Using the Slide Sorter

One of the most common last-minute changes people make to slide shows is to rearrange slides here or there to improve the flow of the show. Changing the order of slides is simple and there are two easy ways to do it. Here's one way:

  1. Click the Slides tab at the left sides of the screen (see Figure 13.1).

    Figure 13.1. On the Slides tab of the Normal view, you can drag slides to rearrange them.

    graphics/13fig01.jpg

  2. Click and drag a slide to a new location. The thin horizontal line that appears between slides shows where the slide will go.

  3. Release the mouse button to drop the slide into its new slot.

If you need to move a slide beyond the end of the list that's visible onscreen, just drag beyond the list and wait a second or two until the list begins to scroll. You continue to scroll until you see the target location and then drop the slide there.

A second way to rearrange slides is to use the Slide Sorter view. The advantage of the slide sorter is that it enables you to see more slides at once, making it easier to view their arrangement. To move a slide in the Slide Sorter view, follow these steps:

  1. graphics/slide_sorter_view.gif Click the Slide Sorter View button on the Views toolbar at the lower left of the screen (refer to Figure 13.1). PowerPoint displays several slides at once (see Figure 13.2). The number of slides you see depends on your display. You can increase or decrease the number of slides in this view by choosing View, Zoom and changing the zoom percentage.

    Figure 13.2. The Slide Sorter view displays more slides than the Normal view, making it easier to rearrange or modify them.

    graphics/13fig02.gif

  2. Click and drag a slide to a new location. The thin vertical line that appears between the slides shows where the slide will go.

  3. Release the mouse button to drop the slide into its new slot. Slides move aside and make room for the newly relocated slide, and slide numbers automatically renumber.

In either the Normal view under the Slides tab or the Slide Sorter view, you can select more than one slide at a time and move them all at once. To move multiple slides, follow these steps:

  1. Click the first slide to be moved. PowerPoint places a blue highlighter line around the selected slide.

  2. Hold down the Ctrl key and click the second slide to be moved. All selected slides display the blue border (see Figure 13.3).

    Figure 13.3. You hold down the Ctrl key while clicking to select more than one slide.

    graphics/13fig03.jpg

  3. Continue selecting slides and then click and drag the group of slides to their new location.

Note that if you select slides that aren't next to each other, when you drop them in their new slots, they will be next to each other.

Both of these methods really are nothing more than a quick way of cutting and pasting slides. You could accomplish the same thing by cutting a slide and pasting it in a new location. But dragging and dropping slides is much easier and quicker. However, you can also copy and paste slides. Besides the obvious reason that you need a copy in another location, here are a couple of uses for copied slides:

  • You want a general title slide to show at the beginning, during introductions, and at the end, during questions and answers. You can create such a slide and copy it to the end of the show.

  • You have a self-running show with music. However, you don't want to have to start the Slide Show view with the audience looking on. Therefore, you create an opening slide that you can leave up during introductions and you copy that slide, adding automatic transitions and an embedded sound file. When you click to advance, the audience thinks Slide 2 is still Slide 1, except that the music plays and the show automatically advances to Slide 3 when the time comes.

  • You want to create an unusual animation sequence, such as a country that is in the midst of others that grows and gets a red border and a capital, while the other countries remain the original size. You create the first slide, with a title, regular-sized map, color designs, and so on. Then you copy the slide and paste several copies in sequence. Then you simply make the highlighted country slightly larger in each sequential slide (see Figure 13.4). When you play the slides, it appears that the country is growing on a single slide, but in reality you're moving rapidly from one slide to the next.

    Figure 13.4. A sequence of slides, with rapid automatic transition, can create the illusion of animation.

    graphics/13fig04.gif

To copy a slide to a new location, you follow these steps:

  1. Select the slide or slides to be copied, either in the Normal View Slides tab or in Slide Sorter view.

  2. Hold down the Ctrl key.

  3. Drag the slide to its new location, indicated by the thin line between the slides. Note that the mouse pointer shows a + beside it, indicating that you're copying.

  4. Drop the slide, which becomes an exact copy of the original.

Don't forget that using Undo (Ctrl+Z) can fix any accidental moving or copying.



Absolute Beginner's Guide to Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
Absolute Beginners Guide to Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
ISBN: 0789729695
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 154
Authors: Read Gilgen

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