Goodwill Community Foundation creating
opportunities for a better life
in PowerPoint most new projects begin
the same way with creating or opening a
new blank presentation all you have to
do is go to the backstage view and
choose new if you prefer to start from
scratch go ahead and click the thumbnail
that says blank presentation or you can
take a look at one of the built-in
themes where you should find several
different designs to choose from if you
want a little more guidance on your
presentation you can always start with a
template instead you'll find them in the
very same place in the backstage view
templates like themes come with their
own design and color scheme but they can
also include tips or placeholders that
will help you further develop your
slides to use a template choose one of
the categories here or search for
something specific if you see a template
you like just click to view a preview
then click the Create button and you can
start adding your own content to the
slides opening an existing presentation
is also very easy again you'll want to
go to the backstage view but this time
click open in the left pane if the
presentation you're looking for is
something you've worked on recently it
might be listed under recent
presentations in fact you can pin
certain presentations here so you always
have access to your most frequently used
files all you have to do is mouse over
the file then click the pushpin icon to
unpin it click the icon again you can
pin as many presentations as you want
if the file you
for hasn't been opened recently just
look to the other options under SkyDrive
for instance you can access files that
are saved online to your SkyDrive
account under computer you can access
files that are actually saved to your
computer all you have to do is click
browse then select the presentation you
want when you're ready click open and
the presentation will appear sometimes
you may find yourself working with a
presentation that was created in an
older version of PowerPoint specifically
PowerPoint 2003 or earlier when you open
one of these files it'll appear in
something called compatibility mode this
mode is designed to disable certain
features so people who have older
versions of PowerPoint can still
collaborate on the file if this isn't a
concern for you you can easily convert
the file to the current version to get
started go to the backstage view then
click the button that says convert and
choose where you want the new copy to be
saved
you can give it a different file name to
click the save but
when you're done keep in mind converting
an older presentation can cause
unexpected changes to your slide layout
however it will give you access to all
the current features and commands now
you know how to create open and convert
presentations in PowerPoint 2013
you