Starting a New Presentation Part 1 in PowerPoint 2010
You can start a blank presentation from scratch, or you can base the new presentation on a template or on another presentation. Using a template or existing presentation can save you some time. However, if you have a specific vision you’re going for, starting a presentation from scratch gives you a clean canvas to work from.
Starting a Blank Presentation from Scratch When you start PowerPoint, a new blank presentation begins automatically with one slide. Just add your content to it, add more slides if needed, change the formatting (as you’ll learn in upcoming chapters), and go for it. If you need to start another blank presentation, follow these steps:
1. Choose File ➪ New. The available templates and themes appear, on which you can base the new work, as shown in Figure 3-1.
2. Blank Presentation is already selected. Click Create.
Starting a Presentation from a Template or Theme A template is a file that contains starter settings — and sometimes starter content — on which you can base new presentations. Templates vary in their exact offerings, but can include sample slides, a background graphic, custom color and font themes, and custom positioning for object placeholders.
When selecting a template, you can choose from these categories:
Sample Templates: Microsoft-provided templates and presentations that come preinstalled with PowerPoint.
Sample Themes: Microsoft-provided theme files, which are the same as the themes that you can later apply to a presentation from the Design tab. My Templates: Templates that you have created and saved yourself, and templates that you previously downloaded from Microsoft Office Online.
Microsoft Office Online templates: Microsoft-provided templates that you download from Microsoft on an as-needed basis.
Recent templates: Shortcuts to recently-used templates. This lets you easily reselect the same template you have used before.
New from Existing: Shortcuts to existing presentations, which you can use as a basis for new ones. This is useful when you want to create a new version of a presentation without interfering with the original.
Note Notice in Figure 3-1 that, in addition to Sample Templates, there are Themes. Themes are not templates, but they are similar.
Chapter 1 explains the difference. You can start a new presentation based on a theme as an alternative to using a template. Such a presentation starts with defined color, font, and effect settings, but no sample slides. Using a Sample Template There are only a few sample templates stored on your hard disk, because Microsoft assumes that most people have an always-on Internet connection these days.
Each sample template demonstrates a special-purpose type of presentation, such as a photo album, pitchbook, or quiz show. If you are interested in standard corporate presentation templates, you might prefer to look at the online offerings instead.
Follow these steps to start a presentation based on a sample template:
1. Choose File ➪ New. Icons for the various types of samples appear.
2. Click Sample Templates. Icons for the installed sample templates appear.
3. Click a template to see a preview of it.
4. Select the template you want and click Create. A new presentation opens based on that template.
Using an Online Template The bulk of the templates for presentations are available online. You can access the library of online templates without leaving PowerPoint. Follow these steps:
1. Choose File ➪ New.
2. In the Office.com Templates section, click the category of template you want.
3. Depending on the category you choose, a subcategory list might appear in the center pane. If it does, click the subcategory that you want. For example, if you choose More Categories, you’ll find an Office 2007 Document Themes category.
4. Click a template to see a preview of it.
5. Select the template that you want and click Download. A new presentation opens based on that template.