Digitizing Your PDD

Getting Started

When you start PowerPoint, the new presentation dialog box offers four choices:

AutoContent Wizard walks you through a series of questions designed to elicit information about you and the type of presentation you are making. The Wizard then builds a dummy presentation that will guide you in developing the content of the presentation.

Design Template allows you to establish the background and color scheme from the available templates prior to beginning work in the new presentation. Template choices are generally easier to make after you have opened the new presentation because you can better see the characteristics of each template before making a selection.

Blank presentation opens a new presentation with no template.

Open an existing presentation displays a list of recently opened PowerPoint presentations from which you can choose. Or, you may choose More Files to move to the location of a previously saved presentation file and open it.

Auto Layout
After you have opened a new presentation, PowerPoint displays the New Slide dialog box containing several Auto Layouts. Auto Layouts provide a pre-determined layout for each specific type of slide. They provide consistency throughout the presentation. Each layout depicted is described in the lower right corner when you click the layout. This sample New Slide dialog box shows the Title Slide selected (denoted with the thick border).

New Look of PowerPoint 2000 Development Area
PowerPoint 2000's normal view has a three-pane development area that includes the outline pane on the left, the slide development pane on the top right, and the notes pane on the lower right.

The outline pane contains each slide's title, as well as any information typed into a Placeholder. If you want more room to type text directly into an outline, click the Outline View Tool. This causes the slide pane to display as a miniature.

The slide pane displays any text you type into a Placeholder, as well as any objects you place on the slide. If you want more room to develop in slide view, click the slide view tool. This causes the slide to increase in size, leaving only a list of slide numbers in the outline pane.

The Notes Pane replaces the notes view found in previous versions of PowerPoint. (Although you still can choose VIEW : Notes Pages from the menu.) This pane allows you to type speaker's notes without changing views. If you wish to view the Speaker's Notes page as it will print, or wish to have a larger area in which to type notes, choose VIEW : Notes Page.

Page Setup for 35mm Slides
PowerPoint assumes that you will be delivering an on-screen presentation. If you are using PowerPoint for development but will be creating 35mm slides, you should size the presentation for that medium before beginning development. 35mm slides are wider than on-screen presentations; if you develop slides before setting the page size, you run the risk of your slides not looking the way you want them to look.

To size your presentation for 35mm slides :

• From the menu, choose FILE : Page Setup.

• In the Page Setup dialog box, click the drop-down box beside Slides sized for. Choose 35mm Slides. Click OK.

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