- Open PowerPoint in the Microsoft Office Suite.
- Under Design, choose your template. You can change your template at any time, though you may have to play around with formatting.
- Most templates come with many slide types, but normally you just need the first two. The first is a title slide, and the second is the basis of the rest of your slides. Delete all other slide types.
- Your second slide is the most important. Spend a lot of time on it and get it looking like you want. Then, just go to New Slide - Duplicate Selected Slides for any subsequent slide and modify to taste.
Inserting Pictures
- Find and download pictures to your computer.
- Then, in PowerPoint, go to the top Insert tab and choose Picture on the left of the top menu.
- Navigate to the picture, select it, and press Insert.
- Under the Picture Tools tab, add effects from the top ribbon.
Inserting Text Boxes
- If a text box doesn't already exist, go to the top Insert tab and choose Text Box in the middle of the top menu.
- Place the mouse pointer to where you want the text box to start.
- If needed, grab along the edge of the text box to move it into position.
- Clicking inside the box allows you to start typing.
Creating Bullets
- Inside a text box, one sentence bullets are preferred over paragraphs.
- In the top middle of the Home tab, look for the bullet button. You can also use the number buttons if you're making a numbered list.
Creating Animations Within Slides
- Go to the Animations tab.
- Choose Animation Pane.
- Highlight your first bulleted sentence, choose Add Animation, choose Entrance, and select an entrance animation. Professional presenters often choose Fade, but you can play around with this field to find your favourites.
- On the Animation Pane to the right, check to see the order of each animation.
- Titles should not be animated. Just animate bulleted items and graphics.
Creating Transitions Between Slides
- Select a slide.
- Select the Transitions tab.
- Choose the transition you would like.
- You may, on the right side of the top menu, select Apply To All.
