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PowerPoint - Outline mode

Introduction
Writing text
Change levels
Move points around
Change bullets
View the results

Introduction

You may add slides one after the other to create your presentation by only using the slide options from PowerPoint's Normal mode. But there is a disadvantage to this technique. You have no global outline, or view, of your presentation.

The Outline mode settles this problem and adds other advantages:

Allows to better structure your ideas.
To move them around your presentation when necessary.
Helps you to quickly develop your presentation.

A presentation is rarely a place where you want to place long sentences, unless it's a quote from an important person. The text of your presentation should consist of keywords to make people understand the point that you want to make. A better term to describe the text that should be in your presentation would be a " punchline ". For example, to explain the reasons of the growth of sales, you could write " Increase of sales ". It's up to you after, during your presentation, to supply the explanations to the punchlines that you used.

The contents of text of a slide can be cut in two parts: the main title, that explains the subject of the slide, and points to be covered on the subject.

The view in Outline mode shows each of the rows of your slides. It doesn't show the added text that is in the free text boxes that was demonstrated on the previous slide mode Web page. The rows that are the closest to the left side of the screen, or the first level if you prefer, are for the main title of the slide. The text that is on the second level to the sixth level is the text of the slide. The rows that are on the third level are the sub-categories of the text of the slide and so on.

Writing text

The next part consists in writing all the text that will be required for a small presentation. You must give a presentation to the shareholders of the company X. You have already determined the text to write as well as at that level to put it on. In this example, there are only two levels: the main titles and the text of each of the six slides. Normally, you'll find the Outlining toolbar to the left of the section of the text. If not, from the View menu, select the Toolbars and Outlining options. You will need two of these buttons to change the level text. The other buttons will be explained when you'll have written the presentation's outline.

Change level

To change the level of a row, you should use the button or the TAB key to drop down a level. The button or the Shift and TAB keys will bring the row back up a level.

Place the cursor just after your name on the second row of text.
Press the cursor pointing downward.

The cursor should move on the third row. It should also have a small grey square that should appear to the left of the cursor.

Otherwise , press the button or on the the Shift and TAB keys to move back to the first level.

Write the text "Financial statements" and press the Enter key.
Write the text "Revenues by category" and press the Enter key.

At the moment, the last row is considered to be the main title for a new slide instead of being the text of the second slide (Financial statements).

Place the cursor on the row where it's written "Revenues by category".
Press the button or the TAB key.

Now, the row at the second level and is considered to be the text of the slide "Financial statements".

Write the rest of the text as described below by assuring you that the text is for the right level. Use the buttons or the keys when necessary to change level.

Move points around

You've noticed that one of the points in your presentation would be better placed at another location in your presentation. Instead of rewriting the text, you can make a block with the rows of text move it. Use both the move up or move down buttons to move the text in its new location in your presentation.

	Move up: Move a row or a block of rows upward. The row or block always stays in the same level.
	Move down: Move a row or a block of rows downward. The row or block always stays in the same level.

Make a block with the 5 rows of text from the slide " Reasons of our growth ".
Press the button several times.

You will notice that rows rise and change slides. However, they always stay in the same level.

Press the button to put back the presentation to its original location.

When you prepare a long presentation, you may get lost in the details. You may wish to see only the titles on the slides. The next buttons serve at temporarily hiding the text to only to show the main titles of the presentation.

Place your cursor on the title "Reasons of our growth".
Press the button.

The text of the slide is replaced by a horizontal row. This is to indicate that there is some text on this slide but that it's hidden.

Press the button so that the text of the slide reappears.

	Hide the selection: to hide the text of a certain level and replace it with a horizontal bar to better see the previous level.
	Show the selection: to show again one or several levels of text previously hidden by the Hide command.

The last two instructions are good at hiding or showing the text of a single slide. The next two buttons do make the same thing, but for all the slides of the presentation. Only the main titles will be shown.

	Show the titles: Temporarily replace the data of the second and other under lower levels by horizontal rows. The user sees only the main titles better to organize his presentation.
	View everything: Shows all the rows reduced by the use of the previous option.

Changing bullets

In front of every row of the second level or subordinate, a small character appears that's called a bullet. You may change it for another character or space.

Make a block with all the secondary rows of the fifth slide: " Reasons of our growth ".
From the Format menu, select the Bullets and Numbering option.

The following dialog box will appear.

Click on the character that interests you and press the OK button.

If you want to have no special character, click the first box in the upper left corner (none) and press the OK button. You can also change the size of the bullet by changing the size's percentage located to the left side of the window.

There are the other special characters that you can take advantage of. You can place a picture or customize the bullet in many ways. Some fonts contain fanciful characters such as the Wingdings , ZapfDingbats BT , Symbol font, Monotype sort, Animals and several others.

Press the Picture button.

Press the Cancel button.
Press the Customize button.

Select the character of your choice and press the OK button or press the Cancel button.

View the result

Having entered the text of the presentation, you deserve a look atthe result.

Place the cursor on the first slide of your presentation's outline.
Press the button or from the View menu, select the Slideshow option.
Press the spacebar, the left mouse button or the Enter key to pass in the next slide.
Continue to press one of these the keys to continue until the end of the presentation.

Once the presentation is ended, the slideshow mode will return you to the previous mode. In this case, it should be the outline mode.