Create presentations
There are a few different ways to start a new presentation. If you press the Esc key when this screen appears, PowerPoint starts a blank presentation for you. You can also select from among the presentation thumbnails and links to create presentations based on the following sources: ■ ■ Blank presentation If you want to build and format a presentation from scratch, you can start with a presentation based on the Blank Presentation tem- plate. A new, blank presentation contains only a blank title page; it’s up to you to add slides and slide content, apply a theme, and make any necessary custom configuration changes. Creating attractive, functional presentations from scratch can be time-consuming and requires quite a bit of knowledge about PowerPoint. You’ll learn the skills you need while you work through this book. ■ ■ Design template You can save time by basing your presentation on one of the many design templates that come with PowerPoint. A design template is a blank presentation with a theme already applied to it. Sometimes it includes background graphic elements and specialized slide layouts. Some templates supply only a title slide and leave it to you to add the other slides you need; other templates supply an example of each of the available slide layouts. ■ ■ Content template You can preview and download many prepopulated presentation templates from the Office website. These templates provide not only the design elements but also suggestions for content that is appropriate for different types of presentations, such as reports or product launches. After you download a template, you simply customize the content provided in the template to meet your needs. An important thing to be aware of when you create a presentation in PowerPoint is that you have the choice of two slide aspect ratios, which are referred to (slightly inaccurately) as slide sizes. The default slide size is Widescreen (16:9), which is opti- mized for displays such as those found on many laptop screens and desktop monitors these days. SEE ALSO For information about themes, see “Apply themes” in Chapter 3, “Create and manage slides.”
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