PowerPoint 97/2000: Formatting & Design
Introduction
In our PowerPoint
97: Introduction document, we discussed different ways of creating PowerPoint
presentations, starting with a template, a design template or a blank presentation.
We made slides with different layouts and various text and non-text objects, but all of
them essentially had the same overall design. In this handout, we'll make
slides that look different from the default design and also make our own design
template. We'll custom design slides, format text, draw visuals and graphic
objects, and add slide show animation. We will be working primarily in Slide
View.
Working with Masters
Every major component of a Powerpoint presentation (slides, handouts, title pages,
and notes pages) follows the format of a Master. The formatting depends on the
presentation’s underlying design template. In other words, every slide
that we add to our presentation will have a uniform color and background, as
well as the same font and bullet styles for text placeholders. All of these
elements are based on the Slide Master (or the Title Master for title slides).
To look at any of the slide master options, select
Masters from the View menu. From there you will have the following
four options:
- Slide Master—lets you add anything or change anything seen on a
slide. You’ll learn how to change each of these facets throughout the rest
of this document.
- Title Master—lets you to set up the title slide with dates,
footers, numbers, fonts, etc.
- Handout Master—lets you choose an outline, or how many slides per
page will print out onto handouts.
- Notes Master—lets you set up the notes pages view for both slide
view and print outs.
It is important to note that not every slide has to follow the Slide Master. In
this handout, you'll learn how to make formatting changes to individual slides.
You'll also use the same techniques to make formatting changes to the Slide
Master, which consequently changes the format of all the slides in your
presentation. For example, you may want to change the color or the text and
bullet styles, or you may want to add a background item such as a logo or
graphic. When you make formatting changes on a slide, the change will be
reflected only on that slide; when you make the changes on the Slide Master,
the format will be applied to all the slides in the presentation.
Slide Color Scheme
Each design template, including the Blank Presentation, follows a standard color
scheme, which consists of a set of eight colors used for the slide background,
text, lines, shadows, fills, and accents. You can select another standard
color scheme or you can create your own custom color scheme and then apply it
to some slides or to all your slides.
From the Format menu select Slide Color Scheme. The Color
Scheme dialog box appears. Click on the Standard tab to view the available
color schemes. If you want to apply a different color scheme, select it. Click
Preview to see how it looks on the current slide. Click Apply to use
this color scheme on the current slide or click Apply to All to change the color
scheme of the Slide Master, which will change all the slides in the presentation.
To create your own custom color scheme, click the Custom
tab on the Color Scheme dialog box. To change one of the colors, select
it and then click Change Color. A Color dialog box appears where
you can pick a standard color or create a custom color. You can also save the color
scheme you create as a standard scheme for the design template; just click
Add as Standard Scheme. To use the color scheme, click
Apply or Apply to All.
You are not limited to using the color scheme colors on your presentation.
You can always select another color for text or drawings. Once you use a color, it
will be available on any drop-down color menu as a selection, in addition to
the color scheme colors.
Slide Background
Each slide’s background may have color, shading and graphics. The background
attributes are automatically set by the Slide Master. To create a custom
background, select Backgroundfrom the Format
menu. Click the Background Fill drop-down list on the Custom Background
dialog box.
- To change background color, select one of the available colors or click
More Colors to pick a color from the Colors dialog box.
- To produce a background with shading, patterns, textures, or a picture, select
Fill Effects.
There are four options (or tabs) under Fill Effects:
- The first tab is Gradient. Options are described as follows:
- For a background with one color that fades to black or white, select One Color.
Choose the color from the Color drop-down menu and click the Dark or Light
arrows to increase or decrease the intensity of the shading.
- For a background with one color that fades into another color, select Two Color and
then select the two colors from the Color 1 and Color 2 drop-down menus.
- To choose from a set of specially created color fills, select Preset and then make
a selection from the Preset Colors drop-down list. Select one of the Shade
Styles. Several Variants appear. Pick one of the options from the Variants
box; this is the background you made for the combination of color(s) and shade
style you selected.
- To make a background with a pattern select Patterned
and the Pattern Fill dialog box appears. Choose a Foreground and a Background
color and then pick one of the available patterns.
