Creating Slide Shows – Power Point & Picasa

Some basic Power Point Info...

WHAT IS POWER POINT:  Gives you the ability to create a slide show combining your photos, text, animation, sound and more… to make your information much more enjoyable.  Power Point presentations have been used in business for years, but today you see them being used at weddings, showers, birthday parties, reunions, memorial services and by groups & organizations.  Students as young as 3^rd grade are using power point presentations to enhance reports and projects.

POWER POINT APPLICATION SOFTWARE

Can be bought individually or it is included as part of the MICROSOFT OFFICE bundle.  The Power Point Application Software is always required for you to create and or modify a power point presentation.

POWER POINT VIEWER: This is a free software offered from Microsoft that allows you to watch power point presentations sent to you via email.  You can then save them on your computer to send to someone else, you cannot however change or modify them in anyway or create your own without the full Power Point Application Software Program.

ADD POWER POINT VIEWER TO YOUR COMPUTER: Go to www.Microsoft.com – on right hand column – choose Downloads & Trials, search for “Power Point Viewer” and when wizard opens up – choose DOWNLOAD NOW button – in a few minutes this free software will be on your computer – follow directions as it adds it…

CAN YOU MAKE SLIDE PRESENTATIONS WITHOUT POWER POINT?? Yes, use Picasa (a free photo editing software program from Google, if you don’t have it, go to www.picasa.com and download for free).  Picasa’s version 3, has both a slide show & movie making application to use and they are easy to work with.. For those with Windows XP or Vista, your windows software has a free program called Windows Movie Maker which works in much the same way as power point and the Picasa applications… and if you have Windows 7 or 8 you can always search for and download

In our next posting we will talk more about using PICASA to create slide shows.. 

Registration is this Tuesday, August 7th - 9am

Don't forget - Registration for the next series of computer classes at Southern Artery, Series #55, is this coming Tuesday morning, 9am – August 7th at the Southern Artery North Building..

The series itself, begins the week of Monday, August 20^th and continues thru November 1^st…No classes will be held on Monday, September 3 for the Labor Day Holiday or on Monday, October 8^th for the Columbus Day Holiday

Special note – we have combined our Intro to Word & Excel classes held in the morning as requested by many students… so you will spend half the series working with Word Basics and the second half learning Excel basics… - This has also allowed us to add another Beginner or Internet class as needed…

Times & Topics for our Morning Beginner/Intermediate Classes:

·         Monday 9am: Beginner 1-Computer Basics (Hardware, Software & Intro to Internet)

·         Monday, 10:30am: Intermediate 1/Internet Basics (All about the internet, web & using email)

·         Tuesday, 9am: Intermediate 1/Internet Basics (All about the internet, web & using email)

·         Tuesday, 10:30am: Beginner 1-Computer Basics (Hardware, Software & Intro to Internet)

·         Wednesday, 9am: – Intermediate 2/Word & Excel Basics (Word Processing basics and then intro to basics of spreadsheets to manage lists and numbers)

·         Wednesday, 10:30am: Beginner 1-Computer Basics (Hardware, Software & Intro to Internet)

Times & Topics for our Afternoon Advanced Classes:

• Monday & Tuesday: 1pm-2:30pm
• Wednesday & Thursday: 1pm-2:30pm and 2:30pm-4pm.

During this new series, Afternoon students, will continue to focus on Word Skills in Word Email & Power Point: We will spend the first few weeks with Word Tables creating create a medial information form; we will then review some of the new features offered by email services, then work with organizing photos on our computers and flash drives; learning more about new features offered by Picasa for photo editing – including easily uploading Picasa photos to Walgreen’s & Facebook; and finish out the series spending several weeks creating slide show presentations with Power Point…

Remember, all afternoon students, who have completed the morning Beginner & Internet classes, are welcome to sign up (and pay) for a 2nd class, in the morning such as the combined Word/Excel class, or to refresh their skills on computer and internet basics... Requests for the 2nd class will be granted/honored on a first come first serve basis and students coming up from the Morning Internet Class have priority on the Word/Excel Class openings..

