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How to present data using PowerPoint (part one)

This page has not been updated for Office 2010. The second part dealing with Excel has been updated.

Edit a design template which you can use to publish your Excel data

Create your own Master Slides or Design Template.

Once a template file is associated with a presentation it provides common formatting instructions for all of the pages. It defines background colours and pictures, font names, sizes and colours. There are some very striking templates provided with the program but these are used with depressing regularity in many organisations. It is also possible to acquire many more templates via the internet.

The pages do not need to be great works of art - indeed this may distract attention from the important message you are trying to convey.  It is easy to open one of the provided templates, edit it to remove unwanted colours and images and then use Save As to change the filename to your own choice - making sure that the file type is 'Design Template (*.pot)'. 

Images of your own corporate or departmental logos can be inserted anywhere on the page. Footer and header messages can also be added. Note that a Design Template may consist of two pages (one for titles, one for content) and both need to be similarly edited.

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It is possible to return and amend your Design Template at a later date. The updated style can then be reapplied to an existing presentation.

Common tasks - applying a design template to a presentation

Create a new presentation

Having created a new presentation, select the Common Tasks toolbar button to apply your chosen Design Template. This will affect the format of all slides in the current presentation.

New slides and layouts

Each new slide can be given a layout. There are various choices of format for  combinations of titles, charts, pictures and text. They might assist with your layout but don't worry too much about your choice. Tables, inserted pictures, pasted objects and text boxes can all be added quite independently of these placeholders. You can delete (but not insert) placeholders. The main benefit of using them for text is that your narrative is automatically added to the outline structure.

Part two of this tutorial demonstrates how Excel objects can simply be added to a presentation.


file: excel-powerpoint1.htm © meadinkent.co.uk 2006 Last updated Sep06