- To use a special texture such as wood, marble, granite or paper as a background
fill, select Textured. Select a texture from the Textured Fill dialog box.
- To insert a picture such as a scanned image or graphic in the background, select
Picture and select the filename of the picture from the Insert Picture dialog box.
Click OK on all currently opened dialog boxes to return to the
Custom Background dialog box. Click Preview to see how your custom
background appears on the current slide. To use the background, click Apply
or Apply to All
.
If you made a slide with a background that differs from the Slide Master and you
wish to return to the default background color and shading, select Background
from the Format menu, choose Automatic from the Background Fill
drop-down list and click Apply.
There may be various graphics in the background depending on the presentation design
template. If you don’t want these graphics to appear on a slide, select
Background from the Format menu. On the Background dialog box,
check the Omit Background Graphics from Master box and click Apply.
You can also edit these graphics on Slide Master View; this will apply to all
slides in the presentation whose background graphics are not omitted. If you
want to add an object that appears in the background of all the slides such as
a logo, insert the object on the Slide Master.
Paragraph Formatting
Paragraph formatting includes bullets, alignment, tabs and indents, and line spacing.
To select a single paragraph for formatting, place the insertion point in that
paragraph. To format multiple paragraphs, extend the highlight into a portion
of all the paragraphs you want to format. To format all the paragraphs in a
text box of placeholder, click on the border of the text box or placeholder.
Tabs and Indents
Tab and indent settings are done quickly using the Ruler. To view the tab and
indent settings for a selected paragraph, select Ruler from the
View menu.
Arrows
on the Ruler change the paragraph indentation. On text boxes created with the
Text Tool, there are no preset indents (the arrows are on the left-most side of
the Ruler). On bulleted list placeholders, there can be up to five sets of
arrows, each corresponding to a sublevel in the list. The top arrow controls
the first line of the paragraph while the bottom one controls indentation for
the rest of the paragraph. Drag an arrow to change the paragraph indentation.
Drag the box attached directly below the bottom arrow to move both arrows
together.
To set a tab, click on the Tab button at the far left of the Ruler to
switch to a left, center, right or decimal tab button. Next, click the place on the
Ruler where you want the tab to appear. To adjust its location, drag the tab.
To discard the tab, drag it off the ruler.
The Formatting Toolbar
To format text in Slide View the long way, first click on the text to activate the
text box or placeholder and select or “highlight” the text. If you
want to format all the text in a text box or placeholder, click on the border
of the text box or placeholder. Then choose Font from the Format
menu and select the desired options from the Font
dialog box. Pick a Font,
Font Style and Size, and Effects, such as
Underline,
Shadow,
Emboss,
Subscript
or
Superscript.
When you subscript or superscript text, you can select the percentage by which
to offset the selected text from the baseline. To change text color, click on
the Color drop-down menu and select one of the available colors or click
Other Color to bring up the Colors dialog box. To preview the font
formatting changes, click Preview. Check the Default for New Objects
box to apply the font format you selected to subsequent text you enter on
slides. To apply the formatting changes, click OK.
But you can save a lot of time by using the Formatting toolbar (shown above) to
change text format. From left to right, there are drop down menus for Font
Face and Font Size followed by buttons to Bold, Italic, Underline, add Text
Shadow, Text Alignment, Bulleting, Character Spacing, Increase Font Size and
Decrease Font Size (by about 10% of the current size), Promote and Demote (from
the Intro document), and an animation effects button.
Bullets
To make an ordered list with bullets for a selected paragraph, select
Bullet from the Format menu. On the Bullet
dialog box, pick a font from the Bullets From
drop-down list menu. All the characters of the font you chose will be
displayed; click on the one you want to use as the bullet. To change the
bullet color, click the
Special Color drop down menu and select an available color, or click on
Other Color to bring up the Colors
dialog box. You can also change the Size
of the bullet to reflect a percentage of the paragraph's character font size.
Click OK to use the new bullet.
To remove the bullets of a selected paragraph in a bulleted list, you can check
off the Use a Bullet box on the Bullet dialog box or toggle off the
Bullet On/Off button on the Formatting toolbar. Note that the
paragraph is formatted with a hanging indent. To
change this, see the section on setting tabs and indents.
