Microsoft PowerPoint 2007

Opening PowerPoint

When you open PowerPoint, it automatically opens a blank presentation and places you on the first slide. You can press tab to move around inside this slide. By default, this slide is a title slide, and it contains two placeholders: a “center title placeholder” and a “subtitle placeholder.”

The center title placeholder is for the main title of your presentation. The subtitle placeholder is where you can write your name.

Adding text to a placeholder

Let’s now add a title to the presentation

Press enter to go inside the center title placeholder. Jaws says “edit”
Write your presentation’s title
to leave the placeholder and go back to the slide, press escape. Jaws says “object level,” and you can now press tab to go to the subtitle placeholder.
press enter to go inside the subtitle placeholder
Enter a subtitle for your presentation. This should be your name. Now press escape to go back to the slide.

adding a new slide

Go to the “home” tab by pressing alt + h
Press tab until you reach the “new slide” button
Press space, and a list of slide layout options will appear
Use the left and right arrow keys until you find “title and content” then press enter. You will now be returned to the presentation and be placed on the new slide

You can also use the shortcut key ctrl + m to add a new slide with a title placeholder and object placeholder.

If you get lost, press insert and pgdn to hear your current location.

It’s now time to add a title and content to the new slide.

press tab until you reach the title placeholder and press enter
Enter a title for this slide, and press escape when you have finished
Press tab again to go to the object placeholder, and press enter to go inside it. If you press enter here, the cursor automatically jumps to the beginning of a new line and puts a bullet at the start of the line. This happens because PowerPoint assumes that you want to write using bulleted points.

Navigating through slides

page up – previous slide
page down – nex slide
tab – move to the next placeholder
shift + tab – move to the previous placeholder
enter – edit the contents of a placeholder
escape – stop editing a placeholder’s contents and return to the slide’s object level

Deleting a slide

Press f6 until you reach the “slide thumbnails” pane
Use the arrow keys until you find the slide you want to delete
Press the delete key to delete a slide

Customising a placeholder’s contents

You can change the font, size, style, and colour of text inside a placeholder. Most editing commands work exactly the same as in other Office programmes.

Customising a placeholder

Find the placeholder you want to customise using tab and shift + tab, then press the context menu key.
Press down arrow until you reach the “size and position” menu item. The “size and position” dialogue box will then appear. This dialogue box contains three tab pages: “size,” “position,” and “alt text.” Use ctrl + tab or shift + ctrl + tab to navigate among the tab pages.

Adjusting the height and position of a placeholder

Press tab until you reach the “height” edit box, and enter a number that represents the height of the object in inches
Press tab again to move to the “width” edit box, and enter a number that represents the width of the object in inches
Now press tab until you reach the Ok button, and press space to save your changes.

Notes

Don’t enter a number greater than 2 for the height of a title, and no more than 7 for the height of an object placeholder, or it will look too large.

Don’t go beyond 10 for the width of an object because it will disappear off the edge of the slide. 9 is a good value for the width. don’t set the width to less than 3 or 4 because the placeholder will look too small.

In the “Shapes and Position” dialogue there is also a “rotation” edit box where you can enter a rotation value in degrees.

To make the object slant diagonally from top left to bottom right, enter 45.
To make the object appear vertical, enter 90.
To make the object appear upside down and slightly diagonal, enter 275.

Adding a sound to the presentation

Go to the “insert” tab by pressing alt + n
Press tab until you find the “sound from file” split button, and press enter
You will now see a list whose first item is “sound from file.” Press enter, and the “insert sound” dialogue appears.
Use the standard dialogue controls to find a sound to insert.
When you have found a sound file, press enter to select it, or press tab to move to the “ok” button and press space
You will next see a message from PowerPoint that asks if we want the sound to start playing automatically when the presentation starts. We usually want the sound to start playing automatically, so press tab to move to the “automatic” button and press space.

You can test the sound by pressing f5 to show the presentation.

Showing a presentation

Press f5 to display your presentation
press space to move to the next slide
Press backspace to move to the previous slide
Press escape to stop the slideshow

Note

If you want to start the slideshow from a different slide than slide 1, move to the slide where you want the presentation to start and press shift + f5.