As always, consider registering with a friend so that you have someone to motivate you to use your new skills and if you have ideas or suggestions for topics that you would like to see us teaching – be sure to let us know… 

These are your classes and we want to be sure you are learning the skills important to you…And as always we welcome your comments and suggestions about what it is you want to learn during these classes, not only about application software – such as Word, Excel, Picasa and others, but all of this technology that is changing continually… 

Changing the default settings in your Office Programs

Default simply means “Standard” – the way in which a program will work each and every time you use it and you can change/modify many of the “default” settings on computer programs that we use daily, including our browsers and office programs…

This is a personal choice – certainly you can continue to use the default settings established by the provider that are built into the program.  But, changing the way your Browser or Office Programs work can make life so much easier.

Customizing your Office programs can impact the way in which documents print, how they are saved, the way they appear on the page, margins, paper layout/orientation – such as portrait or landscape, the font you use, whether the red & green squiggle lines appear as you type indicating spelling & grammatical errors - these are just a few of the many ways in which you can “customize” the way in which your Office Programs work for you.  Decide for yourself – making each program easier for you to use can be done as often as you’d like – some compare it to adjusting the seat position and rear view mirrors when you get into a car…

In Word 97-2003:

Click TOOLS, Then Click OPTIONS

You will see various options available for you to be able to modify to your liking

Click SAVE (set at 1 minutes – doesn’t affect your work, simply saves in the background)

Click SPELL (whichever options you’d like & Auto Text Entries and many others)

In Word 2007-2010:

Click on the Office Button or File Tab

At the bottom of the dialog box/page that opens, left click on “WORD OPTIONS”

This opens the Control/Dialog Box, which lists on the left various categories which allow you to “customize” the software you are using to your own liking..

Special Note for anyone using 2007-2010 Office Programs it is very important to save everything you do as “97-2003 compatible” so that you can share your documents with others who may not have the newest of these software programs.  You can do this as you save each and every document, or do it once when you are in your Options Settings, under the Save category..

What is a “Template” and how can you use them?

Basically "templates" are pre-designed layouts for various items you might want to create on your computer using the various Microsoft Office Programs...

Using TEMPLATES in Word, Excel, Power Point and other programs allows you to open a pre-designed document in these and other various programs.  You can then use the pre-designed layout which is stored in the “Template Folders”.  Some templates are built into your Office Program, and if you can’t find what you need, you can go to Microsoft online for even more templates, just as we do with clip art.  

This means you don’t have to create the entire document, form, spreadsheet/budget or other, power point presentation - much of the design work is already done for you.  Once you find a “template” you want to use, you save it in whatever folder you choose, you can modify it to your own needs and use it however you would like…It is yours.

In 1997-2003 Word/Excel/PowerPoint:

• Go to the Menu Bar, choose "New" and the Template Dialog Box will Open, which has multiple tab categories across the top
• Select the category you want, and you will see various template choices to choose from
• Select the template you want and it will be on  your screen
• Now save the template as your own, finding or creating a folder to save it in and giving it a name that works for you.
• Now you can modify it anyway you would like.

In 2007-2010 Word/Excel/PowerPoint:

• Go to the Office Button in 2007 or File Tab in 2010, Choose "New"
• You will now see the various templates available
• Select the template you want, and "download it"
• Select the template you want and it will be on your screen
• Now save the template as your own, finding or creating a folder to save it in and giving it a name that works for you

Now you can modify it anyway you would like.

How to Record Narration for PowerPoint 2010?

Q: I've just prepared a power point slide show for Thanksgiving but want to add narration about our family on the slides, instead of having music - how can I do this - I'm using PowerPoint 2010.

A: This is much easier than you might think (just a little more time consuming but well worth it) and although it is something we've been able to do for many years in PowerPoint, it's so much easier now in Office 2007 & 2010.. Just follow the following steps:

First, be sure that your microphone is working and I always set my volume to the highest setting, because I know I can always slide it down when I'm actually doing the presentation - but if I record it too "low" I can't increase the volume. move it up... If your microphone isn't built into your computer or laptop, be sure that the plug is in securely.

