Creating presentations from scratch is time-consuming and requires some skill and knowledge about PowerPoint. Even people with intermediate and advanced PowerPoint skills can save time by capitalizing on the work someone else has already done. When you don’t need help with the content of a presentation but you do need help with its design, you can start a new presentation based on an Office Theme template or a project template, both available from the Project Gallery.
In Chapter 4, and Chapter 5, we discussed the Project Gallery, from which you can create a variety of blank or purpose-specific Office documents from templates. By using the PowerPoint presentation templates that are available in the Project Gallery, you can create either a blank, themed presentation or a presentation containing content.
Other than the blank presentation template available from the Blank Documents category, all the PowerPoint templates in the Project Gallery are in the Office Themes category and the Presentations category. (And, in the same vein, all the project templates in those categories are PowerPoint templates.)
The Office Themes category includes 49 themes. Choosing a template in this category creates a presentation with an attractive, professional design template attached. (Opening the project template creates a presentation containing only a blank title slide. Slides you add to the presentation automatically pick up the fonts, colors, and backgrounds of the theme.)
You can base a presentation on a project template from the Project Gallery, or you can design your own presentation and save it as a template.
See Also
For information about saving your own templates, see "Create a Personalized Project Template" in Chapter 4.
The Presentations category of the Project Gallery includes six templates that create presentations containing instructional content that either teaches you about PowerPoint 2008 or teaches you how to modify the presentation with your information.
The Presentations category includes templates to create the following stock presentations:
Classic Photo Album. This presentation includes slide layouts for presenting from one to five images in a variety of arrangements, with corresponding captions. The default theme is intended for the presentation of black-and-white photos.
Contemporary Photo Album. This presentation includes slide layouts similar to those in the Classic Photo Album. The default theme is intended for the presentation of color photos.
Introducing PowerPoint 2008. This presentation is full of useful information about creating content in a PowerPoint 2008 presentation. It uses standard slide layouts and is intended more as a learning tool than as an actual template.
Pitch Book. This is a structured presentation containing tightly packed text and graphics. Pitch books are usually intended for print, rather than on-screen, presentation. Pitch book slide layouts include an agenda slide that functions as a table of contents, and structured slides designed to present content in from one to five designated areas.
Quiz Show. This presentation includes animated slide templates for presenting True/False, question/answer, multiple choice, and matching questions and answers to your audience.
Widescreen Presentation. Slides in this presentation have an aspect ratio of 16:9 (10 inches wide by 5.63 inches high) to fit the widescreen flat panel monitors that are now available, rather than the default "on-screen show" aspect ratio of 4:3 (10 inches wide by 7.5 inches high).
See Also
For information about slide aspect ratio, see "Change Standard Slide Settings" in Chapter 10.