Creating Pages with Slides and Descriptive Text
If you want to create printable pages that have notes or descriptive text associated with each slide, PowerPoint has a feature designed to do just this called Notes Pages, or Speaker’s Notes (depending on which version you’re using). To view the Notes page for any slide, go to the View menu and select Notes Pages. You will see an image of your slide there, and a placeholder for adding your script, notes, or any other text you wish. You can cut-and-paste text from Word here if you like. To print these pages, bring up the Print dialog, and at the bottom of the dialog where it says "Print What:", select Notes Pages. These pages were originally designed to be used as audience hand outs (with space for the audience to take notes) but were also used by many as speaker’s notes: the text block would have the script of the presentation, to be used by the speaker, or for sales binders to educated sales people.
Making Presentation Files Smaller
Prior to PowerPoint 97, there was no internal file compression code inside of PowerPoint, and files could get pretty big quickly. The most common cause of large files is the addition of large bitmaps. PowerPoint 97 compresses these bitmaps, but previous versions do not. To keep your presentations as small as you can, try reducing the resolution of your bitmaps, which will bring their size down tremendously. For viewing on screen, the bitmaps don’t need to be more than 96 dpi; they won’t print nicely until they’re up around 150 or higher, but the screen always displays at 96 dpi, so if the primary viewing medium is the screen, there’s no point in having the bitmaps be a higher resolution. Also, the bitmap format can make a big difference to your file sizes. JPEG and PNG both have good internal compression code. GIF has some, but not as good as JPEG. BMP files are the largest; TIFF files will also be very large.
Sometimes, as you’re working on a presentation, you’ll notice that the file seems to get bigger for no reason. To get rid of this "bloating", save the file using "File/Save As" and give the file a new name. This can reduce the file size up to 50%.
Building Presentations for Distribution to Others
If you’re making a PowerPoint presentation that you intend to distribute to lots of different people, here are some important things to watch out for that will cause problems:
1. Stick with the fonts that come installed with Windows; Fancy fonts that appear on your machine will cause problems if everyone else doesn’t have them.
2. Avoid embedding sounds and videos: these will not go from Mac to Windows gracefully, and you have to be very careful about how you insert the files in order to get them to "travel" properly. See the FAQ section for more information on this.
3. Try looking at the presentation on a different platform (Mac vs Windows); be prepared for some visual changes in your file–the version or platform may not support some of the features you’ve put in, so be sure to sanity check your file on several different machines and versions BEFORE you distribute it!
Coming soon
PowerPoint Tips
Keeping pictures and artwork in proportion
Resizing pictures
Enabling PowerPoint slides in Word 95
Adding shapes to a PowerPoint slide
Maximizing the clipart library in PowerPoint97
Practicing PowerPoint presentations
Using only part of a picture in PowerPoint
Tips on using scanned photos in PowerPoint
Using layers in PowerPoint
Using graphics with text efficiently
Changing the background color in PowerPoint
Creating your own text logo in PowerPoint
Resizing a graphic without messing up aspect ratio and position
Recording a narration in PowerPoint
Spell checking a PowerPoint slide
Using PowerPoint’s semitransparent feature
Justifying text properly in PowerPoint
Making a PowerPoint slide with a semi-transparent background
Resizing text that is grouped with a picture
Adding a personal note to a PowerPoint slide
Hiding slides in PowerPoint
Showing a hidden slide during a PowerPoint presentation
Adding an Action button to a PowerPoint slide
Adding a background sound to a PowerPoint slide
Using AVI files with presentations
Automating a movie from a slide
Starting a slide show automatically from a double-click
Quickly setting transition effects for a slide show
Aligning PowerPoint objects
Using the new custom animations of PowerPoint 97
Using colors effectively in a presentation
Using curved text in PowerPoint
Sending a Word outline into PowerPoint
Creating signs
Tips on doing a PowerPoint presentation
Animating objects in PowerPoint
A good sense of humor equals a good presentation
Adding PowerPoint text
Getting information on your ClipArts
The new PowerPoint 97 plug-in that allow you to use PowerPoint presentations on the web.
Starting PowerPoint without the slide dialog box
Displaying the Animations toolbar
Using transitions to enhance your slide show