Next:

• Open you PowerPoint Presentation (either one you've done that is completed or finish a new slide show).
• Go to “Slide show” tab, then choose “Record slide show” under the “set up” section.
• Choose 1) entire slide or 2) select the individual slide where you want Audio “Narration” to begin, from “Record Slide Show” options to add narration..
• Select “Narration and Laser Pointer” check box, when Record Slide Show Dialog box appears (versus Slide and Animation Timings)
• Whether you want slides to move forward automatically with a specific time that you have chosen and asset or move to the next slide manually, either of these simply select or deselect “Slide and Animation Timings”
• Now choose “Start Recording” button and speak clearly into your microphone – If you need to stop in between for any reason, click “Pause” and then when you are ready to continue, click “Resume”
• And if you are going to insert “narration” on individual slides, (versus across all) then you would simply to have repeat these steps on each and every slide...
• When you are done, right-click on the slide, and click “End Show” to end the slide show recording..

Now when you preview your presentation you will hear the “Audio Narration” you have added to your slide/slides - Success...

What is clip art & how do I use it?

Holidays are coming and you might want to use clip art or photos to enhance your documents - invitations, holiday letters and more.... First of all ~ always insert graphics into your documents vs. copying them, so they react the way you want or need them to...

Clip art is a picture or graphic that can be inserted into various documents, such as those you might create in word processing, power point, excel or publisher to name a few...
You don’t have to purchase clip art software (as we did years ago) - There are thousands and thousands of different CLIP ART options built into various documentation programs and you can continue to build your own clip art collection from a variety of sources such as Microsoft online or Google images…

When you are in your word document, put your cursor/insertion point to the specific location in your document where you want the clip art, picture or symbol to be “inserted”.

• In Office 2007-2010 Word, Excel, etc.. go to the Insert Tab
  
• In Office 2003 or older versions, go to Insert on the Menu Bar and then to Pictures, Clip Art, etc.

You will now choose what you want to Insert - Picture, ClipArt, Symbol, Text Box, Word Art etc..

For clip art you will now see the gallery and/or the gallery search bar, so that you can search for or choose the image you want – if it is a picture, then open the folder or sub-folder the picture is in and choose the picture – one it is highlighted choose insert.

The image will now be inserted into your document…

When the graphic is on your page, the Picture Formatting Toolbar appears (in older versions of Word 2003 and prior-you can right click on your toolbar and turn this on or off) in Word 2007 & 2010 it appears as a new/additional tab, after the View tab..

When you insert graphics into your document, always go to the Text Wrap Icon (looks like a little dog in a postage stamp) and when the list appears choose Through. This allows you to easily work with both your text and graphics. Later, you can then change your choice of text wrapping – tight, square, behind text, in front of text (choices vary depending on your version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc 2000-2003-2007-2010?)…

Use your sizing handles around your graphic to change the size of your graphic – personally I like to use the sizing handles in the corners so that I change the height and width of my graphic all at once to be sure I don’t distort the graphic making it too tall/short or too wide/narrow…
Use the four headed arrow on the graphic to move the graphic around on your page to where you want it…

If your sizing handles boxes aren’t there or you don’t see the picture formatting toolbar, simply click on your graphic again – you must have the sizing handles around your graphic in order to see the picture formatting toolbar…

Clip Art & other graphics are a great way to enhance your documents - remember: one picture can be worth a thousand words... have fun & enjoy

PowerPoint Tips: Slide Background choices

Adding color to the background of your slides makes them more interesting. Simple is better so step back and review your presentation and think twice before using “wild colors” that detract from your slides.. To add color to your slide backgrounds:

If you have PP 2000 OR 2003:

1. 1. Select "Format" - "Background".
2. 2. A "Background" dialog box appears and you can left click on the pull-down menu to choose from one of a few selected colors, "More Colors", or "Fill Effects".

More Colors

• If you choose "More Colors" it opens a dialog box with several tabs which shows you different standard colors or you can choose “custom colors” which shows you the color prism and the colors RGB values if you are trying to match a specific shade of a color.
• When you are done, click "OK" to close the dialog box.

