Using Task Panes


A task pane is a window inside PowerPoint that lets you do common PowerPoint tasks without covering your presentation. PowerPoint has 12 readily accessible main task panes and several others that appear only under certain conditions (such as the Revisions pane for reviewing and collaborating). These task panes are

  • Getting Started Lets you open a presentation you recently edited and get information from Microsoft Office Online that helps you use PowerPoint more effectively. This task pane, which Figure 1.8 shows, appears when you start PowerPoint.

    Figure 1.8. Open a presentation, get tips for working with PowerPoint, or search for help in the Getting Started task pane.

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  • Microsoft PowerPoint Help Lets you search for information when you need help using PowerPoint and provides links to selected topics, assistance, training, newsgroups, and software updates on Microsoft Office Online. Choose Help, Microsoft PowerPoint Help to see this task pane.

  • Clip Art Lets you search for clip art images and provides links to the Clip Organizer and to the Clip Art and Media page at Microsoft Office Online. Choose Insert, Picture, Clip Art from the menu bar to open this task pane.

    For more information about using clip art and the Media Gallery, see Chapter 13, "Exploring Clip Art, Pictures, Movies, and Sound," p. 258 .


  • Research graphics/new_icon.jpg Lets you look up definitions and synonyms, translate short phrases into other languages, perform Web, news, and encyclopedia searches, and find financial information about companies. To open this task pane, choose Tools, Research.

  • Clipboard Offers the ability to collect and paste up to 24 different items. Choose Edit, Office Clipboard to open this task pane.

  • New Presentation Lets you create a new presentation in a variety of ways. Choose File, New from the menu bar to open this task pane.

    To learn how to use the New Presentation task pane, see Chapter 2, "Creating a Basic Presentation," p. 41 .


  • Shared Workspace graphics/new_icon.jpg Lets you collaborate with others in real time on presentations. To use this feature, you need a server that runs SharePoint. To open this task pane, choose Tools, Shared Workspace.

  • Basic File Search Provides both basic and advanced search capability on both your own computer and a network. Choose File, File Search to open this task pane.

  • Slide Layout Lets you apply up to 31 different layouts, each with its own additional design flexibility. Choose Format, Slide Layout from the menu bar or click the New Slide button on the Formatting toolbar to open this task pane.

  • Slide Design Lets you choose a design template for your presentation, set its color scheme, and apply animation schemes. Choose Format, Slide Design or click the Design button on the Formatting toolbar to open this task pane.

    For more information about slide layouts and design, see Chapter 2, p. 4 .


  • Custom Animation Lets you apply sophisticated animations to your slides or objects on your slides. Choose Slide Show, Custom Animation to open this task pane.

  • Slide Transition Offers the ability to apply animated transitions as you move from slide to slide. Choose Slide Show, Slide Transition to open this task pane.

For more information about the Custom Animation and Slide Transition task panes, see Chapter 15, "Working with Animation," p. 319 .


You can also choose View, Task Pane from the menu bar to open the task pane. The most recently viewed pane opens, but you can easily change to a different task pane. To do so, click the down arrow on the upper-right side of the task pane to open a menu of all available panes.

Located below the task bar's name are back and forward arrows that you can click to go back to the previously viewed task panes in the order in which you opened them and then forward again, as well as a Home button that opens the Getting Started task pane. To close a task pane, click the Close button in the upper-right corner or choose View, Task Pane again.

To customize when task panes appear, choose Tools, Options and go to the View tab of the Options dialog box (see Figure 1.9).

Figure 1.9. Customize how to display task panes in PowerPoint.

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Remove the check mark by the Startup Task Pane check box if you don't want a task pane to appear when you start PowerPoint. Remove the check mark by the Slide Layout task pane when inserting new slides check box if you don't want the Slide Layout task pane to open when you click the New Slide button.

You can also make the task pane wider or narrower. To do so, pause the mouse pointer over the left edge of the pane until the pointer becomes a two-headed arrow. Click the mouse and drag the left edge to either the left or right until the task pane is the width you want.

Using the Clipboard Task Pane

PowerPoint shares its Clipboard task pane with other Office applications such as Word and Excel. This collect-and-paste feature lets you copy multiple items and then paste them selectively, rather than simply copying and pasting a single item. You can collect up to 24 itemstext, objects, graphics, documents, Web pages, and so forthand then selectively paste them as needed. The Clipboard task pane lets you view and manage the 24 items you have most recently copied . To open this task pane, choose Edit, Office Clipboard. If you already have a task pane open, click the down arrow in the upper-right corner and choose Clipboard from the menu that appears. Figure 1.10 illustrates this task pane.

