‘Creating a Family History Presentation in Powerpoint’

with scanned images and screen shots
Paul Brooks - 18 Jul 2007 - speaking at the BerksFHS Computer Branch, Woodley

Paul began by reminding the audience that humans have managed for thousands of years without Powerpoint. Whilst it could be a useful tool for displaying summaries and images, it should avoid being just a script, and complement, rather than detract from the talk.

Equipment should also be considered. If the venue is providing a laptop, will it be powerful enough to cope with large numbers of images. Furthermore, video and audio are not normally embedded within a Powerpoint file, and also require extra software which might not be on the machine on the day. If sound is being used, speakers might also be required, dependant on the size of the room.

Older machines might still be running "Office 97 Powerpoint", whilst modern machines would have a version which might look quite different. Fortunately the functionality has hardly changed in the last 10 years, and the powerpoint file SHOULD be able to run on any version, if it only consists of text, images, and the sounds provided.

In the past an editable powerpoint file (*.ppt) could only be displayed using the expensive office software. Since about 2003, a FREE powerpoint view has been available for download from Microsoft, thus making powerpoint slides shows (*.pps) available to all.

Paul then began creating a new presentation. The software offered 3 choices

• blank presentation - suitable for those with more experience
• auto content wizard - possibly OK for agendas etc, but otherwise to be avoided
• template - ideal for the beginner who needs guidance

By then choosing a presentation design, he showed that the software not only offered a choice of backgrounds, but also complementary  fonts. By using the slide master option, these defaults could be adjusted.

5 slides were built - 1 - Introduction - 2 - bullet points - 3.- text and clip art - 4 - inserted photograph and text box - 5 - screen shot.

Navigation between slide sorter view, edit mode and slide show was explained, as was the method for moving and sizing images and text boxes.

An example of a transition was made between 2 of the slides. A preset animation was added to the bullet points so that they would appear line by line, and a custom animation was added to the clip art, so that it appeared to grow from the centre.  Autoshapes were added, adjusted and animated.

After recapping the main points for those trying it for the first time, Paul finished by giving a quick example of adding a photograph with an associated sound clip from an interview.

During the question and answer session that followed, two main points were raised

1. The recommendation that a lot of whizzy animation is avoided, as it may detract from the talk
2. Peter Beaven pointed out that Open Office Impress is a free alternative that does the same job as Power Point, with a few minor differences in detail, and can be exported as a .ppt file for use with Power Point viewer.

updated 28 Aug 2007