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About this lesson
Use a professionally designed template to save time creating a presentation.
Lesson versions
Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:
Exercise files
Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ PowerPoint presentations from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.
Launching PowerPoint, and Choosing a Theme30.4 KB Launching PowerPoint, and Choosing a Theme - Complete
145.2 KB
Quick reference
Topic
Using online templates to create presentations quickly, that can be saved in various formats.
When to use
To create, save and export presentations.
Instructions
To create a new file
- On the ribbon, click the File tab, and then click New and browse online templates or search for a text string.
- On the ribbon, click the File tab, and then click Save As, and browse to a location online or on your computer.
- On the ribbon, click the File tab, and then click Export, Create PDF/XPS document, and select Create PDF/XPS.
To save a file in various formats
- Click the File tab, and then click Save As, and browse to an online location or on your computer.
- Click the File tab, then the Export tab, and then the Create PDF/XPS Document tab, and then click Create PDF/XPS.
Also note:
- Presentations can be saved in many formats including as images, templates or videos.
- Microsoft ® Backstage ® view appears when you click the File tab.
- 00:04 You’re sitting in your office having a chat to the manager when suddenly she has a brainwave, “I think this project’s going really well. Why don’t
- 00:11 we present about it to the CEO this afternoon at the executive meeting.” Where do they get these clever ideas from? And so there you are
- 00:19 sitting with a copy of PowerPoint, and you’ve got 2 hours to build a presentation and have it on her desk for review. What do you do? Well
- 00:27 fortunately, this video is about not only where to start, but this series of videos will help you understand very clearly how to build
- 00:36 presentations, make them effective, and achieve your outcomes. So in PowerPoint, when you first open it, you may see slides and ribbon or
- 00:46 indeed a thumbnail of a slide. If we click file, new, you may even see this which is called backstage and there’s a range of presentations
- 00:53 already preloaded here. You can click on a thumbnail, scroll across and see images of the slides, change particular variants, or you can
- 01:03 even search for a particular presentation such as Business Strategy in the search bar. Now I’m going to select this one and have a look at it,
- 01:11 scroll across, it seems ok, click create. And there PowerPoint had downloaded that template ready for me to work on. I notice in the status
- 01:21 bar that this slide is one of seven slides, and each slide contains recommended content that we could use. And so we could go away and
- 01:29 build that presentation and get the work done. Next thing that we have to do is actually save that and so we go file, and when I click save in
- 01:37 this version, PowerPoint automatically jumps across to the Save As tab, because this is a new presentation and hasn’t been saved. And if
- 01:45 you just close this down at this point you’ll just lose everything. So I’m offered locations such as SkyDrive, which is Microsoft’s online storage
- 01:53 system. I got to the computer and browse. I’m going to go to the GoSkill's library and the folder within that library. Now there’s already a
- 02:04 presentation in there. If I click on that and save it will likely override it and I don’t want to do that, so I paste the text in that I used before off the
- 02:13 clipboard. I want to save as a PowerPoint pptx presentation, although there’s a range of other things I could save as, such as a show and
- 02:23 some of these other formats, some of which I admit I’ve never used. So I click save, PowerPoint goes away and does that and now
- 02:29 my file is call Business Strategy.pptx and we can see that it’s also located within that folder in Windows Explorer. Now, here’s the most
- 02:39 important part. We need to work on this presentation from a proper storyboard, we need to add or delete slides, move them around, build
- 02:48 charts, or tables or whatever is needed to get the story across. After you’ve looked at enough presentations, you get to recognize various
- 02:56 templates, you see the same SmartArt graphics and effects so please be different, stand out from the crowd! Be unique; don’t be a clone of
- 03:05 everyone else. And as you go through the various modules and videos, you will continue to learn how to build quickly, how to be clear and
- 03:12 have confidence so that you can try different things. And so, presuming that you have done all of that, let’s now look at getting this
- 03:19 presentation out to people. If I go to the File tab again, we can print, we can share it, so I can send it by email to various people as an
- 03:28 attachment or as a PDF. I can publish the slides or I can export it, I can package for CD, create a video, or a PDF. So let’s create a PDF so I click
- 03:40 the button. The publish as PDF dialog box pops up; it’s already called it Business Stragey.pdf. I want to open the file after publishing to look at it
- 03:51 and as a standard size. So I click on publish and PowerPoint goes away in the background and publishes that. Now how long that takes
- 04:00 depends on the size and the complexity of your presentation, as well as the resources of your computer. Now notice that at this stage it’s only
- 04:07 a very small size and that’s great in terms of sharing information for people but this particular file doesn’t have the content that you would
- 04:16 really need and so your presentation should be bigger than this. So just remember that if you’re in a hurry there are a bunch of resources in the
- 04:24 background of PowerPoint as a place to start. Have a look at some of those templates and themes that are available and use them as the
- 04:31 basis of starting to design your presentation and you’ll get your work done faster. But be different and use the resources as the place to start your
- 04:40 presentation, and not the end of your work.
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