Office 2010: The Missing Manual

Chapter 24. It’s Showtime! Giving a Presentation

This book can’t get up on stage for you, but this chapter can certainly help—it’s all about setting up, practicing, and delivering a slideshow.

If you’ve never given a PowerPoint presentation before, you’ll learn basics like launching the show, moving through its slides, and drawing the virtual curtain. But even if you’re a slide deck veteran, there’s plenty here to help avoid the dreaded Death by PowerPoint: how to rehearse and check a presentation’s timing, how to record narration, and how to make sure your slides looks good on the big screen. And if you give different versions of the same talk to different groups, this chapter will show you how to generate custom presentations from a single, master file.

You may also be surprised to learn how many options you have for delivering a slideshow that don’t involve you standing in front of a group of people. PowerPoint makes it easy to create a kiosk-style show that runs by itself or an interactive show that viewers play on their own, at their own pace. And new in PowerPoint 2010, you can broadcast your slideshow online or turn it into a video, which you can then put on a website or burn to a DVD. You’ve got tons of options, and this chapter covers them all.

Start, Navigate, End: Tips and Shortcuts

Before you find yourself in front of an audience, muttering about how to get your slideshow going, make sure you’re familiar with how to launch the darn thing and move through its slides. When ...