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ExercisesPowerPoint has several tools to help you create your presentation's slides that you'll find in the toolbars. The rest of the page will be dedicated to exercises using options on the toolbars to help you to understand the potential of these tools. You need to begin with a new presentation.
PowerPoint will show you the first slide with two boxes of text.
Add of the text in both text boxes
Change the text's font sizeYou may change change the size, font and other options of the text that's inside these two boxes. But you need to select all the contents of the text box.
Squares should appear on the corners of the box.
At the top of the screen, you'll should find the standard toolbar that contains the list of fonts (Arial, Times New Roman and many others). Beside it, is another box to select the font's size.
A point equals to 1/72-nd of an inch. You will notice that your name is much bigger than before. The Drawing toolbar will be used for the next options.
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You can also choose your own color. You can determine your own color by mixing the from basic red, green and blue colors. You can place values from 0 to 255 to each to get a total of over 16 millions combinaisions!
Supplement
You can select a block of caracters or a single letterand change its font, its size or its color. Imagine your name with all the colors of the rainbow. Or that every character is smaller than the previous one. Give it a try!
You can also add a block of the text anywhere on the slide. You can write it outside of the two boxes of the slide. You will find the button above in the Drawing toolbar.
Click
on the
button.
Move
the cursor anywhere on the slide but not on any object already there such as the other two text boxes.
Click where you want to write the text.
Write
the text of your choice.
You can then use the previous buttons to change the font, its size or its color.
On the same toolbar, you will find the Free rotate button. It allows you to change the angle of the text boxes or must other objects on the slide. The next exercise consists in changing the angle of the text that you just wrote.
Select
the text that you have just written by clicking this text.
A border should appear around the text.
Click and hold the left mouse button on the button free rotate button above the text.
The border of the object will change. There will be only four squares at the extremities of the border.
Move
the cursor on to one of these squares.
Press and hold the left mouse button and move the cursor towards the left, the
right, up or down.
You will notice that the text, or nay other object you selected, turns on itself.
Do
not release the left mouse button until you're satisfied with the angle of your
text.
Retry
and experiment little.
There is a small trick you need to know.
Re-select
the free rotate button.
Press the Shift key while rotating the object.
The rotations will only be at 15 degrees intervals.
You may rotate some objects such as text and drawn objects. It's impossible to rotate an pictures or an OLE objects (graphs, organization charts or the others).
On the same toolbar as the free text and the free rotate buttons, you'll find the button above.
Click on the button
.
Move
the cursor on the sheet of the slide.
Click on the point where you want to start an oval, press and hold the left mouse button.
Move
the mouse to where you want to end the oval.
You will see to appear the format that the oval will have when you'll have releaseed the left mouse button. By pressing on the Shift key, you'll observe that the oval becomes a perfect circle. The same situation happens for the rectangle button that becomes a square.
You can also change the fill-in color or the color of the outline of any drawn object. The next exercise consists in changing the fill-in color of the oval. This option only works with drawn objects. It won't work with text. See the option for changing the color the text mentioned above.
Click on the oval to select it.
The border of the object and the squares should appear. Otherwise, click the oval.
Press
the
button.
Select
from the shown colors.
Or
Click
on the More Fill colors option and choose from the colors that are
shown in the window.
At any time, you can change the fill effect inside a form. You can change the color as well as put in a pattern or a picture. The next section shows you how.
Select
the oval.
From the Fill color button
, select the Fill Effects option.
Select
the Gradient tab.

Under this tab, you can place a gradient fill on the object you selected. You can change the colors, the angle of the gradient and its tranparency. You can also press the Preview button to give you an idea of the final effect on your slide.
Click
on the Texture tab.

This window allows you to choose among predefined textures and to place it on the object you chose. You can also add other textures to the sampling you already have by pressing on the Other texture button.
Click
on the Pattern tab.

This window allows you to place patterns on the selected object. This option was available in the previous versions of the program.
Click
on the Image tab.

This window allows you to paste a picture inside the object that
you chose. You can also bring in a picture and
paste it. You may press the Select Picture button and get the picture that you want inside the object.
The next exercise consists in enlarging the oval so that it fills the entire slide. It will hide the other objects on the slide such as the text boxes. The next exercise will solve this small problem.
Select
the oval.
Squares will appear around this one.
Place
the cursor on one of these squares.
While pressing on the left button, move the square towards the border of the slide.
Repeat
the operation until the oval is as big as possible.
The oval should be as big as the slide to hide the text you wrote before. Each of the objects that you add to a slide is on it's own "layer". Every object that you add goes over, or top of, the other objects you added before. This option allows you to stack objects and give you a better presentation. But there are time you may wish to change the layers' order. Such as this example, you may want to place an object that's on top below some or all the other objects you already created.
At the moment, the oval is in front of all the others because it's the most recent object placed on the slide. To change the place of its layer:
Click the
oval.
From
the Drawing toolbar menu, selects the Drawing button.
Select
the Order option.
Select to To the background option.
The layer of the oval is now completely behind all the other layers. Experiment a little. Re-select the oval. Use the Drawing order command and move the oval gradually to the top and observe the result every time. The oval will move "forward" and to place behind it another object every time you use the combination of command Drawing, To move forward. You can also put off the layer of an object to place it behind the other that hides it. By controling the layers options, you may decide where you place some objects close to some others.
Press the PageUp or PageDown keys. Press of the buttons with two triangles located in the lower right corner of the screen.
The Next page
The next page will describe the outline options in PowerPoint's Normal mode.