CIS 184 - Introduction to Microsoft PowerPoint
Assignment 3 Instructions

Synopsis: This week, you will complete most of Tutorial 3 in the PowerPoint section of the text titled Presenting a Slide Show and part of Tutorial 2 titled Giving Your Presentation found in the Presentation Concepts section at the front of your text book. This concepts section will help you to determine what type of visual to use depending on the message you wish to convey. You should find this information important for your midterm presentation you will create next week.

Tutorial 3 starts by showing you how to insert slides into the current presentation from a presentation you have already created. This is a handy feature if you give almost the same slide show to several different audiences. With this technique, you will not have to redo a lot of the slides that you want to use in every presentation to different audiences. Only the slides that vary will need to be created.

You will also be building on your work with design templates in Tutorial 2. In this chapter, you will create a custom design template as well as a custom background and learn to add a background image to your template. Once you have created your custom design template, you will save it and then use it to create a new presentation. You can save your custom template to the default Templates folder set up by PowerPoint or you can save it to your hard drive or to disk. If you store it in the Templates folder, it will be available for you and other users on your computer automatically in the Design Templates Task Pane. This means that if you are particularly fond of a design template you created or modified, you can apply it to many other presentations without rebuilding the template.

You will also learn how to apply a second design template within the current presentation. Although this technique could be applied several times within a presentation, it is usually wise to stick with one main design and if you use a second design, placing it on only one or two slides to distinguish the information on those slides. Using too many designs will take away from the professional, polished look of your presentation and will make it look disjointed. You will also create a custom color scheme for your presentation.

You have already learned to put clip art and images into your presentation. Now you will add sound clips as well as movies to it. Remember the KISS IT principle when working with images, sound clips and movies. Some will enhance your slide show; too many will distract the audience from the messages on your slides.

In Tutorial 3, you will also learn how to further use a special slide layout to add charts and Organization charts to your presentations. You have already used this slide layout to add tables, several diagrams, as well as clip art, and pictures to your slides in Tutorial 2. First, you will insert a chart into your presentation. Chart slides display your data in picture form. Charts are used to show statistical data in a graphical format for ease of comprehension and retention. This chapter focuses on column and bar charts, but PowerPoint can create many other types of charts, for instance, line and pie charts. PowerPoint does this by calling up a peripheral program (Applet) called Microsoft Graph whose sole function is to create graphs. Although charts are very easy to create in PowerPoint, the user must decide which type of chart would be most appropriate for the data being graphed. Information presented in the supplemental reading, Presentation Concepts Tutorial 2, will help you to determine what chart to use for what purpose. Besides using Microsoft Graph, charts can also be embedded or linked from existing Excel worksheets which will be explored in Tutorial 4.

Second, you will insert an Organization chart into your slides. Organization charts typically show the hierarchial organization of people within a company or institution. However, you can also use organization charts to represent tasks within a project or subroutines within a large computer program or even create family trees.

Potential Problems You Might Encounter: The instructions in Tutorial 3 are very straightforward, and you should not have much trouble following them. The first time you create a chart, it may seem a little frustrating. Once you have built the second chart, you will be more confident and techniques used in the text will make sense.

On page PPT 92, step 1, you are instructed to open the PeruRep.ppt presentation and save it as Peru Expedition Report. Click on the link and download this file to your hard drive. You will be using several more files in this tutorial, so I am going to give the links to you all at once, so they will be on your hard drive when you need them. They are PeruPlan.ppt, MPLogo.jpg, PaqaPic.jpg, PaqMovie.avi, Paq.wav and Taq.wav. Remember for picture, .jpg, movies, .avi, or sound files, .wav, right-click on the link.

On page PPT 93, step 1, notice that when you insert slides from another presentation they are inserted after the current slide just as they are when you add a new slide.

On page PPT 96, step 1, in versions earlier than 2002 (XP), you may need to go to the Format menu and click on the Color Schemes option in order to create a custom color scheme.

On page PPT 97 in the paragraph just above "Creating a Custom Background", the authors make it very clear that if you want to have special effects such as Shading, Textures or Patterns on the background of your slides, you must use the Background dialog box. To bring up this dialog box, click on the Format menu, then Background. Click on the color list arrow and then select Fill Effects. The Fill Effects dialog box will open, and you can apply the special effects features.

On page PPT 98, step 3, you are asked to select the Gradient Tab and then click on Two Colors. Before doing this, you may want to click on Preset to see the various preset Gradient color shadings available.

On page PPT 98, step 6, notice the difference between the two options, Apply and Apply to All, in the Background dialog box. You will see these options in other dialog boxes as well. If you want the feature or effect to apply to only the current or selected slides, click on apply. If you want it on all the slides, click on Apply to All.

