of PowerPoint
You might ask why we did not organize the book by splitting it in half and covering each category in one half, and the answer is because some features rely on others.
There is a natural progression to the book that you will notice after you can create pieces of your presentation, position and manipulate them, and then finally put them all together and blow away your audience.
This book is organized into six major parts according to this progression:
- Part I: “Finding Your Way Around"—PowerPoint has undergone a makeover, and this part aims at helping you adjust to the new user interface. This section is helpful regardless of whether you know where features are in older versions of PowerPoint or you are brand new to them.
- Part II: “Creating Content"—This part might appear more basic than it really is. First things first: you must know how to add the primitive PowerPoint pieces to your slides, such as text, shapes, images, and more. Don’t assume that you know everything there is to know about these simple objects; we show you a trick or two here that can save you some time.
- Part III: “Manipulating Content"—After you have content on your slides, we show you how to give it a common design, make everything match, position it exactly where it needs to be, and really give it the fit and finish that your presentation needs to be heads above the rest.
- Part IV: “Wowing Your Audience"—Creating presentations is not all that PowerPoint can do. This part shows you how to fully use PowerPoint while presenting and also how to perfect animations and transitions to avoid looking cheesy, yet still impress an audience.
- Part V: “PowerPoint Files Unleashed"—PowerPoint 2007 introduces a new file format (
.pptx), which can be confusing if you have questions about upgrading and are worried about compatibility. We ease your concerns and, in addition, discuss the numerous formats that presentations can be exported to, as well as why that is important. - Part VI: “Finding Help"—If you still have unanswered questions after going through this book, we provide some resources to help you get answers.
Conventions Used in This Book
Here are the conventions used to help you get the most from this book and from PowerPoint 2007.
Icons
As we mentioned before, this book contains two types of sections.
When you see this, it means that the content is primarily about a new feature in PowerPoint 2007, and the level of detail might be higher and more broadly discussed.
This icon indicates that the tip or trick is not well known or not for beginners; and even if you are familiar with the feature, you can still learn a thing or two here.
Text Conventions
Key combinations are represented with a plus sign. For example, if the text calls for you to enter Ctrl+S, you would press the Ctrl key and the S key at the same time.
Code continuation arrows (
) are used to indicate when lines of code are too long to fit on one line on the printed page, and we have broken them manually. Lines broken with the code continuation arrow should be entered on one line when programming.
Special Elements
Throughout this book, you can find Tips, Notes, Cautions, and Sidebars. These elements provide a variety of information, ranging from warnings, extra tips, and side information that sometimes only serves the purpose of entertaining. We end up sprinkling anecdotal facts about PowerPoint features that we picked up along the way.
Tip
Tips show you how to do something easier, save you some time, or find something that might not be obvious.
Note
Notes are helpful for learning more about certain features and sometimes contain history about how something came to be the way it is.
Caution
Cautions are primarily here to prevent you from doing something that might end up causing you some grief.
Sidebars
Sidebars contain smaller topics that didn’t quite fit into a section on their own but contain a lot of useful information.