Adding Header & Footer

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PowerPoint offers the ability to add header and footers to the slides. While having footers in presentations is logical, header may not be quite evident at first. Typically, the slide title would be the header in the main slide, however when it comes to printing out handouts a separate header would be quite useful.

Here are the steps to add header and footer information to slides

Step 1 − In the Insert ribbon, click on the Header & Footer menu item.

Step 2 − The Header and Footer dialog has two tabs — the Slide tab and the Notes and Handouts tab.

Step 3 − You can add details to the slide footer from the Slide tab.

 

S.No	Slide Footer Options & Description
1	Date and time Add date and time to the footer Specify the format of the date and time entered Set up the footer to update automatically or use a fixed number
2	Slide Number Insert Slide number in the footer
3	Footer Add designated text to the footer - a good example of this is the confidentiality clause or copyright clause
4	Don't show on title slide Decide on whether the footer information should be displayed on the title slide or not

Step 4 − You can add the details to the handouts from the Notes and Handouts tab.

 

S.No	Notes and Handouts Options & Description
1	Date and time Add date and time to the footer Specify the format of the date and time entered Set up the footer to update automatically or use a fixed number
2	Header Add the header information for every page on the handout
3	Page Number Insert page number in the footer
4	Footer Add designated text to the footer - a good example of this is the confidentiality clause or copyright clause

When you check any of the header and footer checkboxes in either tabs, you can see the location where the detail is inserted in the preview section.

 

Adding Slide Numbers

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Just like you have page numbers for books, it is usually a good idea to add slide numbers to presentations. There are two ways you can add slide numbers to your presentation and this chapter will show you both those techniques.

Step 1 − Under the Insert ribbon, Text group click on Slide Numbercommand.

Step 2 − The Header and Footer dialog opens up.

Step 3 − Check the Slide number check box.

Step 4 − The Preview shows the section where the slide number will be placed.

Instead of clicking on the Slide Number command, you can also click on the Header & Footer menu item to launch the same dialog as in Step 2.

Review Presentation

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Reviewing the presentation can be a very powerful way of eliminating the errors and perfecting the slides. PowerPoint offers a wide range of reviewing options for you to use. Some of them are automatic or system driven, while others aid other users to collaborate and review the slides. All the reviewing tools are grouped under the Review ribbon.

 

Review Section	Functions
Proofing	Spellchecking − Identify spelling and grammar based on selected language preference Research − Reference language related research tools based on specific reference books and research sites Thesaurus − Provide synonyms for selected text
Language	Translate − Provides translation services for selected words for multilingual support Language − Sets the default language for the presentation - this will be used as default language for proofing
Comments	Show Marking − Show/hide the user comments in the slide New Comment − Add new comment against the selected content Edit Comment − Edit an existing comment Delete Comment − Delete a selected comment, all comments in the selected slide or all the comments in the presentation Previous / Next Comment − Move to previous / next comments
Compare	Compare − Compare the current presentation with another presentation and identify the differences Accept/ Reject − Accept or reject the differences to be incorporated into the current presentation Previous/ Next − Move to the previous or the next difference in the comparison. End Review − End the review and discard any unapplied changes

Saving Presentation

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One of the most basic tasks in PowerPoint is being able to save your work; this is probably the most important task as well. There are many users who have burnt their fingers for not saving their work in time and losing hours of hard work. The following are the basic steps to save a presentation.

Step 1 − Click on the File tab to launch the Backstage view and select Save.

Step 2 − In the Save As dialog, type in the file name and click "Save".

Step 3 − The default file format is .pptx. If you want to save the file with a different name, choose one of the file types from the "Save as type" dropdown list.

If you are working on an already saved file, the "Save" option in the Backstage view will directly save the file in the existing format with the existing name. If you want to change the format or filename of an existing file, use the Save As option instead.

Slide Orientations

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In the recent years, presentations are being used for more than just as a high end replacement for transparencies and projectors. With its unique features, PowerPoint is becoming quite versatile in the kind of information it can depict and very flexible in its usage. The slide orientations are invaluable part of this improved list of PowerPoint features. Like most other applications PowerPoint supports two orientations: landscape and portrait.

The Landscape layout is the default PowerPoint layout and it is probably the more commonly used one. In the landscape layout, the longer edge is horizontal so the slides align better with the screens and projectors.

The Portrait layout is where the shorter edge is horizontal. This is sometimes better for print depending on the kind of content you want to present.

Slide orientations in PowerPoint can be changed from the Design ribbon using the Slide Orientation command.

Setting Backgrounds

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As PowerPoint is a design-based program, backgrounds are effective ways of improving the aesthetics and readability of the slides. The Themes in PowerPoint help select the backgrounds by default, so every time you change the theme, the default background is set automatically. Theme includes more than just backgrounds, so you can retain other aspects of the theme while changing the default background.

Given below are the steps to apply backgrounds in PowerPoint.

Step 1 − In the Design ribbon, under the Background group, click the Background Styles command.

Step 2 − Select one of the background styles that suits your requirements.

 

Step 3 − To edit the background for a specific slide, right-click on the desired background slide and select "Apply to Selected Slides".

Step 4 − Selected slide(s) now have the new background.

The graphics in the slide background can distract you from the actual content, in such cases you can hide the graphics and retain a plain background till you finish working on the content. To do this, select the slide and check the "Hide Background Graphics" checkbox.

Presentation Views

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PowerPoint supports multiple views to allow users to gain the maximum from the features available in the program. Each view supports a different set of functions and is designed accordingly.

PowerPoint views can be accessed from two locations.

• Views can be accessed quickly from the bottom bar just to the left of the zoom settings.

• Views can also be accessed from the Presentation Views section in the View ribbon

Here is a short description of the various views and their features.

Normal View

This is the default view in PowerPoint and this is primarily used to create and edit slides. You can create/ delete/ edit/ rearrange slides, add/ remove/ modify content and manipulate sections from this view.

Slide Sorter View

This view is primarily used to sort slides and rearrange them. This view is also ideal to add or remove sections as it presents the slides in a more compact manner making it easier to rearrange them.

Reading View

This view is new to PowerPoint 2010 and it was created mainly to review the slideshow without losing access to rest of the Windows applications. Typically, when you run the slideshow, the presentation takes up the entire screen so other applications cannot be accessed from the taskbar. In the reading view the taskbar is still available while viewing the slideshow which is convenient. You cannot make any modifications when on this view.

SlidesShow

This is the traditional slideshow view available in all the earlier versions of PowerPoint. This view is used to run the slideshow during presentation.