Microsoft PowerPoint 2021 Beginner: Themes, Templates and Outlines

Name: Microsoft PowerPoint 2021 Beginner: Themes, Templates and Outlines
Author: Erin Sullivan

Learn to use tools to make your presentations shine with built-in templates and themes, and learn to focus on the content of your presentation using outlines

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In this lesson, we're going to take a look at using themes in Microsoft PowerPoint. You can apply a theme to an existing presentation, or you can start a new presentation using a predefined theme. We're going to take a look at applying a theme to an existing presentation first. Here's a presentation that I have started, and I have various layouts applied to seven different slides. If I go to the Design tab on the ribbon, and in the themes group, there are a variety of themes that I can choose from. When I rest my mouse over the different themes, I get a preview of the slide that I have open for editing, and I can see what the slide would look like with the selected theme. If I apply a theme, I just click on it and it applies to all of the slides in my presentation. It changes colors and fonts, and it maybe adds a background to each slide in the presentation. Depending on the layout, the slides may look similar or they may be different. If I choose a theme, I can choose a different one. I'm not stuck with any given theme, and you'll see as I choose different themes, the fonts change, and the layout of the slide changes automatically. Each theme has a different color scheme associated with it, and some themes have variant schemes. As we take a look at this particular theme, if we look over to the right on the ribbon, we'll see variants, so this is a purple variant, there's also a green, and a blue, and a red. When I choose any one of those variants, all of the other slides in my presentation follow the same theme. You can see how the layouts change and look a little different. This is a section heading, a section layout, and I can go to the Home tab and look at the layout, and I can see all of the different layouts in this theme, and how they would look. You can see this is a section header layout, and how the comparison slide and the picture and caption slide all have just a little bit different layout based on the theme. The nice thing about themes and about PowerPoint is when you use the built-in placeholders and you change the theme, everything will automatically change and give you a nice, cohesive look. Like I said, you can also start a new presentation with the theme. If you go to the File tab and you go to New, here are all of the various themes that you can choose from. You can choose any of these themes as well for your presentation. Some of these are different than what's available. Some of them are the same. If I choose one of these themes, for example, sometimes it will give you a description of what the theme is, and you may need to download the theme, and then it will start your presentation. Again, if you want to see what each slide would look like, you can look at the layout, and there are those various slides. Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for our next slide where we look at how we can customize our themes.

Beginner Provider : Erin Sullivan 4 Lessons · 13m in English

Course Description

The focus of this module is working with themes, templates, and outlines. PowerPoint 2021 has many productivity-enhancing tools, such as templates. In this Module, you will learn to add colorful themes and styles to your presentations and learn the power of templates and working with outlines in PowerPoint 2021. You will learn to use tools to make your presentations shine with built-in templates and themes and learn to focus on the content of your presentation using outlines.

These tools enable you to create a presentation with minimal effort and maximum outcome. The built-in templates will provide guidance and suggestions on a large range of topics for business and education settings, among many others. The themes allow customization through the use of colors and fonts. The use of outlines gives you the opportunity to focus on the content of your slides without the distractions of the images and graphics. Altogether these essential tools will help you to create a memorable and polished professional presentation.

What You'll Learn

Add colorful themes and styles to your PowerPoint 2021 presentations
Customize themes through the use of colors and fonts
Use built-in templates to guide and speed up presentation creation
Work with outlines and Outline View to focus on slide content
Create content directly in PowerPoint Outline View

Key Takeaways

This module focuses on working with themes, templates, and outlines in PowerPoint 2021.
Built-in templates provide guidance and suggestions across a wide range of topics for business, education, and other settings.
Themes allow customization through the use of colors and fonts.
Outlines let you focus on the content of your slides without the distractions of images and graphics.
Together these tools help create a memorable and polished professional presentation with minimal effort and maximum outcome.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does this PowerPoint 2021 module cover?

It focuses on working with themes, templates, and outlines, including adding colorful themes and styles, using built-in templates, and working with outlines and Outline View.

What will I be able to do with themes and templates after this module?

You will learn to add colorful themes and styles to presentations, customize themes through colors and fonts, and use built-in templates that provide guidance and suggestions across many topics for business and education settings.

How do outlines help in PowerPoint 2021?

Outlines and Outline View give you the opportunity to focus on the content of your slides without the distractions of images and graphics.

What skills does this module help develop?

It covers Microsoft PowerPoint, PowerPoint Animation, Presentation Graphics, Presentation Layer, and Templates.

What lessons are included in this module?

The lessons are Themes, Customizing Themes, Using Templates, and Using Outlines and Outline View.