Creating a Blank Presentation

PowerPoint offers three ways to create a presentation: Blank presentation, From Design Template or From AutoContent Wizard.

The Blank presentation option is one of the more commonly used methods. It offers several blank slides with layouts for text and graphics.

To Create a Blank Presentation:

• Open PowerPoint.
• A slide featuring a place for a title and subtitle appears by default. You may begin your presentation with this slide or choose a different slide layout.

• The New Presentation Pane appears on the right side of the screen.
• Under New, click Blank Presentation.
• A list appears.

Choosing a Slide Layout

As you work on your presentation, think about the type of layout you want. Do you want a slide with text and lots of clip art or one with text and a chart? PowerPoint offers many layout options.

To Choose a Slide Layout:

• Move your arrow pointer over the layouts or use the scroll bar in the Slide Layout Pane.
• A gray bar appears on the right of each layout.
• When you find a layout that you like, click the down-pointing arrow and choose Apply to Selected Slide.

Placeholders

Once you choose a layout for your slides, you can begin adding text, graphics or other items. You do this with placeholders - specials places within a slide where you can add content.

To Add Text to a Placeholder:

• Click on the placeholder.
• Start typing.

(You'll learn about inserting clip art and other graphics into placeholders later in this course)

Saving a Presentation

You can save, close, and exit presentations in PowerPoint just as you would while using other Microsoft applications.

To Save a Presentation:

• Click on FileSave. (Ctrl + S)

• Choose the location where you want to save your presentation. (My Documents is a good place).
• Type a name in the File Name box or keep the one that PowerPoint has provided.

Closing a Presentation and Exiting PowerPoint

Once you've finishing working on your presentation, you can quickly close it.

To Close a Presentation:

• Click the X in the PowerPoint presentation window (Ctrl + W).

• The PowerPoint application remains open and you can start a new presentation. (See next page for details).

To Exit PowerPoint:

• Click the X in the far right top corner.

OR

• Choose FileExit. (Alt + F4)

Creating a New Presentation Using the Traditional Method

Remember, after you have closed one presentation, you can easily start a new one while PowerPoint is still open by using the traditional new file creation method.

To Start a New Presentation:

• Click on FileNew. (Ctrl + N)

• In the New Presentation Pane, under New choose Blank Presentation.

• Choose the design layout that you want.

In this series of challenges you are going to prepare a presentation about where you learn. This presentation can contain facts about the city or town where you learn and the place you use the GCFLearnFree.org® website (home, library, learning center, internet cafe, etc.).

• Start PowerPoint.
• Use the downward pointing arrow, beside Getting Started in the Task Pane, to select New PresentationBlank Presentation.
• Choose a slide layout with a title and a subtitle placeholder.
• Type Where I Learn in the title placeholder.
• Type your name or username and today's date in the subtitle placeholder.

• Save the document as Example One .
• Exit PowerPoint.