On page PPT 103, step 9, when dragging or moving the boxes, watch the vertical (up and down) lines of the original box and the image of the box moving. That way you can keep track of where they should be placed horizontally (across) on the slide.

On page PPT 105, step 4, you might want to also save your custom design template to the default Templates Folder. If you do this, you will see it in the Slide Design Task Pane along with PowerPoint's sample design templates.

On page PPT 111, notice in step 5 that you need to double-click the sound icon to play it while creating and editing your slides. When you are in the Slide Show, you only need to click on it to play the sound.

If, while working on your chart, you accidentally close or lose your datasheet, click on the View menu and select the Datasheet option or Click the View Datasheet icon on the Standard toolbar. The icon looks like a picture of a small table. If you still do not see it, you must double-click the graph, so the graph is active. This last statement is important to keep in mind. If the charting options are not available to you, you are no longer in the MS Graph program. When you click outside the chart object, you are back in PowerPoint. To return to the chart program, double-click on the chart, and you will see a cross hatched border around it. Notice also that when your chart is selected, two (2) new options are added to the menu bar. They are Data and Chart. They replace the Slide Show menu option while you are working on a chart.

On page PPT 118, step 4, you are asked to change the font to Arial Regular. This means the Font will be Arial and the Font style will be Regular.

On page PPT 120, step 2, you can click on the Organization Chart icon and then OK to insert the content placeholder into your slide or easier still, just double-click on it.

On page PPT 121, step 1, make sure you see the gray selection handles and not the cross-hatched border. If you have the border, just click the edge of the box again to get the handles.

In step 4 on page PPT 122, if you immediately clicked on the Insert Shape option rather than the list arrow to the right of it, click on undo and start over. This will remove the extra box from the chart.

On page PPT 123, step 11, the level 4 boxes they are referring to are coworkers. You will need to use the list arrow on the Insert Shape option in the toolbar to add these boxes.

Stop at the bottom of page PPT 124 just before "Applying Special Effects" which you will explore next week. Now turn to pages PRES 41 - 51 and learn how to select appropriate visuals for your midterm presentation coming up next week.

Case Problem 1 Instructions: Please make a note in your text that you will only complete steps 1 - 13 this week. In both cases in Tutorial 3, you will be creating a graph as well as an Organization chart for each presentation. While working on the graphs and Organization charts, you will gain practice with formatting options typical for each type of slide.

On page PPT 140, you are asked to open the GeNetics.ppt presentation and save it as GeNetics Research Labs. Click on the link and download this file to your hard drive. You will also need to download four (4) more files to complete this exercise. They are Bonnie.jpg, Atorv.jpg, Drugs.jpg, and Applause.wav. Download these files now as well using whatever method is necessary for that type of file.

On page PPT 140, step 3, make sure you apply the yellow color to only the second level bullet as specified in the text.

In step 6 you are asked to set the white background to transparent. You will need to click on Set to Transparent on the Picture toolbar and then click on the white background. You will notice that your cursor has changed when you apply this feature.

Case Problem 2 Instructions: Please make a note in your text that you will only complete steps 1 - 17 this week. On page PPT 141, you are asked to open the Alaskan.ppt presentation and save it as Alaskan Creative Woodworks. Click on the link and download this file to your hard drive. You will also need to download three (3) more files to complete this exercise. They are ACWBus.ppt, Totem.jpg, and Bowls.jpg. Download these files now as well using whatever method is necessary for that type of file.

On page PPT 142, step 9, while creating your template, delete the footer but leave the page numbers.

In step 12 on the same page, you are asked to set the picture to animate onto the screen (immediately without a mouse). The option you use to do that is with previous.

On page PPT 143, step 14, the authors want you to place your line chart on slide 8 not slide 5. In step 16, before you delete the legend make sure the sizing handles are around the legend on the right side not on the chart itself. If you accidentally delete the chart, just click on undo.

Homework for Week 3 will be due on Thursday at midnight. You will be sending your instructor two presentations, GeNetics Research Labs.ppt and Alaskan Creative Woodworks.ppt completed through the steps listed above as your assignment for the week. Compress the files using WinZip and attach them to an email to your instructor. Do not forget to include your name and assignment number in your email.

Midterm Reminder: You will be working on your Midterm presentation during Week 4 along with the tutorials assigned for that week. Be sure to get an early start next week, so you can get everything completed on time. Information on when the midterm will be posted is included in the Week 4 Instructions.

Be sure to check the course BB discussion board periodically throughout the week.