Introduction

An effective presentation draws on information from many sources. Microsoft Office PowerPoint helps you seamlessly integrate information into your presentations using shared data from Office applications.

In PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office programs, you can insert SmartArt graphics (New!) to create diagrams that convey processes or relationships. PowerPoint offers a wide-variety of built-in SmartArt graphic types from which to choose, including graphical lists, process, cycle, hierarchy, relationship, matrix, and pyramid. Using built-in SmartArt graphics makes it easy to create and modify charts without having to create them from scratch. If you already have text on a slide, you can quickly convert your text to a SmartArt graphic.

In PowerPoint, you can insert an object created in another program into a presentation using technology known as object linking and embedding (OLE). OLE is a critical feature for many PowerPoint users because it lets you share objects among compatible programs when you create presentations. When you want to make any changes or enhancements to the objects, you can edit the inserted object without having to leave PowerPoint. OLE makes it easy to add graph and organization charts to present information visually. If you have information in other programs, such as Microsoft Office Word or Microsoft Office Excel, you can insert it in to your presentation with the help of OLE.