Introduction & Opening | About the Slides, Opening Screen, Task Pane | Opening & Creating a Presentation
Saving/Create New Slide/Slide Design | Inserting Objects/Lists/WordArt | Edit Text/Images | Transitions & Animation
Set Up/View Presentation | Print Slides/Save to Web

About the Slides:
On any given slide in a PowerPoint presentation, you can present your information in a variety of ways. You can type in text using text boxes, insert images or sounds, create charts, graphs, or lists, and make text columns. Each separate element in a slide (be it text or an image) is considered its own object, and can be moved and modified independently from other objects in a slide. We will get into the specifics of how to actually create these elements in a bit, but you should know from the start that you are not limited when creating a slideshow.

The Opening Screen:

When you start PowerPoint, a number of screens and panels will appear on your screen. You can go in a number of directions from here.

Across the top of the screen, you’ll notice a toolbar that looks similar to ones used in word processing program. These tools allow you to format and edit text and other elements in your slide. We’ll get into more detail about this toolbar later on in the tutorial.

On the left side of the screen, there’s a panel with two tabs called “Slides” and “Outline” this allows you to view all of your slides in your slideshow as small images (in the “Slides” mode) or as text (you can view as text if you click on the “Outline” tab).

The panel on the bottom has more tools for editing your slides, such as Drawing and AutoShapes.

The Task Pane:

The panel on the right side of the screen is actually called the “Task Pane.” As the name implies, it controls all the main slide control tasks for your presentation.

If you ever lose sight of this panel, go to the menu bar in PowerPoint, navigate to “View,” select the “Toolbars” menu, and make sure “Task Pane” is selected.

When you first open PowerPoint, the “Task Pane” is set to display as the “Getting Started” panel. This will help you in beginning your presentation.

If you click on the small triangle, you can expand the menu to see all of the sub-menus included in the Task Pane:

You may find the third potion of the menu the most useful. Using these menus, you can format the Slide Layout, Slide Design (make custom color schemes, and animations), Custom Animations, and Slide Transitions.

For now, let’s take a detailed look at the "Getting Started" panel on the right side of the screen.

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