Alignment
To change the alignment of a selected paragraph, choose Left, Center,
Right or Justify from the submenu that appears when you select
Alignment from the
Format menu. For left or center alignment, you can also use the
Left Alignment and Center Alignment buttons on the
Formatting toolbar.
Line Spacing
To change spacing between lines and between paragraphs, select Line Spacing from
the Format menu and make adjustments on the Line Spacing dialog box. You can
also add or reduce the amount of space between selected paragraphs using the
Increase Paragraph Spacing or Decrease Paragraph Spacing buttons on the
Formatting toolbar.
Drawing Toolbar
The Drawing toolbar (shown on the right side of the next page), which is
displayed in Slide View, contains the tools for creating lines, arcs, freeforms,
and shapes. We will take each button in order from top to bottom and describe its
functions.
First, a few words about objects are in order. Just about everything you work
with in PowerPoint is an object, that is, things you make (text in a text box
or placeholder, a drawing, graph, table) or import from other applications
(ClipArt, WordArt, pictures). You select an object by clicking on it. To
select objects next to each other, click and drag on the slide to enclose the
objects in a dashed rectangle. If the objects are not contiguous, select the
first object and hold the
Shift key down while selecting the other objects. Once selected, you can move the
object(s) around or re-size them by dragging a handle. You can perform
standard Windows operations like Cut and Paste or Copy
and Paste.
You can also do slightly more complicated operations to get the effect you want.
Drawing Objects
There are numerous options under the Drawing Objects button on the
Drawing Toolbar. The upper three options deal with Grouping.
You can group objects together so you can manipulate them as one unit. First
select the objects. Then click the Group option under the
Drawing Objects button. The handles of the individual objects disappear
and one set of handles appear for the group. To ungroup or re-group a selected
object group, click the Ungroup Objects option on the same button.
Aligning
Objects snap into place on an invisible grid on the slide. To position objects
yourself, click Snap / To Grid from the Draw
menu. Check on Guides from the
View menu for horizontal and vertical guides that you can drag across
the slide to use as a guideline for positioning objects.
Stacking
You can stack objects on top of each other by moving them so they overlap. You can
also change the order in which they are stacked. Select the object in a stack
and click on the appropriate option under Order on the
Drawing toolbar. This will bring forward or send back your object
within the stack.
Flipping and Rotating
You
can flip and rotate any object you make in PowerPoint, including groups, if the
individual components are PowerPoint, and not imported from another
application. To flip a selected object horizontally (vertically), click the
Flip Rotate button (shown right and far right) on the
Drawing toolbar. To rotate the selected object 90 degrees in any direction
or flip the object vertically or horizontally, choose Rotate or Flip
under the drawing options on the Drawing toolbar.
AutoShapes
To draw a line, rectangle, ellipse or arc, click the
AutoShapes button. Choose the shape from the menu (shown here left)
and watch your mouse
pointer turn into crosshairs. Position the mouse pointer on the slide and
then, click and drag.
Adding
Specific Objects
Using
the next 4 buttons, one can add a specific line, arrow, rectangle or oval to
the presentation. First, select the appropriate button from the drawing
toolbar, then click and drag the image to the size and direction you desire on
the slide. These four buttons are shown here to the left under the AutoShapes
option and above the Textbox button.
Text
and WordArt
The
next two buttons on the Drawing toolbar add text or WordArt to your slides.
You can put text anywhere on your slide you choose. Once placing the text on
the slide, you have all the same options that are within the formatting toolbar
and under the Format / Font drop-down menu to make that text exactly what you
desire.
WordArt
takes is a tool within PowerPoint that gives words 3-D effects and certain
texture fills. After clicking on the WordArt button on the Drawing toolbar,
you will then be asked to choose your style of WordArt. Finally, you will be
asked to choose font and size after typing your text. PowerPoint will place
your selection on your slide at this time. Note: There are a lot of graphics,
and the speed of your computer will affect the speed at which the WordArt loads
onto your slide. It also affects the speed your computer can move the image as
you reposition it on your slide.
