What's a slide?
Where's the zoom control?
How do you view a presentation?
If you're new to PowerPoint, or just need a refresher, reviewing how to navigate the
environment and access basic tools can be very helpful.
Let's start with the Ribbon, which is the collection of tools and features at the top
of the screen.
The Ribbon is divided into tabs - like Design, Insert, and Home - to help you find what you're
looking for quickly and easily.
Also making things easier to find is the fact that all the commands are kept together in
groups.
For example, the Font group contains everything we need to work with text, including font
color, size, and more.
There's even a special tab that appears when you select certain items (like text) to give
you access to special groups of commands.
If you look closely at the upper left corner above the Ribbon, you'll find the Quick Access
Toolbar.
This little toolbar is designed to give you access to frequently used commands like Save
and Undo no matter where you are on the Ribbon.
Now let's take a look at the presentation itself.
A presentation is what we call a PowerPoint file; and each presentation contains one or
more slides, exactly like a slide show.
One of the easiest ways to navigate and work with your slides is to use the Slides tab
in the left pane.
Here you can add, delete, duplicate, and rearrange the contents of your presentation.
Also in the left pane is the Outline tab, which displays the text you have on each slide
instead of a thumbnail.
On the right side of the window are two more features you can use to navigate your presentation.
Just click and drag the scroll bar to jump to any particular slide, or use the arrows
below that to navigate between the Previous Slide and the Next Slide.
Now let's take a look at the tools at the very bottom.
That includes the zoom control, which lets you zoom in and out using the plus or minus
signs, or the slider in the middle.
Further to the right is a feature I use frequently.
Just click this button, and it automatically zooms in or out to fit your slide perfectly
to the current window.
Finally, you have the ability to change the way you view your presentation using the slide
view buttons here.
Your choices include Slide Sorter; full-screen views like Reading View and Slide Show; and
of course, Normal, which is the default view.
We'll look at each of these - and the different ways you can use them - in a later lesson.
Right now, what I'd like to do next is explore the PowerPoint environment in a little more
detail, and start customizing it to fit our needs.