Microsoft Office PowerPoint is a presentation software used by business, education, and trainers to communicate their ideas in a graphics rich environment. In this course, we will learn to create our own PowerPoint presentations.

Before we begin, we should become familiar with some standard PowerPoint terminology.

Terms

• Presentation: The primary type of file PowerPoint is used to create. Presentations typically have the file extension .ppt; however, you can also save PowerPoint presentations as Adobe Acrobat documents with the file extension .pdf. Finally, you can save your presentation as a web page, with the file extension .html or .htm.
• Slides: Individual parts of a presentation. Slides are similar to the individual pages in a print document, and can contain text, graphics, and animation.
• Layout: The specific arrangement of text and images on a slide. Layouts can be very simple, consisting of simple titles and text, or they can be more complex and include elaborate colors and images. You can also include animation, sounds, and other multimedia objects in your layout.
• View: Microsoft PowerPoint has three main views: normal view, slide sorter view, and slide show view. Normal view is the main editing view. Slide sorter view is an exclusive view of your slides in thumbnail form, helpful for rearranging the order of your slides. Slide show view takes up the full computer screen, like an actual slide show presentation. In this full-screen view, you see your presentation the way your audience will.
• Design Template: The specific “look” of a slide or group of slides. A design template can be very basic – with black text on a white background – or it can be very colorful and complex. Typically, PowerPoint presentations have the same design template for all slides, although it is possible to select a different design template for each slide.
• Slide Show: The way a presentation appears when you are presenting it. When you display your slides in a slide show, the slides typically take up the whole screen, and they appear in sequence.
• Placeholder: Boxes with dotted or hatch-marked outlines that appear when you create a new slide. These boxes act as “placeholders” for objects such as the slide title, text, clip art, charts, and tables. Placeholders are sometimes called “text boxes.”
• Sizing handles: Small circles that appear along the edges of the selection rectangle around an object on your slide. You drag a sizing handle to change the shape or size of an object. To maintain the proportions of an object while resizing, simply drag a corner handle.