The
Last 8 Formatting Buttons
By default, lines you draw have the color scheme
Text & Lines color, arcs have no fill
and the color scheme Text & Lines color,
and AutoShapes have the color scheme
Text & Lines color for their outline and the color scheme
Fills for their inside portions. Freeform closed polygons have
AutoShape formatting while freehand drawings have
arc formatting.
To change a drawn object’s default formatting, select the object and select
Colors and Lines
from the Format
menu. On the Colors and Lines dialog box, you can select a Fill similar to the
Background Fill options and make the fill Semi-Transparent. You can select
Line Color and Style, and make Dashed lines and Arrows. To use the new fill
and line settings for subsequent objects you draw check the Default For new
Objects box.
The
menu choices for formatting colors and lines are also available on the Drawing
toolbar. To change an object’s fill (line color), select the object and
click the Fill Color button (Line Color button) on the Drawing toolbar. For
lines, the buttons available on the Drawing toolbar are from the top, Line
Style, Arrowheads and Dashed Lines.
To
add or remove the default shadow on a selected object, click the Shadow On/Off
button on the Drawing toolbar. The default shadow has the color scheme Shadows
color and is offset below and to the right of the object.
The
Format Painter
The Format Painteron the Standard
toolbar copies the formatting of a selection, and then applies that formatting
to the next thing you select. That next thing can be text, a drawing or a
slide. To use the Format Painter on text or a drawn object, first select the
text or object with the formatting you want to duplicate and then click the
Format
Painter
button. Your mouse pointer becomes an I-beam with a paint brush attached to
it. “Brush” the I-beam over the text or object you desire to
format to “paint” the format onto it.
You
can use the Format Painter on slides to pick up a slide color scheme and
background color and shading and apply it to another slide. Switch to Slide
View, click the
Format
Painter
,
and then the slide whose color scheme and background you want to pick up.
Next, click on the slide you want to apply the format to.
A
Note About Editing
To
edit a drawn object, first click on it to select it. Several handles appear
depending on the object. A re-size handle is square and your mouse pointer
changes into a double-sided arrow when you point to it. Click and drag a
re-size handle in the direction of an arrow to stretch or shrink the object.
Some objects also have a diamond-shaped adjustment handle. Click and drag an
adjustment handle to adjust the object’s features. To move a selected
object, drag the object anywhere except on its handles to its new position.
Adding Animation
You
can add animation settings to slide objects to achieve a special audiovisual
effect when the objects appear on an electronic slide show. Select the object
and select
Animation
Settings
from the
Slide
Show
menu. You have three animation options. To animate your objects, choose
Custom
Animation
.
From here you can set the order, effects, timings, etc. in your presentation.
Creating
Templates and Design Templates
To
create your own design template, first create a new presentation. You can
begin by using an existing design template as the basis for your own, or you
can start from scratch with the blank presentation template. Switch to Slide
Master View, pick a color scheme and create a custom background. Change the
font style and size, and the text color and alignment of the title text. Pick
bullets and fonts for bulleted lists if you so desire. Draw objects for the
background or insert a graphic. You can also format the Title Master, if it
exists. If it does not exist as with the blank presentation template, you can
add it. On Slide Master View, select
New
Title Master
from the
Insert
menu.
The
next step is save the presentation as a template. On the
File
Save
dialog box, select
Presentation
Templates (*.pot)
from the
Save
as Type
drop-down list. You can save your design template in one of your own folders
or in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\Presentation Designs. To use
the design template to begin making a new presentation:
- If
you saved it in the Presentation Designs folder, click the
Presentation
Designs
tab on the
New
Presentation
dialog box, select the icon for your design template and click
OK.
- If
you saved it in your own folder, start with the blank presentation template and
then apply your design template. Select
Apply
Design Template
from the
Format
menu, navigate to the folder where you saved the design template, select it and
click
Apply.
You
can also create a template that also comes complete with suggested presentation
content, along with the design. Begin like you’re making a design
template. After formatting the Title Master and Slide Master, switch to Slide
View or Outline View and insert slides with content that reflect your needs.
Then save the presentation as a template in
C:\MSOffice\Templates\Presentations. To use the template to begin making a new
presentation, click the
Presentations
tab on the
New
Presentation
dialog box, select the icon for your template and click
OK.
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