Figure 1.10. You can easily manage and share information using the Clipboard task pane.

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Click an item on the Clipboard task pane to paste it on the current slide (where the cursor is active). On this task pane, you also can

  • Click the Paste All button to paste all collected objects into the open presentation or document.

  • Click the Clear All button to delete all collected items from the Clipboard.

  • Right-click on a selected item and choose Delete from the menu that appears to delete only that item.

  • Click the Options button for five more options:

    • Show Office Clipboard Automatically Automatically displays the Clipboard when you copy or cut an object.

    • Show Office Clipboard When Ctrl+C Pressed Twice Shows the Clipboard when you press Ctrl+C twice in a row.

    • Collect Without Showing Office Clipboard Lets you copy and cut text and objects without displaying the Clipboard.

    • Show Office Clipboard Icon on Taskbar Displays a Clipboard icon on the taskbar in the lower-right corner of your screen when the Clipboard task pane is open.

    • Show Status Near Taskbar When Copying Displays the Clipboard's status (such as 6 of 24 collected) next to the Clipboard icon in the taskbar when you copy text or an object.

Searching for Files

Sometimes you won't immediately be able to find a presentation you want to open. You might have so many saved presentations that you've forgotten their names , making it very difficult to find one you want. Or you might have saved the file you're looking for in another folder and can't find it. Using the Basic File Search task pane, you can conduct sophisticated searches based on text in a particular presentation, as well as on specific presentation properties, to help you find the file you need. Basic Search is the default PowerPoint task pane, but you can click the Advanced File Search hyperlink on this task pane to open the Advanced File Search pane, where you can do more detailed searches based on file properties.

Performing a Basic File Search

To open the Basic File Search task pane, choose File, File Search from the menu bar. Figure 1.11 shows this task pane.

Figure 1.11. To search for specific text in a presentation, use the Basic Search task pane.

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To perform a basic search, follow these steps:

  1. Enter the text you want to search for in the Search text field. This can be any text included in the presentation you want to find.

  2. In the Search in field, select the folder or folders you want to search from the drop-down list. These can be folders on your computer, on a connected network drive, on the Web, or in Microsoft Outlook. To expand a folder, click the plus (+) sign; to collapse it, click the minus (-) sign. When you find the folder you want, place a check mark in the box that precedes it.

    TIP

    If you have no idea where the file is located, choose Everywhere to search in all locations. Be aware, however, that it takes longer to search all folders rather than to focus on specific folders.

  3. Select the type of files to look for in the Results Should Be drop-down list. Options include a variety of Office file types (PowerPoint, Word, or Excel files, for example) or Web pages.

    TIP

    If you want to enable PowerPoint's Indexing Service, click the Search options hyperlink to open the Indexing Service Settings dialog box (see Figure 1.12). Enabling Indexing Service directs Office to index your files when your computer is idle so that searches are faster and more accurate. If Fast Search isn't installed, you'll first need to click the Install hyperlink to install it before you can see the Search Options hyperlink.

    Figure 1.12. Indexing speeds up searching a large collection of files.

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  4. Click the Search button to begin the search process. PowerPoint finds matching presentations and displays them in the task pane, which is renamed Search Results (see Figure 1.13).

    Figure 1.13. PowerPoint displays the results of your search.

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  5. Double-click the file you want to open.

NOTE

For more options, click the down arrow next to the selected file. From the menu that appears, you can edit the file, create a new file from this file, copy the link to the Clipboard, or view the file's properties.


Click the Stop button to stop a search in progress. Click Modify to return to the Basic Search task pane.

Performing an Advanced File Search

If you want to search on specific file properties, use the Advanced File Search task pane.These properties align to the information you see in the Properties dialog box. To open the Advanced File Search task pane, click the Advanced Search hyperlink at the bottom of the Basic File Search task pane. Figure 1.14 shows the Advanced File Search task pane.

Figure 1.14. You can search on the properties in the Advanced File Search task pane.

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If you want to know the exact definition of each file property, see "Setting Presentation Properties" in Chapter 21, p. 463 .


Table 1.2 lists all the properties you can search on the Advanced Search task pane as well as the conditions available for each, which fall into three main categories: text, numbers , and dates.