Playing a sound throughout the whole presentation

Earlier you added a sound to the first slide, so move to the first slide now
Press tab until you find the “media” placeholder
Go to the “animations” ribbon tab by pressing alt + a
Press tab until you find the “custom animation” button and press space
Next press tab again until you find the “after previous play” list box. Here you can press the up and down arrow keys to select the name of the media file that you added to the first slide.
Press the application key and use down arrow until you find the “timing” menu item, then press enter. The “timing” dialogue box will now appear
Press ctrl + tab until you reach the “effects” page
Press tab now until you find the “start playing from beginning” radio button. This is checked, so ignore it
Press tab again until you find the “on click” radio button, and then down arrow until you reach the “after” option
You will now be inside an edit box where you can specify the slide after which PowerPoint should stop playing the sound. Press up arrow until you find the number of the last slide in your presentation, for example, if your last slide is slide 4, then choose the number 4
Next press tab to move to the “ok” button, and press space

Your sound should now play throughout the whole presentation.

Adding animation to a slide

Move to slide 1
Go to the “animation” ribbon tab by pressing alt + a
Press tab until you find the “transition to this slide” item, and press space
You will now see a list of transitions. Use the arrow keys until you find the “box in” transition, and press enter to select it. This is an attractive transition which should make your presentation look professional.

The “box in” transition will now apply to the current slide. If you want to use it for all your slides, you can press the “apply to all” button on the “animation” ribbon tab.

Adding a Transition to a Slide

Move to the slide to which you want to add a transition. Make sure that you are not on a placeholder or object by pressing escape.
Go to the “Transition” ribbon by pressing alt + k
Press tab until you reach the “Transition to this slide” toolbar, and press space to see the transition list
This list contains various transition effects. Use the arrow keys to find the “wipe” effect, and press enter to select it

Notes

For a professional presentation, choose transition effects like “wipe,” “cut,” or “fly in.” Effects like “vortex” should only be used for fun presentations.

You can have a different transition for every slide, or use the same transition for all slides.

Broadcasting a Presentation (Powerpoint 2010 only)

In order to use this feature, you will need Powerpoint 2010, a relatively fast Internet connection, and a Microsoft Live ID (if you have a Hotmail or Live email address, you already have a Live ID).

Setting up a Broadcast

Go to the “File” ribbon by pressing alt + f, and press down arrow until you reach the “Save and Send” item
This is actually a ribbon, so press tab to enter it
Use the up and down arrow keys until find the “Broadcast Slideshow” option, and press enter.
Your screen reader should now say “Broadcast slideshow button.” Press enter or space to activate the button
You should next see a dialogue box in which you should enter your Microsoft Live ID and password. Do so, and press enter to continue.
Powerpoint will now connect to Microsoft’s Office 2010 Powerpoint Broadcast Service. This may take some time unless you have a fast Internet connection.
You will next see a textbox which contains a web address. This will be the address of your presentation. You should copy this link and send it to the people who will view your presentation.

To make sure that your slideshow is being broadcasted properly, copy and paste the web address into your web browser’s address bar or open dialogue box. When your browser opens the web address that you copied from Powerpoint, the broadcast will start.

To start the presentation, return to Powerpoint. Whatever you do in Powerpoint will be displayed in the browser. In this way, you can broadcast your presentation to anyone anywhere in the world who has access to the Internet.

You can now start to display your Powerpoint presentation by pressing f5. The slides will be displayed in the browser.

Saving your Presentation as a Video File (Powerpoint 2010 only)

Go to the “File” ribbon by pressing alt + f
Press down arrow until you reach the “Save and Send” item, and press tab to enter it
Next press down arrow until you reach the “Create a video” item, and press tab until you reach the listbox where you can choose the quality of the video file.
Now press down arrow until you reach the quality setting that you want. The first choice is “computer and hd display,” the second choice is “Internet and DVD,” and the third choice is “portable devices.” Other choices exist, but these are the most common ones. Make your choice and press enter to confirm it.
You can also set timings and narrations, but Powerpoint will choose these settings for you automatically. This is what you want most of the time.
You can also specify the number of seconds to display a slide. The default is 5 seconds, which should be enough in most situations.
Now press tab until you reach the “Create video” button, and press space.
You will now see a standard “Save as” dialogue box. Here you can enter a name for the video file (or keep the name that Powerpoint suggests). You can also choose the format of the video file depending on which codecs are installed on your computer. If you have no additional codecs, the only choice will be .wmv, which is a Windows Movie File.
After you have entered a name and chosen the file type, press tab until you reach the “Authors” edit box. You can type your own name here. If you type nothing, Powerpoint will use the name that you provided when you installed Microsoft Office.
Now press tab until you reach the “Save” button and press space. Powerpoint will now start to convert and save your presentation as a video file. This could take a long time depending on your computer’s hardware.

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