PowerPoint 2007
PowerPoint 2007 (like the Office 2007 versions of Word and Excel) place most of the buttons on toolbars instead of giving the user the choice to seek and select those tools we use frequently to place on the toolbar. Lots of good stuff is there but I am still stumbling around at times looking for a tool I want to use and know has to be there.
Beware when setting up a PowerPoint show for use on another computer. At a recent scholarly meeting, the organizer had older computers with Office 2003 and participants brought presentations prepared in PowerPoint 2007. Were they surprised! Images disappeared, slide organization was disrupted, nobody was entertained or happy. If taking your show on the road, save as both a PowerPoint 2007 and a PowerPoint 2003 format.
PowerPoint organizes your public presentations (thesis defense, lectures, dog & pony show for your family reunion) for display on a monitor or projected onto a screen. Most of the procedures used in PowerPoint were also also used in Word or Excel. I will attempt to demonstrate the following:
Opening a new presentation
Apply design (do this when you begin if you are going to do it!)
Kinds of slides
Save/save as
Text in slides
Format and font
Text boxes
Images in slides
Editing images in slides
Saving your work
Backgrounds
Objects
Organizing slides
Drawing tools
Lots of these!
Equation editor
Animation
Sound
Printing slides and handouts
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Bells and whistles in your presentations (optional but fun): assignment is below this section.
Video clips can also be shown if the drivers are active in your computer- we recently purchased the hardware and software to (although I have downloaded some from the Web and inserted them into slides). Video takes up a lot of space in storage. If a video clip works on your lab computer, it will probably work on mine.
Large images saved as bitmaps take a lot of file space. I use the image processor to resize images to fit the screen (dimensions 640 by 480 rasters usually works) and then save as .jpg. To make my own backgrounds, I use the image processor to wash the color out of a photograph (20% opacity usually works well).
PowerPoint will link to a file, rather than embed it, if the image, video or audio is too large. Tools - Options opens (in PP 2003) a dialog box that permits you to set the size of files (images, videos, audios) above which PowerPoint will link instead of embed. Before you send me your assignment, send it to yourself via email, then open the file on a different computer with no access to your thumb drive (or "H" drive, if that is where you keep your files) just to make certain that the show will perform as you designed it to on a different computer.
You need a microphone to record your own voice on sound files. Collections of sounds are available for download at several Web sites - search Google for wav files - numerous pop-up ads are a price you might have to pay, but I like my selection of sounds more than Microsoft's various beeps and chirps. Newer versions of PowerPoint might be able to use .mp3 audio clips, I have not tested this.
Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) is free (and legal) software useful for recording and editing sound files, and for exporting sound files available in one format in a different format. I use Audacity to export segments of .mp3 sound files as .wav files to use in PowerPoint, and to select short segments of audio files so students do not have to hear the whole song. I also record my voice using Audacity. I don't know if permissions in the computer cluster allow you to install Audacity but that is what home computers are for. Instructions are sparse, but if I can figure it out -
In addition to sound effects in PowerPoint, these can also be used to customize sounds your computer makes when you open Windows, empty the recycle bin, open a program, close a program, log off, etc. (Start - Settings - Control Panel - Sounds takes you to that dialog window). You might have heard something when opening this Web page, a short audio clip from a movie.
Faculty and students also use PowerPoint to assemble poster papers. File - Page setup allows you to reset the dimensions of your sheet. Our large-format printer has 36-inch or 42-inch paper. Big posters take a lot of time and ink, so poster builders must carefully inspect their work before sending it to the printer. Overly large images (image size in rasters) in a poster run up the megabytes, which delays spooling and printing.
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Assignment: develop a PowerPoint slide presentation that shows me what you have learned in this class. Copy something from the Web; insert an Excel chart; save a Surfer map as an image and turn it into a slide; save an Abode Illustrator drawing as an image and convert into a slide; etc., one topic per slide. Tell me in the caption of each slide which skills you have mastered that permit you to make this slide. Use appropriate animation and sounds. Attach your entire show (file) to a Blackboard message. I will post your work on Blackboard so that members of this class will be able to enjoy one another's artistic inspiration. Due by 12 noon Friday, March 25.
Please clean up any flaws in assignments before inserting maps, images or objects into the show. As part of assessment, administrators (Provost, Dean) are pondering widespread use of electronic portfolios. In order to work properly, this needs to have various degrees of access.
NEXT WEEK we begin 4 intense weeks: introduction to simple database procedures and to spatial database technology (Geographical Information Systems - GIS). You will need your flash (thumb) drives, the files I have prepared for you to work with are enormous. It is unlikely that you have this software on your home computer so have your flash drive ready to accept these large files.
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