PowerPoint 2007 : 15 Ulitmate Tips and Tricks for presentations

15 Tips to increase your productivity with Power Point 2007

Here is an ultimate list which will not only give you some hidden features but also increase your speed and productivity with power point 2007 for creating slide show. Since few days I had been working on it and here is the final list. We will discuss right from creating albums to formatting images and how to apply transition affects in power point 2007. Here is a small cartoon to make you just smile.

Quick Tips for Power point 2007.

1) Create Photo Albums:Power point 2007 has an in built feature which thats lets you create albums within seconds.

Click on Insert tab.
Click on Photo Album Icon and choose New
There you get button, File/Disk which allows you to select images from your hard disk
Add them and then you can arrange the sequence by using up and down keys.
After this just click on create and your album is ready. You can add notes to suit your needs.
You can also add affects, fit your images and others.

Photo Albmum Power Point

2) Quickly Apply Transition affects:

In previous version of Microsoft office it was not easy to apply transition affects. Right click choose and what not. In Power Point 2007 you get Animation Tab in menu which opens up a list of transition affects which you can apply in just one click. This will allow you to make it quick and accurate.

Apply Transition Affects

3) Pin Recent Presentations

Its a tiring thing when you have to open you most frequently used slides and you need to pick up manually. You get some of them listed on your recent open file list but again they get over written every time you open another one. So if you want to make some of the slide to show up permanently in the recent menu , click on the pin button next to file name.

Pin Recent Files

4) Activate The Developer Tab :

If you are making interactive slide show and use Macros with power point 2007 then you need to activate it. When I installed this feature was hidden. To enable it

Click On office Button ( Top left ).
Then on Power Point options.
Under the Popular Section select Show Developer Tab in the ribbon. Then Click ok.
You will see a Developer Tab created on the Menu.

Developer Tab

5) Accurate Placement of objects like image

When you insert an object like image aligning to an exact position can be done by selecting the object and then moving it with direction keys holding the CTRL button. This gives you movement in pixels and hence better placement. Use the gird view enabled to boost this method.

6) Recording Narrations:

Power point lets you record narrations for every slide. This can be helpful if you availability is not possible when the slide show has to be shown. To record narration:

Click the Slide show tab.
Click Record Narration icon.
Here you get options for setting up microphone.
If you want to start from current slide just select Current Slide, else it will be from starting.
Save at the end and you will be asked if you want to save the timings for each slide.

Record Narrations

7 ) Save presentation to Power Point 97-2003 format:

Its one of the common problem that slide show created in higher version don’t tend to open in another computer which is running previous version of Office 2007. In case you don’t see the option to save in 97-2003 format , do the following to enable it.

Click on office button ( Presnt at top left)
Click on Power Point option.
Go to save in left pane
Click on drop down menu for Save Files in this format.
Choose PowerPoint Presentation 97-2003.

Save in 2003-95 format

8 ) Setting up Layouts:

By Default Power Point 2007 gives you a layout which contains a footer, a header and some list items in the body area. Now suppose if you want to change it to some custom every time you want to create a slide show ,

Go to View tab of menu
Click on Insert Place Holder drop down icon.
Choose the type of media you want to put in .
Netx Click and drag a box of size you want. Thats it.

9) Page Setup for presentations:

Depending on type of projector or screen, it is a better option to change the presentation accordingly. A standard 4:3 resolution will look bad on wide screen like projectors.To change the page setup simply

Go to View Tab and Click on Slide Master.
Click on Page Setup icon.
Here you can set for custom or available presets.

prohect_setup

10) Using Smart Art :

Smart arts are designs and shapes which can be used to improve the presentation looks. The advantage of this is they change colour according to your theme unlike normal text which doesn’t.

Go to Insert Tab > Smart Art Icon
A wide variety is found here which you can use. This also gives a live preview.

11) Custom Animation:

This is one of the coolest part if you want to give lot of affects to your slideshow, specially when its a picture album.

Go to Animation Tab
In the middle u will see lot of square boxes which are actually affects.
Hover over each of them and you will see a live preview.

12 ) Create custom slide show

13) Disable image compression

14 ) Deliver presentation on two monitors

15) Change resolution of slide show on fly

Thats it! Simple and straight through the points. It just took little over 2 hours for research and writing. Do share your comments and thoughts and please do let me know if you have any more and correct me if I am wrong somewhere. I am sure that if you use it you will surely impress your clients and boss.

You can share it with your readers and friends by back linking or Email this post with the link given at the end of the post.

(+14 rating, 3 votes)

Loading ...

About The Author of this article:
Ashish is one of the co-author of this blog and writes on various interesting softwares, PC tips and more. You can read more of his articles here.

Enjoyed this article? Download our Toolbar ( for Free ) and read us more quickly or Free Subscribe to the Full RSS Feed or Get Post like this in your Inbox Free Subscribe via Email

Tags: office_2007_tips, powerpoint_design_tips, powerpoint_projector_tips, powerpoint_tips

49 Comments and Link-Backs to “15 Tips to increase your productivity with Power Point 2007”

Click Me and Jump to Add your Comment :)

11 Comments from Friends and Readers

Ken Xu, September 10, 2007:

Wow! Nice Power Point Posts collection! Although I’m not using it now, I will make it as future resources.
Stumbled and dugg!
Ashish Mohta, September 10, 2007:

@Kenxu: hey Thanks man. I saw your post too on shankar’s blog. It was really great.
R-Bro, September 11, 2007:

Where are items #4 and #9? This should be called “13 PowerPoint Tips”…
Ashish Mohta, September 11, 2007:

@R-Bro: Thanks a million for pointing it out. I missed it for sure. I have added 2 more points and now you can call it “15 PowerPoint Tips”… again !!!
ajay, September 25, 2007:

Cool! Am learning…..:)
Ashish Mohta, September 25, 2007:

@Ajay: Thats really great to hear its helping you out
Sophia, September 25, 2007:

Hi This is a great post with relevant topics dealt in detail. Thanks helped me at my work at office.
Tom, October 16, 2007:

Nice Tips!
Ashish Mohta, October 16, 2007:

Thanks Tom, Glad you liked it and helps you somewhere. I am writing tips on Word 2007 now. Keep any eye on coming topics
Jasmine, January 24, 2008:

This article is very useful…Good power point can help a boring presentation. I will use the tips to prepare my boss presentation. My collegues will thanks to me
Ashish Mohta, January 24, 2008:

@Jasmine: Great, I hope it does and do share with us if you find something more.