Table 1.2. Advanced Search Properties and Conditions

Property

Available Conditions

Address

Is (exactly), includes

All day event

Is yes, is no

Application name

Is (exactly), includes

Attendees

Is (exactly), includes

Author

Is (exactly), includes

Category

Is (exactly), includes

CC

Is (exactly), includes

Comments

Is (exactly), includes

Company

Is (exactly), includes

Contents

Is (exactly), includes

Creation date

On, on or after, on or before, today, tomorrow, yesterday , this week, next week, last week, this month, next month, last month

Date completed

On, on or after, on or before, today, tomorrow, yesterday, this week, next week, last week, this month, next month, last month

Date due

On, on or after, on or before, today, tomorrow, yesterday, this week, next week, last week, this month, next month, last month

Description

Is (exactly), includes

Email

Is (exactly), includes

End

On, on or after, on or before, today, tomorrow, yesterday, this week, next week, last week, this month, next month, last month

Fax

Is (exactly), includes

File Name

Is (exactly), includes

Format

Is (exactly), includes

From

Is (exactly), includes

Importance

Equals Low, equals Normal, equals High, not equal to Low, not equal to Normal, not equal to High

Job title

Is (exactly), includes

Keywords

Is (exactly), includes

Last modified

On, on or after, on or before, today, tomorrow, yesterday, this week, next week, last week, this month, next month, last month

Last printed

On, on or after, on or before, today, tomorrow, yesterday, this week, next week, last week, this month, next month, last month

Last saved by

Is (exactly), includes

Location

Is (exactly), includes

Manager

Is (exactly), includes

Name

Is (exactly), includes

Number of characters

Equals, not equal to, more than, less than, at least, at most

Number of characters + spaces

Equals, not equal to, more than, less than, at least, at most

Number of hidden slides

Equals, not equal to, more than, less than, at least, at most

Number of lines

Equals, not equal to, more than, less than, at least, at most

Number of multimedia clips

Equals, not equal to, more than, less than, at least, at most

Number of notes

Equals, not equal to, more than, less than, at least, at most

Number of pages

Equals, not equal to, more than, less than, at least, at most

Number of paragraphs

Equals, not equal to, more than, less than, at least, at most

Number of slides

Equals, not equal to, more than, less than, at least, at most

Number of words

Equals, not equal to, more than, less than, at least, at most

Owner

Is (exactly), includes

Phone

Is (exactly), includes

Priority

Equals Low, equals Normal, equals High, not equal to Low, not equal to Normal, not equal to High

Received

On, on or after, on or before, today, tomorrow, yesterday, this week, next week, last week, this month, next month, last month

Resources

Is (exactly), includes

Revision

Is (exactly), includes

Sent

On, on or after, on or before, today, tomorrow, yesterday, this week, next week, last week, this month, next month, last month

Size

Equals, not equal to, more than, less than, at least, at most

Start

On, on or after, on or before, today, tomorrow, yesterday, this week, next week, last week, this month, next month, last month

Status

Equals Not Started, equals In Progress, equals Completed, equals Waiting for someone else, equals Deferred, not equal to Not Started, not equal to In Progress, not equal to Completed, not equal to Waiting for someone else, not equal to Deferred

Subject

Is (exactly), includes

Template

Is (exactly), includes

Text or property

Includes

Title

Is (exactly), includes

To

Is (exactly), includes

Total editing time

Equals, not equal to, more than, less than, at least, at most

Web page

Is (exactly), includes

Depending on your selection in the Condition field, the Value field might activate. For example, if you search the Last printed property and choose Yesterday as your condition, no further value is required. However, if you search the Title property and select Includes Words as the condition, you have to enter a value to indicate the exact words to include.

As another example, let's say that you want to find a specific presentation whose filename you've forgotten. You do remember, however, that you created the presentation sometime last week. To find this file, you could search the Creation date property for the last week condition. Based on this information, you can locate all presentations created within the past week, which should narrow your search considerably.

To use the Advanced Search task pane, follow these steps:

  1. Select a property from the drop-down list.

  2. Select a condition from the available choices for the chosen property.

  3. If required, enter a value for the criterion for which you're searching.

  4. Click the Add button to add this criterion to the search list.

  5. Continue adding search criteria as needed. As you add criteria, choose either the And or Or option button to specify whether the search should look for this criterion and other specified criteria or whether it should look for this criterion or other specified criteria.

    NOTE

    To remove a search, select it in the list and click Remove. To remove all searches, click Remove All.

