When You Launch Powerpoint 2003, This Is the Screen You Will See

When you launch PowerPoint 2003, this is the screen you will see:

I have closed the “Getting Started” panel on the right, and changed the text to Slide #1 and Sample Slide:

Since my presentation will have many slides, it is time for me to insert a new slide. Go to the top of your screen and click on INSERT > NEW SLIDE:

I have chosen the style shown in the circle below, which allows me to add both text and a picture:

In the previous picture there is a box labeled, “Click icon to add content”. I have clicked on the Clipart icon to open the panel below:

In the Search Text box, I have typed “School”, selected the bus, and clicked OK. This has inserted the clipart of the bus into my slide, as shown below:

Now it’s time to add some color or other texture to the background of our slides. Go to the top of your screen, and click FORMAT > BACKGROUND as shown here:

That will open up the Background options panel shown below. I have clicked on the little “drop down” menu arrow to get to the FILL EFFECTS option, as seen below:

This opens up the FILL EFFECTS panel, which lets me choose colors (gradient), pattern, picture or texture, which is shown here below. I have selected a light marble texture, and clicked OK.

Clicking OK in the picture above brings me back to this panel, but as you can see, it now has the marble effect displayed. If I want this background ONLY on the slide I am currently working with, I should click APPLY. If I want all the slides in my presentation to have the same background, I should click APPLY TO ALL. This is just personal preference.

We can now see the new marble background effect on the slide shown below:

Now that I have the background I want, I can make my presentation more interesting by adding some animation effects to the way slides change from one to the next. This is called Slide Transition. To do this, I go to the top of my screen

and click on SLIDE SHOW > SLIDE TRANSITION as shown below:

Once I have clicked on SLIDE TRANSITION, the panel below will appear on the right side of my screen. I have it centered here just for demonstration purposes. Here, you can select many different types of slide transitions, along with their speed, etc. Here, you will only be choosing the slide transition effect for the slide you are working on UNLESS you click on the button at thebottom which says APPLY TO ALL.

The default setting here is to advance the slide “On mouse click”. This means that the slide you are looking at will not change unless you click your left mouse button. If you want the presentation to run automatically, click on the box which reads, “Automatically after” and select the number of seconds you want each slide to appear before changing automatically.

You now have all of the basics to create a quality PowerPoint presentation.

Remember to go to the top of your screen and click FILE > SAVE to save your presentation for viewing later.

To view your slide show, double click on the file you saved, and then click on the F5 key to start it. Remember to click on your left mouse button to advance the slides !!!

Experiment with the many options, and have fun !!!