Fill Effects – This option opens another dialog box with several tabs for different fill types:

• Gradient – One – two and preset multicolor gradient fills and there are different fill type, colors, transparency, shading styles, and variants.
• Texture – There are a variety of textures, or click "Other Texture" to import a texture graphic of your own.
• Pattern – There are different pre-made patterns and you can adjust the pattern foreground and background colors.
• Picture – This allows you to select your own photo for your presentation background.

When you are done, click "OK" to close the dialog box.

Apply your Changes - When you are happy with your changes, decide if you want the background graphic to appear on printed slides (doing so increases print time and requires more toner/ink), but if not – you can check "Omit background graphics from master". Then click "Apply" to apply the changes to the current slide only, or "Apply to All" to apply the changes to all slides.

If you have PP 2007 or 2010:

As with earlier versions, backgrounds can be applied to individual slides or to all the slides in a presentation - choices in 2007 & 2010 are located on the Design Ribbon. To access the Design Ribbon:

• Click on the Design Tab and you will see the Design ribbon options & features.
• Hover your mouse over any of the design themes shown.
• The design is reflected immediately on your slide.
• Click the design theme when you find one that suits your needs.

To change the background on an individual slide - click on the background button on the right end of the Design ribbon, which opens the Format Background dialog box – If you want to apply your choice to all the slides in your presentation, once you make your choice, be sure to choose the “Apply to All” button at the bottom of the dialog box.

Like earlier versions - you now have choices of colors and effects, but the newer versions have more choices in easy – such as the Gradient Fill now has multiple choices to play with:

• Linear - the gradient colors flow in lines which can be from preset angles or a precise angle on the slide
• Radial - colors flow in a circular fashion from your choice of five different directions
• Rectangular - colors flow in a rectangular fashion from your choice of five different directions
• Path - colors flow from the center out to form a rectangle
• Shade from title - colors flow from the title out to form a rectangle

Be careful using Background Textures: they can be very busy and make text difficult to read, which can detract from your message. If you do use a textured background, choose a subtle design and be sure to choose a text color that will stand out from the background.

A great feature in the new PowerPoint 2007 & 2010 is DESIGN & COLOR THEMES that change not only the backgrounds but totally coordinate the colors, font styles and sizes used for a total look… These are similar to the design templates which were available in earlier versions of Power Point. What I like, is that when you are choosing a design theme in the new PP 2007 & 2010, you will immediately see the effect on your slides, so you can decide before making your decision final…

PowerPoint Tip: Stop the Black Screen at the End

Typically when we watch any slide show made with PowerPoint, it ends with a “black screen that shows a message at the top: “End of slide show-click to exit”.

If you don’t want to see this screen, just stop it from happening by changing a setting. Note thought, that this setting only applies to the PowerPoint software running on your computer. It is not a setting that is saved with the slide show presentation file itself.

So if you create a slide show presentation and take it to another computer, you’ll want to change this setting again on that computer.

If you have PowerPoint 2000-2003:

• Choose Tools |Options.
• Choose the View tab.
• Uncheck the box for the option End with black slide.

If you have PowerPoint 2007 or 2010:

• Click on the Office button in 2007 and File button in 2010.
• Choose the PowerPoint Options button (at the bottom of the window).
• Choose Advanced from the left side of the next panel.
• On the right side find the Slide Show section.
• Uncheck the box for the option End with black slide.

So remember, if you make this change it's on your computer only - if you take the slide show to another computer, you would have to change the setting on that computer also..

Converting File Formats - Music & Videos

Making sure files are in the correct format is very important when we are “inserting” them into projects such as videos and music into PowerPoint Presentations, MovieMaker, PicasaMovies and others..

That includes when you want to download a YouTube video for use in either a MovieMaker project or PowerPoint.

This free software/tool does everything you need and much more and also has great additional conversions for all types of applications and is one of my personal favorites… It is a great program “free” to convert music, videos (even YouTube Videos) and much more for use in numerous applications including Movie Maker, PowerPoint presentations etc…

Remember with many of the free & other programs, it is advisable to use the smallest files possible, such as MP3 for music vs. mp4 and this software helps you with all those conversions..

