Microsoft PowerPoint 2021: Creating Presentations

Name: Microsoft PowerPoint 2021: Creating Presentations
Author: Erin Sullivan

Learn how to transform and elevate your presentations with templates and themes in Microsoft PowerPoint 2021

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Course: On-Demand

Hi. In this lesson we are going to be looking at using templates and themes to create a presentation in PowerPoint. You may be wondering what the difference between a template and a theme is in PowerPoint. Themes and templates both help you to create content that is attractive and cohesive without doing a lot of manual formatting in your presentation. So a theme is a predefined set of colors, fonts, visual effects that apply to all of the slides in your presentation giving you a cohesive, unified, professional look and feel to your presentation. Using a theme allows you to create additional slides and add graphics and things such as tables and shapes to your slide with PowerPoint automatically applying colors that are compatible with the rest of the content and the rest of the elements on that slide or other slides in your presentation. PowerPoint offers lots of different preset themes for your presentation. So we're gonna start with a blank presentation. So when you're in a blank presentation, we're looking at our title slide and we want to apply a theme. We're going to go to the design tab. We see the themes group. There is a variety of themes available to you. You see the gallery, you see the more button, you can press the more button and see additional themes that are predefined in Microsoft PowerPoint. You can choose any of these themes and it's going to apply to your entire presentation. Now we just have one slide right now. So the only theme we're gonna see is what applies to the title slide. But you see, as I rest my mouse over the various themes, I can get an idea of what that title slide might look like with the theme I choose. And I go ahead and choose this theme here and take a look at it in our presentation. Now, one of the other options you will notice when you choose a theme, you also have some variants available. So this particular theme has some different color schemes and patterns available, and I can click the more button and I can even change the color scheme. So if I like this particular pattern but I maybe want a little bit of a different color scheme, you see all of these color schemes available here. So you can customize these themes, even though they're predefined by Microsoft, you can customize them and add your own little spin to them. So I'm just gonna go with what the default theme is. Now I'm gonna take a look at how the theme works with other slides as I add 'em into my presentation. So I'm gonna go to the insert tab and in the slides group I'm gonna click new slide. And when you do that, you see all of the other slides layouts for this theme and you can see the differences. So the title slide and section header are similar, but then you have the two at the bottom that have content and captions or picture and captions. Then they add a little bit of a different spin. So each of the slides that I add in my presentation, and I'm gonna choose a couple of different ones, you'll see here they coordinate, they work with the theme. The fonts will be the same, the colors will be the same. If I choose to add content into my slides, like SmartArt for example, I'm just gonna randomly choose one. The color scheme of this graphic goes with the theme of my presentation. And one of the great things about using themes is when you use the predefined text boxes in a PowerPoint presentation like this one, I'm just going to type ideas. So when I type a text, the font is defined by my theme. And in my title slide, I'm gonna call this my idea presentation, my title slide text, my other text, my graphics, they all will follow when I change my theme. So if I go to the design tab and I decide, you know what, I think I wanna see what it looks like with this theme, I select the new theme. Every slide in my presentation changed. And you can see that on the left how they all changed. You can also see then I have some variants again on the right, and I can choose from those if I choose to make a change. The graphic change, the text change, the layouts may or may not change. It just depends on the theme. Some of them will have the content pane in one direction or another or a header footer may move. But that's the great thing about using the themes and maintaining using slide layouts. So just as we took a look at themes, themes are great when you know exactly what it is you are going to be saying in your presentation and the ideas that you are presenting. But there are times when you are needing to create a presentation but you are not a hundred percent sure of the content. And you want some ideas to spark your creativity before you get started. That's where PowerPoint templates come in. A template is a theme plus there's some content for a specific purpose, maybe a first day of school or classroom lesson, a business plan or a sales presentation. So templates have the same design elements that work together, like the themes with the colors and the fonts, but it also has some boiler plate content to help you tell your story. So let's take a look at creating a presentation using a template. So I'm gonna go back to the file tab on the ribbon and I'm going to click on new. And here we have all of these templates and themes available down here. It says some suggested searches. I'm gonna just click on education and see what templates it is suggesting for an education presentation that you might have to give. So here is getting to know your teacher. All right, let's see what this presentation suggests. When I click on the presentation template, it gives me a description of the content of that template and I can then click create. So now you'll see it created a presentation. And the nice thing about using these predefined templates is that it's sparking some information that I might need. I am not required to use any of these slides, but it does give me some ideas. On the right, I have a help section that pops up with the help pane and tells me how to customize some things. And you'll see, so I have getting to know your teacher, some ideas on slides you might want to share with your class. Okay, so you'll see different slides with different content. So here are just some different ideas. Now obviously you don't have to use all of the slides that come in a template, but they are a nice way to give you some ideas to help you get started when you're creating a presentation. So there are many different templates and they can include lots of different subjects and background formatting, and they have all of these pre-built in into PowerPoint 2021. Thanks for watching. Let's stick around for our next lesson where we're going to talk about using headers and footers.

Intermediate Provider : Erin Sullivan 3 Lessons · 22m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

How can you edit your handouts to maintain consistency with your presentation? How can themes and templates be used to make quick and efficient edits across an entire presentation? PowerPoint offers many tools and functions that can allow you to create effective and engaging presentations. Knowing how to properly use these tools and functions can allow you to create stronger presentations. Individuals often create presentations without knowing the full capabilities offered by PowerPoint 2021.

In this course on Microsoft PowerPoint 2021: Creating Presentations, we will discuss how to create an effective presentation in PowerPoint. We will explore templates and themes in PowerPoint, how to insert headers and footers, and how to use the Notes Master and Handout Master. By the end of this course, you will be able to create and deliver professional presentations, as well as understand how to utilize tools in PowerPoint that can help increase audience understanding and engagement.

What You'll Learn

Apply templates and themes in PowerPoint 2021 to make quick, consistent edits across an entire presentation
Add and modify headers and footers in PowerPoint 2021
Modify the Notes Master and Handout Master to maintain consistency with your presentation
Edit handouts so they stay consistent with the presentation
Create and deliver professional presentations using PowerPoint's tools and functions
Use PowerPoint tools to increase audience understanding and engagement

Key Takeaways

PowerPoint 2021 offers many tools and functions for creating effective and engaging presentations, and knowing how to use them properly leads to stronger presentations.
Templates and themes can be used to make quick and efficient edits across an entire presentation.
Headers and footers can be added and modified within a presentation.
The Notes Master and Handout Master can be modified, and editing handouts helps maintain consistency with the presentation.
Individuals often create presentations without knowing the full capabilities PowerPoint 2021 offers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does this course cover?

The course covers how to create an effective presentation in PowerPoint 2021, including templates and themes, inserting headers and footers, and using the Notes Master and Handout Master.

What will I be able to do after completing this course?

By the end of the course you will be able to create and deliver professional presentations and understand how to use PowerPoint tools that help increase audience understanding and engagement.

Who is this course suited for?

It suits individuals who create presentations but may not know the full capabilities offered by PowerPoint 2021 and want to use its tools to build stronger presentations.

What lessons are included?

The course includes three lessons: Using Templates and Themes to Create a Presentation; Headers and Footers; and Modifying Notes and Handout Masters.

What skills does this course help build?

It helps build skills in Microsoft PowerPoint, presentation graphics, presentation design, presentation software, presentation training, and working with templates.