Office 2010 Made Simple

Creating a Presentation

When you launch PowerPoint, it creates a new blank presentation, just as Word creates a blank document and Excel creates a blank workbook. You can use this presentation, but you're usually better off starting a new presentation based on a template.

To create a presentation, use the New pane in Backstage view, as shown in Figure 19–1.

TIP: PowerPoint offers so many templates that the Recent templates category can be a real timesaver when you need to create a presentation similar to one you've created before. If the previous presentation wasn't based on a template, use the New from existing command instead to create a new presentation based on the previous one.

Figure 19–1. From the New pane in PowerPoint's Backstage ...