Download from http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/

1. Chooser to install all programs – FREE STUDIO 5.0.4
2. This way you can then do various types of conversions for all types of projects
3. Once installed it will put a great shortcut on your desktop-called Free Studio Manager. This is the complete interface for the suite of programs that are available from dvdvideosoft.com.

Note for Power Point Users: While it is faster to simply link to a YouTube video that will play in your PowerPoint presentation, the down side of this is that you must have a live & fast internet connection for the YouTube video to play.

Here is a link to a youtube video that walks you thru inserting the link directly into the PowerPoint if you have a good internet connection:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RApFAXMtero

When you are unsure about the internet connection where you are going to do your presentation with, you can embed the YouTube video right into your PowerPoint presentation. No internet connection needed.

And also refer to updates & video tutorials which are referenced on our class blog to make this easier.. Using this and other programs simply takes a little practice – so play & enjoy…

Google Docs - Part 2 of 2

For anyone who is using Google Doc's - Google has a great new software plug-in “Cloud Connect” that easily will move any and all of our Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint files to Google Docs.

Cloud Connect, was released by Google on Thursday Feb 24^th, 2011 and it will allow users to save our files to save their files to "the cloud," which in this case is on Googles servers.

That means that once our files are saved in Google Docs, we can then edit files in Microsoft Office and sync them up to the clouds. This will also mean that it will be much easier if and when we want to collaborate on documents and will eliminate the confusion as to which version of a document is the most recent one.

"For example, you can edit a Word document's Opening Page of Grandma’s Life Story from Lake Havasu, AZ, while your sister in Quincy, MA is adding the family tree and your brother in Weymouth, MA is making other revisions.. This way, instead of having to send emails with tons of attachments, your whole family or group can work together."

And the great news is that Google will save every revision of any document users of Cloud Connect make, whether those edits take place in Office or Google Docs. And files can be shared in a view-only form via Google Docs as well with each document getting a unique Web address (just in case you don’t want someone make changes).

Cloud Connect is free and works with Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 on Windows PCs. Cloud Connect, however, won't work with Mac versions of Office. Sorry – it’s not available for Mac Users yet, but Google indicates it’s working on it, so no doubt it will be in the near future….

Check it out for yourself…

http://tools.google.com/dlpage/cloudconnect

What are Google Docs?

Have you tried Google Doc’s yet? Check it out - if you have Internet access, you can use the various aspects of Google Docs, which include Documents (Word Processing); Spreadsheets; Presentations, Drawings and Forms..

Google Docs is great for:

• anyone who travels so you can access your documents anytime anywhere


• groups who want to collaborate on various projects


• those who only use word processing software once in a while and don’t want to buy and download software on their computer...

Why Google Doc's is becoming so popular:

• You store your documents online, so you can access your documents from any computer


• No need to transfer documents to flash or portable drives or "synch" anything


• Works great with all Microsoft Office products, such as Word, Excel & PowerPoint, as well as OpenOffice, so you can upload or download your files.


• You can export documents as PDF files, so if you have Office 97-2003, this is a great/free way to convert documents to PDFs without having to upgrade to Office 2007 or 2010, or use other plug-ins


• Easy to collaborate on projects-you can make a document public or show it to others by sending a link. If you want to allow others to work on the document, you can send out an email to others notifying them that they can access the document.

Use your existing email account to sign into & set-up a Google Account-this video on YouTube explains just how to do that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJpkRbNto7E

HOW TO PLAY MUSIC CDS ON THE COMPUTER

Why not listen to your favorite music while you work - it's easy once your computer is on and when you have speakers:

• Put your favorite music CD, label side up, in the CD-ROM drive and close the drive
• When auto play is enabled (which is pretty standard) the CD will start playing the first track (using your default media player, such as Windows or VLC Media Player )
• If the CD doesn’t start playing automatically, open the Start menu. Choose Programs, then Accessories, then Entertainment and Click CD Player. Click the Play button on the CD Player window (a single right-pointing arrow in the top row)
• You can use the Pause, Stop, Skip to Next Track and Go Back to Last Track buttons to control what you listen to.
• Choose Edit Playlist from the Disc menu to program a particular sequence of tracks
• Minimize the CD Player window if you plan to listen to the entire CD while working and you can bring it up anytime from your taskbar

In the system tray (right side of the monitor) you can quickly control the music volume with the speaker icon - just left click on it to slide volume up & down, and by checking the speaker icon or box - you can toggle between MUTE to turn music off for that phone call and then again to turn it back on...

