Contents
The PowerPoint 2007 Interface
Keyboard Shortcuts in PowerPoint
How to Create New Presentations and Open Existing Presentations
How to Save and Close PowerPoint Presentation Files
How to Add Text to Your Slides
How to Select Text in a Slide
How to Format the Text in a Slide
How to Cut, Copy, and Paste
How to Undo and Redo
How to Add Visual Content to Slides
How to Add Audio Content to Slides
How to Design a Presentation
How to Add Animations to Slides
How to Edit a Presentation
How to Add Comments to Slides
How to Present a Slide Show
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How to Create New Presentations and Open Existing Presentations
To start working in PowerPoint, first learn how to create a new presentation or open an existing one.
How to Create New PowerPoint Files
Creating a new presentation in PowerPoint is as simple as launching the program—when launched, PowerPoint automatically displays a blank presentation. In addition, PowerPoint offers six different ways to create a new presentation or open an existing presentation:
- Blank and Recent
- Installed Templates
- Installed Themes
- My Templates
- New from Existing
- Microsoft Office Online
Blank and Recent
If PowerPoint is already running and you want to open a new blank presentation or open a presentation you’ve worked on recently:
- Click the Office button and select New (Ctrl+N).
- The New Presentation dialog box opens. In the left pane, under Templates, select Blank and Recent. You’ll now see thumbnails for your recent presentations and for a blank presentation.
- To start from scratch, select Blank Presentation and click Create. To open a recent presentation, click on its thumbnail and click Create.
Installed Templates
If you don’t want to design a presentation yourself, you can use one of a wide variety of predesigned templates that come installed with PowerPoint 2007. For instance, rather than use PowerPoint to make a photo album slide show or a pitchbook presentation, you can save time and get more professional results by using a preinstalled template. Just load a template that fits your needs, and you can type right into it.
- Click the Office button and select New (Ctrl+N).
- The New Presentation dialog box opens. Select Installed Templates in the left pane. You’ll now see thumbnails for the available installed templates in the center pane of the dialog box.
- Select the template you’d like to use and click Create.
Installed Themes
A PowerPoint theme is a ready-made set of design elements, such as fonts and color choices, that can give your presentation a polished, professional look and feel. To load a new presentation with a built-in theme:
- Click the Office button and select New (Ctrl+N).
- Select Installed Themes in the left pane. The center pane will show thumbnails of the available themes.
- Click on the theme you’d like to use and then click Create to open up a new presentation that incorporates the theme you’ve chosen.
My Templates
PowerPoint lets you save presentations you create as templates for later use. For instance, if you give a quarterly PowerPoint presentation at work, you might wish to use your first presentation as a template for subsequent presentations—that way you’ll need to update only the content of your slides, not their overall look and feel.
- Click the Office button and select New (Ctrl+N).
- Select My Templates in the left pane.
- In the dialog box that pops up, click on the template you’d like to use—a small preview of it will appear in the right side of the pane.
- Click OK to open your template and begin modifying it.
New from Existing
This option opens a copy of a PowerPoint presentation that you haven’t saved as a template. You can edit or modify the presentation however you’d like, then save it under a new name.
- Click the Office button and select New (Ctrl+N).
- Select “New from Existing...” in the left pane.
- A dialog box will open that allows you to search for the existing document.
- Once you’ve found the document, click Create New.
Microsoft Office Online
Whenever you create a new PowerPoint presentation, you’ll see a Microsoft Office Online tab in the left pane of the New Presentation dialog box. Listed beneath this tab are categories of additional templates that you can use to create popular types of PowerPoint files, such as calendars, award certificates, sales presentations, and much more.
- Click the Office button and select New (Ctrl+N).
- Click on any of the categories listed under Microsoft Office Online. Thumbnails of the available templates will appear in the center pane—you’ll need to be online to view these.
- Click on the template you’d like to use and then click Download. The file will download to your computer and open up for you to use.
How to Open an Existing PowerPoint File
To work on a file you’ve already created and saved:
- Click the Office button and select Open (Ctrl+O).
- The Open dialog box opens. Browse for the file.
- Once you’ve found the file, double-click to open it, or select it and click Open at the bottom of the dialog box.
Compatibility with Older PowerPoint Files
PowerPoint 2007 can open any PowerPoint presentation created using previous versions of PowerPoint. If you have an older version of PowerPoint, however, you’ll be able to open PowerPoint 2007 files only once you’ve downloaded and installed the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, available free from Microsoft at office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/default.aspx.
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