1. Don’t use any of pre-designed templates. Use a BLANK presentation and a BLANK layout!
 
2. Use a dark or black background. Most images look best against black. Use FORMAT BACKGROUND > APPLY TO ALL to do this. Black is not one of the popular colors, so go to MORE to find it.
 
3. To make a text box, click on the icon, draw a box, and start typing. The box will expand to include whatever you put in. You can change size, color, and style of text as you do with Microsoft Word. You can make the boxes colored by using the fill bucket.
 
4. Use a color for your text that will work on either black or white backgrounds, like red, bright green, bright blue. Don’t use fancy fonts, as other computers may not display them. Stick to Arial, Times New Roman, etc., and plain, sans serif fonts.
 
5. Start with the best and biggest images you can as long as they are JPGs. Don’t use TIFF images in Powerpoint, as they can cause the program to slow down or freeze.
 
6. You can make a big image smaller by grabbing a corner and moving it. Be sure to use the corner. Moving the top, bottom, or sides will change the aspect ratio of your image and make it look distorted, but don’t make smaller images bigger than they actually are. This will make them appear distorted. The exception is that sometimes large images will be inserted at postage-stamp size. These you’ll have to enlarge. When in doubt about whether an image will look good when projected, use your SLIDESHOW icon to see how it will look to your viewers
 
7. You can make many types of corrections to images in PowerPoint using cropping, brightening, color improvement, etc. But you can’t sharpen an image in PowerPoint. For that you have to use something like Photoshop or Google’s new Picassa 2.
 
8. You can put any number of images on the same screen. Try to think about the points you actually want to make and create a screen that works best for each point: single big images for important pieces, multiple images for concepts, big or mutiple details, quotes, graphics to highlight particular areas, etc. As side-by-side horizontal comparisons are the most difficult thing to do with a single data projector, use those only when you are making true comparative points.
 
9. You can repeat screens as needed. You can repeat elements in screens as needed. You can use “INSERT FROM FILE” to pull in screens you have created in other presentations and modify them.
 
10. Don’t be afraid to be creative with size, number, and arrangement, but also watch out for screens that are too cluttered. Focus on the point you are making and the image itself. For large venues, like conferences, use large images and simple screens. You can’t count on having more than ½ the screen size you are used to.
 

(By Eileen Fry, Indiana University, Feb. 2005)

In order to put your PowerPoint presentation on the internet, you must save the presentation on your student web space drive provided by the college. Then you can access the presentation from Internet Explorer. Instructions for both are below.

Saving File on Web Space

1. For now, save your presentation to the desktop. In PowerPoint, click FILE > SAVE AS and select DESKTOP from the drop down menu at the top of the window. In the FILE NAME box, type a short file name using with letters only and no spaces.
 
2. If you are using a college lab computer, proceed to step 4. If you are on your personal computer in your dorm room, you need to create a link to your web folder. Clear the screen of all other windows so you can see the desktop. Right-click on the desktop. On the menu that appears, highlight NEW and select SHORTCUT.
 
3. In the box that appears, type the following exactly: \\jupiter\students_websites
Click NEXT. In the next window, type a name for your folder. Click FINISH. If you are prompted with a log-in box, enter your email address (firstname.lastname@centre.edu) and password.
 
4. If you are on a campus computer, open your web space folder by opening MY COMPUTER (either on the desktop or in the start menu), opening the folder STUDENTS_WEBSITES ON ‘JUPITER’ (W:), and selecting the folder with your name. If you are on a personal computer and followed steps 2-3, your web folder will be on your desktop. Open the web folder and then open the folder with your name.
 
5. On the desktop, right-click your presentation icon, which you saved on the desktop in step 1, and select COPY. In the upper left corner of your web space folder, select EDIT, then PASTE. Your presentation should be copied to your web space folder and you can now access your presentation from any computer on the internet.

Opening Presentation through the Internet

NOTE: You can access you presentation without being logged in to your account.
 
1. Open Internet Explorer. In the address box, delete everything.
Type: students.centre.edu/firstname.lastname/filename.ppt
The “firstname.lastname” should be your email account and the “filename” should be the simple name of your presentation made in step 1. When a box appears, select OPEN.
 
2. The first slide of your presentation should be on the screen. To make the presentation fill the entire screen, right-click on your presentation and select FULL SCREEN. You can use the arrow keys to navigate through your presentation. To exit your presentation, press the escape key (ESC) on the keyboard.
 
NOTE: You cannot alter your presentation in Internet Explorer. You must make changes in PowerPoint and save the new presentation over your old presentation in your web folder.