Why not save/rip the entire CD to your computer so next time you simply access your “music list” just as you do with a word document.. it’s there ready for you to listen to

When I download music from the Internet (such as iTunes) or from my CD’s, I always download (save/rip) it in mp3 format so that I can use it on my mp3 player and just as importantly, so that I can use the music in projects that I might create, such as in Power Point Slide shows, Picasa & Windows Movie Maker projects)

NAMING & SAVING WORK

NAME YOUR WORK AND SAVE IT OFTEN

• When you open a document in Word, Works, Excel, Power Point or any type of “creation’ application software – they will have a document or project number until we give them a name of our choice
• The more “new documents, spreadsheets, power point slide show presentations” you open” the higher the numbers get all day
• You want to ALWAYS name your document, spreadsheets, power point slide show presentations, ASAP, so you can find it
• To name to the document to the Menu Bar (or the office button in the newer Office 2007 products) Choose File – Save As – It will open “My Documents” , and either choose or create the folder you want to save your work in
• In class – if you also want to save it to your Flash/Memory stick, repeat the process and once you choose “Save As” remember to go to “My Computer” and find the DRIVE that your flash/Memory stick is on–now open “My Documents” and either choose or create the folder you want to save your work in
• NAME THE DOCUMENT so you can find it in the future – Click Ok or Save

TIPS:

• Once your work is saved – in the future – you can simply click on the SAVE ICON often which will save your additions and changes to the named document you have
• If you are creating a second document, then you would repeat the steps above, giving this work an entirely new name

What is Power Point Viewer?

This is a free software application program that allows you to see Power Point Presentation (slide show) even when you don't have Power Point installed on your computer. So you can see the slide who - save it - and then be able to resend it on to someone else - you cannot however create a new presentation or change/modify any presentations you've received or saved.

To download this to your computer you can go to Microsoft.com, choose the download section OR
Left click on the link below which will take you directly to the download page - simply use the download button and follow the wizard... - your computer will put it where it belongs....

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=048dc840-14e1-467d-8dca-19d2a8fd7485

Power Point Slide Show Tips

Many of us receive power point slide shows attached to our emails today. If you don’t have full Power Point Application Software then you need Power Point Viewer to view these slide shows – a free software on most new computers. If your computer doesn’t have the Power Point Viewer, you can download it FREE from Microsoft – here is the link

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=048DC840-14E1-467D-8DCA-19D2A8FD7485&displaylang=en

Power Point Viewer allows you to view the slide show, save it for future viewings and to be able to email it to someone – but you can’t edit or modify the slide show in anyway or create your own.
If you want to create a Power Point Presentation or change power point presentations you've received and saved, then you must have Power Point Application Software (which quite often is part of the Office bundle)

What do the extensions mean when you receive a power point attachment or see them in a file (such as fantasticslide.show.ppt or fantaticslideshow.pps??)

• PPT is the default file extension for saving presentations in PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions.
• PPTX is the default file extension for saving presentations in PowerPoint 2007 and later versions.
• PPS is the the show mode extension in PowerPoint 2003 and earlier -- these files run in "play-presentation" mode when double-clicked.
• PPSX does the same thing in PowerPoint 2007 and later -- it runs in "play-presentation" mode when double-clicked.

If friends, family or co-workers send you a Power Point Slide Show and you can't open it - look at the extension - if it reads .pptx or .ppsx at the end - they created it in Power Point 2007 - ask them to re-save it on their computer as a 97-2003 power point, so that older versions of the software can read it and resend it to you...

Remember all computers at Southern Artery classroom have a wonderful file on them (PP Slide Shows or PP Presentations) with many great power point slide shows - so open them up and watch them.. or you can add them to an email when you are in the classroom - when your email is open - send yourself an email and simply add the power point slide show you like as a file attachment...