Chapter 3: Creating and Saving Presentation Files | Microsoft Powerpoint 2007 Bible

If you're an experienced Windows and PowerPoint user, starting new presentations and saving files may be second nature to you. If so-great! You may not need this chapter. On the other hand, if you aren't entirely certain about some of the finer points, such as saving in different formats or locations, stick around.

Even people who consider themselves "advanced" users may benefit from this chapter, because it looks at some of the unique advanced saving features of Office applications and explains how to secure files with passwords.

Starting a New Presentation

You can start a blank presentation from scratch, or you can base the new presentation on a template or on another presentation. Using a template or existing presentation can save you some time. However, if you have a specific vision you're going for, starting a presentation from scratch gives you a clean canvas to work from.

Starting a Blank Presentation from Scratch

When you start PowerPoint, a new blank presentation begins automatically with one slide. Just add your content to it, add more slides if needed, change the formatting (as you'll learn in upcoming chapters), and go for it.

If you need to start another blank presentation, follow these steps:

Choose Office New. The New Presentation dialog box opens. See Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1: Select Blank Presentation from the New Presentation dialog box.
Blank Presentation is already selected. Click Create.

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Press the Ctrl+N shortcut key to start a new presentation.

Starting a Presentation from a Template

A template is a file that contains starter settings-and sometimes starter content-on which you can base new presentations. Templates vary in their exact offerings, but can include sample slides, a background graphic, custom color and font themes, and custom positioning for object placeholders.

When selecting a template, you can choose from these categories:

Installed Templates: Microsoft-provided templates that come preinstalled with PowerPoint.
My Templates: Templates that you have created and saved yourself and templates that you previously downloaded from Microsoft Office Online
Microsoft Office Online templates: Microsoft-provided templates that you download from Microsoft on an as-needed basis

Note

Also under Templates in Figure 3.1 is Installed Themes. Themes are not exactly templates, but they are similar. Chapter 1 explained the difference. You can start a new presentation based on a theme as an alternative to using a template. Such a presentation starts with defined color, font, and effect settings.

Using an Installed Template

There are only a few installed templates because Microsoft assumes that most people have an always-on Internet connection these days. Each installed template demonstrates a special-purpose type of presentation, such as a photo album, pitchbook, or quiz show. There is one Corporate Presentation template as well, but if you are interested in standard corporate presentation templates, you might prefer to look at the online offerings instead.

Follow these steps to start a presentation based on an installed template:

Choose Office New. The New Presentation dialog box opens.
In the Templates list, click Installed Templates. A list of the installed templates appears.
Click a template to see a preview of it.
Select the template you want and click Create. A new presentation opens based on that template.

Using a Saved Template

When you start a new presentation with an online template, as in the preceding section, PowerPoint copies that template to your hard disk so you can reuse it in the future without connecting to the Internet. It is stored, along with any custom template you have created, in the My Templates folder.

To access these downloaded and custom templates, follow these steps:

Choose Office New. The New Presentation dialog box opens (see Figure 3.1).
Click My Templates. A different New Presentation dialog box appears containing templates that you have downloaded or created. See Figure 3.2.

Figure 3.2: Choose a previously used or custom template.
Click OK. A new presentation opens based on that template.

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Recently used template names appear on the right side of the New Presentation dialog box when it opens initially. You can select a template from there and click Create. To remove an item from the Recently Used Templates, right-click the item and choose Remove Item from List. To clear the whole list at once, right-click any entry and choose Remove All Items from List.

Using an Online Template

The bulk of the templates for presentations are available online. You can access the library of online templates without leaving PowerPoint. Follow these steps:

Choose Office New. The New Presentation dialog box opens.
In the Templates list, in the Microsoft Office Online section, click the category of template you want. If you want standard business presentations, click Presentations; most of the other categories have special purposes.
Depending on the category you choose, a subcategory list might appear in the center pane. If it does, click the subcategory that you want.
Click a template to see a preview of it.
Select the template that you want and click Download. A new presentation opens based on that template.

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Spend some time exploring the templates available on Microsoft Office Online. There's a lot here! For example, Design Slides has templates that don't contain any sample content-just design elements. This category has subcategories for earlier versions of PowerPoint, so if there was a particular design template you loved in, say, PowerPoint 2000, you can find it again here.

Basing a New Presentation on an Existing One

If you already have a presentation that's similar to the new one you need to create, you can base the new presentation on the existing one.

Follow these steps to use an existing presentation as a template:

Choose Office New. The New Presentation dialog box opens.
Click New from Existing. The New from Existing Presentation dialog box opens. See Figure 3.3.

Figure 3.3: Select an existing presentation to use as a template.
Navigate to the location containing the existing presentation and select it. When you select a presentation, the Open button changes to a Create New button.
Click Create New.

Basing a New Presentation on Content from Another Application

PowerPoint can open files in several formats other than its own, so you can start a new presentation based on some work you have done elsewhere. For example, you can open a Word outline in PowerPoint. The results might not be very attractive-but you can fix that later with some text editing, slide layouts, and design changes.

To open a file from another application, do the following:

Choose Office Open. The Open dialog box appears.
Click the File Type button (or Files of Type in Windows XP) and choose the file type. For example, to open a text file, choose All Outlines. See Figure 3.4.

Figure 3.4: Select a data file from some other program as the basis of a new presentation.
Select the desired file, and then click Open.
Save your work as a PowerPoint file by choosing File Save As.

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See the section "Saving Your Work" for more details on saving. You can also import a Word outline into an existing presentation.