Absolute Beginners Guide to Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003

This book is divided into six parts, each of which deals with a different theme. Although the first part is fundamental to your learning to use PowerPoint, all the others can be used as needed. If something comes up that is covered in another chapter, earlier or later in the book, I try to provide a cross-reference to make it easier for you to find information you might have skipped over.

Part I, "Getting Started with PowerPoint," is a basic introduction to PowerPoint and a how-to for everything required to create a basic slide show. This part takes a somewhat unusual approach in that it has you create a basic slide show first, in Chapter 2, "PowerPoint Quickstart," and then Chapter 3, "PowerPoint Basics," takes you on a tour of PowerPoint. If you're brand new to PowerPoint, you should consider going in sequence through the chapters in Part I. Even if you know something about PowerPoint, you might want to read Chapter 1, "What's the Point?" which talks about why, or why not, to use PowerPoint.

Part II, "Creating Slide Show Content," isn't necessarily sequential, but it does include most of the essential tasks you're likely to need. Chapter 4, "Organizing a Presentation," helps you understand why and how to organize a PowerPoint presentation, including the use of PowerPoint's outline feature. Chapter 5, "Working with Text Objects," focuses on text objects. Chapters 6, "Working with Graphic Objects," and 7, "Creating Drawing Objects," deal with graphic images and drawing objects. Chapter 8, "Organizing Information by Using Tables," shows you how to use tables, and Chapters 9, "Presenting Numbers by Using Data Charts," and 10, "Using Diagrams and Organization Charts," talk about data charts, diagrams, and organization charts.

Part III, "Making the Slide Show Active and Interactive," shows you how to make a slide show more than a series of still images. In Chapter 11, "Animating Slide Show Objects," you learn to make things move on slides. Chapter 12, "Letting Action Settings Work for You," describes how you can get PowerPoint to link to other slides or to actions you specify, and how you can make a slide show an interactive, nonlinear presentation.

Part IV, "Preparing and Presenting the Slide Show" helps you get a show ready for presentation to an audience. Chapter 13, "Preparing a Slide Show for Presentation," describes ways to polish up your slides, and Chapters 14, "Preparing to Make a Presentation," and 15, "Making a Presentation," show you how to set up a slide show and prepare both yourself and the room for the actual presentation. Chapter 16, "Learning the Elements of Effective Presentations," summarizes in one place many of the elements of effective presentations that are scattered throughout the book.

Part V, "Making the Slide Show Available in Print and on the Web," describes various ways of getting a slide show in a format that the audience members can take with them. Besides the typical printing options described in Chapter 17, "Printing a Presentation," Chapter 18, "Publishing to the Web," explores how to quickly and easily turn a slide show into a Web page.

Part VI, "Beyond the Basics," helps you learn some useful, but perhaps not immediately needed, skills. Chapter 19, "Adding Multimedia Elements," explores adding audio and video objects to a slide show. Chapter 20, "Customizing PowerPoint," shows how to customize PowerPoint menus and toolbars and how to create custom design templates. Chapter 21, "Looking Beyond the Basics," gives you a nudge toward using additional features that are truly beyond the scope of a basic book, including network-based slide presentations and using macros or other programmed add-ins. This chapter also lists several places you can go for additional help.

I love watching a good PowerPoint presentation. I groan when I have to sit through a bad one. I hope what I've presented here will help you to become the kind of presenter that I and others will love to listen to.