To top off my Vista use (even if I continually whine about it), I’ve decided to put some more Microsoft “love” in my notebook with Microsoft Office 2007. I figured that many new users will be using Vista and Office 2007 especially since these little buggers often come with a new PC purchase and since this blog also caters to newbies, I might as well write some stuff about them.

I’ve been doing a rush presentation for my class last night and decided to share some tips on PowerPoint 2007. (I would’ve created a fancy Flash presentation instead, but for rushed work, PowerPoint would always do nicely).

One thing that can greatly affect your presentation is the way you design it. While many love to experiment with their presentations, they often miss the point of being consistent by following a particular template. This not only makes your design more consistent, it also provides the viewers with a mental map of how your slides go (where the slide titles are located, where the bullet points are, etc…).

To be able to apply a certain style over your presentation, Office has an option (which is also found in previous versions) that allows you to define master slides - layout templates that help you determine how all of your slides will look like so that you won’t have to go through the pains of designing each and every slide individually. And once an item’s on the master slide, it stays there.

To be honest, I was a bit baffled by the new look in Office 2007 with its “ribbons” and all. But I guess geek instinct eventually takes over and I managed to work my way around the interface.

Accessing the Slide Master View

To access the Slide Master view in Vista, click View and click the Slide Master button.

One thing you’d notice with 2007 if you’ve been an Office user before is that instead of a the default title and content master slides, you can now see 11 slides corresponding to the different possible layouts (two-column, comparison, title only, blank, etc…). So it just gives you a bit more control over everything.

Using slide master allows you to place static elements such as headers, footers, dates, and slide numbers that would appear in all the slides in your presentation.

Placing a Background

Probably the best way to create a static background for all of you slides is to place it on your master slide. But if you’re using a theme or template, chances are you already have a background loaded. If you’re doing your presentation from scratch, the Slide Master view is an option worth considering especially if you’re using a customized background image.

I usually create a 800 x 600 image on an image editor (say Photoshop) that I load and use for my presentation. What can I say, I love rendering personal touches.

• Click Insert
• Choose Picture
• Select image to be used
• Resize to fit the slide
• Right-click on the image
• Select Send to Back -> Send to Back

Placing an Image

Placing an image on the master slide is much like how you’d do it on a normal slide only thing is, if you place an image here, it’d appear on all your slides. Usually, it’s logos and insignia that are placed here. To do so, just follow the first two steps described above.

Here’s an image I placed at the footer:

Changing the Font Type and Color

Next thing you’d like to modify would be the Fonts. To do this, just select the placeholder text boxes and apply an appropriate font styling. Change the font type, the color, the size to make it fit your template.

• Select the Title text box, a text menu will pop-up (very convenient)
• Select the font type, size, and color
• This would be applied to all your title text in all your slides

After you’ve finished your styling, just click on the Close Slide Master button and it’ll bring you back to the Normal view with all your designs intact.

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So there you go. Your own personalized and consistent PowerPoint design. One other advantage in using master slides is that, since you only technically design a couple or so slides with your background image, you also keep the file size down.