Microsoft Office Tips, Tricks, and How-to's to help you use MS Office like a pro!

Carol's Corner Office

Category Archives: Microsoft PowerPoint

How to Add Borders to your PowerPoint Slides

Posted on by Posted in Microsoft PowerPoint

Some folks like a border around their PowerPoint slides and they can make your slides a bit more interesting, depending on what sort of presentation you are creating and your particular audience.

There is no built in page border option in PowerPoint that I know of, but there are a copy of workarounds that will do the job for you rather easily.

Follow the steps below to learn how to add borders to your PowerPoint slides:

  1. Click the Insert tab on your Ribbon.
  2. In the Illustrations group, click on Shapes.
  3. Select Rectangle and draw the shape onto your slide.
  4. Right-click the rectangle and select Format Shape.
  5. Select No Fill for the fill color.
  6. Select a Line Color that suits you.
  7. Select a Line Style.

There is another method as well that you can employ:

  1. Click the Insert tab on your Ribbon.
  2. In the Images group, click on Clip Art.
  3. In the Search area, key in Borders.
  4. Click Go.
  5. Find the border that suits you and double-click it to add it to your slide.

You can also add these borders to your Slide Master if you would like them to appear on all your slides.

  • Click the View tab on your Ribbon.
  • In the Masters group, click on Slide Master.
  • Insert the border of your choice.

That wasn’t so difficult was it?

How to Share Specific PowerPoint Slides by E-mail

Posted on by Posted in Microsoft PowerPoint

A lot of folks are tasked with creating PowerPoint presentations for company functions and some folks even have to create them for courtroom settings. There are myriad reasons for using PowerPoint and creating presentations, but my point for this article is that very seldom do you need to send the entire presentation or every slide to everyone who needs to review or edit your creation.

What you can do is send just the slides that are necessary to your reviewers and editors.One method of doing is is open your Slide Show in the Slide Sorter View and delete the slides you do not need to send for review, and use the Send | E-mail feature to address the selected slides to the reviewer or your choosing. Then you can discard the selected set of slides rather than saving it as a new file and repeat the process for the next person who needs to review or edit your presentation. Not only does this save work for your editor/reviewer, it also cuts down on bloated files and sends smaller file attachments.

Follow the steps below to learn how:

In PowerPoint 2007:

Click the Office Button, point to Send and click on Email.

When the reviewers/editors send the files back you can simply make the changes or incorporate the changed slides into your presentation.

In PowerPoint 2010:

  • Click on the File tab, and Save & Send and select Send Using Email.
  • Select Send as Attachment.
  • When the reviewers/editors return the files, simply make the changes or incorporate the changed slides into your presentation.

There is another method in PowerPoint 2010 and that is Send a Link. If your presentation file is saved in a shared location on your network and you would like others to have access to your primary slide show, use this feature to allow everyone involved to work on the same presentation.

Graphics tips for PowerPoint, Excel and Word

Posted on by Posted in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word

I think we all know that to create a copy of an object on a PowerPoint Slide, an Excel worksheet or in a Word document, you use copy and paste from the menu or a keyboard shortcut. But what most of you probably do not know is that there is a smarter way to make a copy and align it at the very same time!

To copy an object using keyboard shortcuts and the mouse, select the object you would like to copy by clicking on it. Now, depress and continue to hold down the CTRL key as you click and hold the left mouse button and drag the object to a new position. PowerPoint, Excel and Word add a copy of the selected object in the new location.

To copy an object and keep it vertically aligned with the original, hold down the CTRL and SHIFT keys simultaneously. You can then click and drag the object up or down.

You can also hold down the CTRL and SHIFT keys and drag the object horizontally and the application creates a new object to the left or right of the original, but its vertical position will remain unchanged.

You can move an object horizontally or vertically by holding down the SHIFT key as you drag the object. This will not copy the object.

Not a bad tip to know when you use a lot of graphics in your documents.

Controlling Line Breaks in MS PowerPoint

Posted on by Posted in Microsoft PowerPoint

When you are entering text into a text box in PowerPoint, the text moves to the next line based on the right margin of the text box. There are times when you may want to move to the next line before the text reaches the right margin. Pressing the Enter key does not always work. If you are using bullets, it moves to a new bullet. If you have different spacing between paragraphs than between lines, it is going to look different.

The method to use to move to the next line is to hold down the SHIFT key and then press the Enter key.

This method will simply move to the next line within the same bullet or text box and continues the text as if the line had wrapped at the right margin.

Quickly Move PowerPoint Bullet Points to Another Slide

Posted on by Posted in Microsoft PowerPoint

MS PowerPoint ‘s Outline pane displays most of the content of a presentation. Anything you add to a text box will show up in the Outline pane.

As you most likely know, you can arrange slides in Outline view by simply utilizing the Move Up and Move Down buttons on the Outlining toolbar. What you may not know is that you can also move text and bullet points from slide to slide.

Follow the steps below to learn how:

  • Highlight the text or bullet.
  • Click and Drag.

You can’t say that isn’t quick and easy!