GoSkills
Help Sign up Share
Back to course

Launching PowerPoint and Choosing a Theme

Quiz me Quiz Compact player layout Large player layout
Focus video player for keyboard shortcuts
Auto
  • 720p
  • 540p
  • 360p
1.00x
  • 0.50x
  • 0.75x
  • 1.00x
  • 1.25x
  • 1.50x
  • 1.75x
  • 2.00x
cc

We hope you enjoyed this lesson.

Get the Microsoft PowerPoint course for more great video tutorials.

Start free trial

Cool lesson, huh? Share it with your friends

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Email

  • Lesson resourcesResources
  • Quick referenceReference
  • Transcript
  • Notes

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:

2010, 2013, 2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

Download the PowerPoint presentation used in the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

Launching PowerPoint and Choosing a Theme
609.2 KB

Quick reference

Launching PowerPoint and Choosing a Theme

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   

  • Click the File tab, and then click New and browse online templates or search with a text string.

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, 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 and videos.
  • Microsoft ® Backstage ® view appears when you click the File tab.

 

 

Login to download
  • 00:04 You're sitting in the office when the manager walks in and says, hey,
  • 00:07 the project's going really well, I'd like you to build a presentation for me so
  • 00:11 I can share with the executive team meeting this afternoon.
  • 00:14 And you think, well, where do they get these great ideas from?
  • 00:17 So this series of videos is about helping you to work in PowerPoint and
  • 00:22 to build presentations effectively and quickly.
  • 00:26 And make them to have an impact on your audience.
  • 00:29 So when you first open PowerPoint, PowerPoint is even smart enough to know
  • 00:32 that you are in Australia or it's good morning.
  • 00:35 So we have the Home tab and you can click on the New presentation icon.
  • 00:40 And you get a series of presentations.
  • 00:43 Let's just go for a blank presentation.
  • 00:46 And this is the familiar PowerPoint layout that you may be used to.
  • 00:51 Over here we have some thumbnails in this gallery.
  • 00:53 We have a slide that we're used to working on.
  • 00:56 We have the ribbon at the top.
  • 00:58 And down the bottom, we can drag up this little notes area.
  • 01:02 I will explore these options further in videos later on.
  • 01:06 Now this is all great, but are there other short cuts under the roof of PowerPoint
  • 01:10 that allows to build that presentation for the boss quickly?
  • 01:13 Well, absolutely, if we go to the File tab.
  • 01:17 And we can see the Home button, which is what we saw before.
  • 01:22 We can look at some icons for some various themes.
  • 01:25 Depending on how your PowerPoint is set up, you might see a list of recent
  • 01:28 presentations, or ones that you've pinned, or ones that are shared.
  • 01:33 But let's go to More themes.
  • 01:36 And this is probably the interface in
  • 01:39 backstage that most people are familiar with.
  • 01:42 We save some icons of presentation themes within the gallery.
  • 01:46 We can click on a particular icon,
  • 01:48 look at the various variants to see what the colors might look like.
  • 01:53 As well as scroll across and see a kind of content in that presentation.
  • 01:57 However, if that is not exactly what you want,
  • 02:00 you can also search within this area.
  • 02:04 And I pasted some text off the clipboard.
  • 02:07 So build a business project plan, click the Search icon, PowerPoint goes away.
  • 02:14 Let's click on this one, it doesn't look too bad.
  • 02:18 Click across, and
  • 02:19 we can see that this particular presentation contain some content.
  • 02:23 So click Create and PowerPoint goes away and
  • 02:26 builds that presentation in the background.
  • 02:29 We can see that it does indeed have some content.
  • 02:31 We can look at various slides, a hierarchy chart, or
  • 02:35 what we used to call an organizational chart.
  • 02:38 So that's very good and is very important at this stage that you actually go away
  • 02:42 and build this presentation.
  • 02:45 You need to change the content,
  • 02:46 make it your own after you've seen thousands of presentations.
  • 02:50 There is nothing worse than seeing the same old pictures and clip art and
  • 02:54 content, so certainly be different and standard from the crowd.
  • 02:58 So, now that we have our basic presentation built, and
  • 03:01 presuming we've gone away and constructed this, we need to save it.
  • 03:06 Now, if we go to the File tab, Save.
  • 03:10 Now, notice that PowerPoint immediately jumps across to the Save As tab, and
  • 03:15 that is because this presentation has not been saved.
  • 03:18 We're given some recent folders, which I haven't used, because this is a new
  • 03:23 version of PowerPoint, OneDrive, which is an online area for Microsoft
  • 03:28 on this PC, and I'll click browse, and
  • 03:33 then PowerPoint brings up the Save As dialog box.
  • 03:37 Now, PowerPoint has already used the text out of that to give me a suggested name.
  • 03:43 I'm going to paste in the text that I had, Business Project Plan.
  • 03:48 I'm going to click on this GoSkills folder.
  • 03:50 Now, there's already a presentation in there of the same name that I
  • 03:54 created some days ago.
  • 03:56 And if I was to click that, it would overwrite it.
  • 04:00 However, if I click something and call it, say Business Plan 2 or
  • 04:06 even Business Plan version 2, and I click Save.
  • 04:11 PowerPoint goes away and saves that in the background, and
  • 04:15 there is Business Project Plan V2.pptx, and it's saved to this PC.
  • 04:20 Now if we look in Windows Explorer,
  • 04:22 we can indeed see those two presentations in there.
  • 04:27 So while we're here, we've saved the presentation.
  • 04:32 Let's have a look at some more options.
  • 04:34 So in this particular area, so the File tab > Save As > This PC,
  • 04:39 we're given the name.
  • 04:40 There are other options to save as, as well.
  • 04:43 You can save as PDF, as a template.
  • 04:48 You can even save particular slides as graphics, or you can save it as a movie.
  • 04:54 But there are other ways to do that as well, so explore those.
  • 04:58 I must admit that I haven't used all of them either.
  • 05:01 Also while we're here, we have the Info tab which allows us to upload our
  • 05:06 presentation or share it or some document management, protect the presentation.
  • 05:12 We've seen Save.
  • 05:14 We can print the presentation, which is the subject of another video.
  • 05:18 We can share it with people online either as a PowerPoint presentation or PDF.
  • 05:25 As well as we can export it as a PDF or create a video.
  • 05:30 Package the presentation for CD, create handouts, and
  • 05:35 again here is another area where we can change the file type.
  • 05:38 So when building a presentation for the first time,
  • 05:41 we have what's known as the tri pane view.
  • 05:43 We will use the tri pane view in other videos in this series.
  • 05:48 You go to the File tab, and if you're on the Home tab, which
  • 05:52 is new in this version of PowerPoint, you get a couple of icons up there.
  • 05:57 However, you can click for More themes.
  • 06:00 You can click on any of the thumbnails in the gallery, as well as see the variants.
  • 06:04 Scroll across and see what content is in those slides.
  • 06:09 Or if you wish, you can type in a specific search, or
  • 06:12 even click on any of these suggested searches.
  • 06:16 And PowerPoint will go away in the background and
  • 06:20 give you some content to have a look at.
  • 06:23 So there we go, we've built our presentation, we've customized it,
  • 06:25 saved it, and it's ready for the boss' review.
  • 06:28 She will think we're awesome.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.

Adding Slides, Changing Layouts and Exploring the Outline
3m:53s
Share this lesson and earn rewards

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Email

Gift this course
Give feedback

How is your GoSkills experience?

I need help

Your feedback has been sent

Thank you

Back to the top

© 2021 GoSkills Ltd. Skills for career advancement