  6. Continue with steps 2 through 5 described in "Performing a Basic Search," earlier in this chapter.

Working with the Research Task Pane

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The Research task pane gives you access to reference information on your computer and online from within PowerPoint. It offers these services:

  • Reference books built into Office, including dictionaries and thesauruses in various languages and a word and phrase translator.

  • Research Web sites, including searches of the Web, major news services, and the Encarta encyclopedia in various languages. Some of these services require that you register, pay a small fee, or have a Microsoft Passport.

  • Business and financial Web sites, where you can get company information and stock quotes. To access some of this information, you might have to register or pay a small fee.

graphics/searchbutton.gif To open the Research task pane, click the Research button or choose Tools, Research. Figure 1.15 shows the Research task pane.

Figure 1.15. Use the Research task pane to look up definitions, synonyms, news stories, company information, and more.

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Doing Research

To research a word or phrase, type it in the Search For field. Then, in the field right below the Search For field, click the arrow and choose the reference source to search. Choose a specific reference source, or choose

  • All Reference Books to search the dictionaries and thesauruses you have installed and translate the word or phrase into another language.

  • All Research Sites to use all news and Web search sites you've enabled and to search the Encarta encyclopedia.

  • All Business and Financial Sites to search all business and financial sites you've enabled.

Now click the Start searching button (the green button with the white arrow next to the Search For field). The Research task pane shows you its results. Figure 1.16 shows you an example.

Figure 1.16. Searching all research sites for Engineering returns these results.

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Not getting any results ? See the " Troubleshooting " section near the end of the chapter.


When you see a small plus-sign button next to anything returned, click it to see more information. You'll usually see a couple sentences that describe the research information and a hyperlink to the information itself. Figure 1.17 shows an example.

Figure 1.17. An expanded item, showing a link to the actual research information.

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Click the hyperlink to see the research information. When the information is on the Web, your browser opens to the Web page that contains it. If you use Internet Explorer, the Research task pane appears in the browser, as Figure 1.18 shows. You can continue your research in Internet Explorer, avoiding your having to switch back and forth from PowerPoint.

Figure 1.18. Research information appears in Internet Explorer. The Research task pane appears, too.

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If the word you want to research is already in your presentation, it might be faster to do it on-the-fly . To look up a word, right-click it in the presentation and choose Look Up from the menu that appears. The Research task pane opens with whatever settings it last used. If necessary, choose the reference tools to use and click the Start Searching button.

Choosing Research Services

The Research task pane comes with a lot of reference materials in many languages, but only a few of them are enabled after you install PowerPoint. You can enable others, or disable services you don't want, in the Research Options dialog box (Figure 1.19). To open this dialog box, in the Research task pane, click the Research Options hyperlink.

Figure 1.19. Choose the research services to enable in the Research Options dialog box.

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In the Services list, to enable a service, click its box so that it contains a check mark. To disable a service, click its box so that it's empty.

Microsoft might add research services, or you might learn of a service you want to use. To add a service to your Services list, click the Add Services button. The Add Services dialog box appears (see Figure 1.20). Either choose an advertised service from the list, or type the Web address of the service you want to use in the Address box, and click Add.

Figure 1.20. Choose the research services to add a research service.

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To remove a service that you don't want to use anymore, click the Update/Remove button and follow the instructions. If you want to filter research results to remove questionable or offensive content, click the Parental Control button and follow the instructions.

Understanding the Shared Workspace Task Pane

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A shared workspace is an area where you can work with others on a presentation. To use a shared workspace, you need access to a SharePoint server site. This is something you're unlikely to have unless you use PowerPoint at work and your corporation has embraced SharePoint technology. Check with your system administrator to find out whether a SharePoint server is available to you.

The Shared Workspace task pane, shown in Figure 1.21, opens whenever you open a document from a SharePoint document library.

Figure 1.21. The Shared Workspace task pane.

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This task pane has these tabs:

  • Status This tab tells you whether the open presentation is in sync with other members ' copies and whether you "checked it out" to work on it. It also tells you the document's Information Rights Management settings, which control access to the document.

  • Members This tab lists the users who are part of this shared workspace. You can also use this tab to invite others to join you.

  • Tasks This tab lists any to-dos that you share with other members of this shared workspace. You can also assign tasks to other members.

  • Documents This tab lists any documents you share with other members that relate to this presentation.

  • Links This tab lists references, either files or Web sites, helpful to the presentation.

  • Document Information This tab lists document properties.



Special Edition Using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
Special Edition Using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
ISBN: 0789729571
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 261

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