PowerPoint Lesson: Charts, Text, Themes, & More

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Updated: Apr 2, 2025

Lesson

Microsoft PowerPoint is a popular program used to make presentations. Whether you're preparing for a school project, class slideshow, or even helping with a group assignment, PowerPoint can help you show your ideas using text, pictures, charts, animations, and more.

This lesson will introduce you to the basics of PowerPoint, including how to create slides, add content, use design tools, and make your presentation fun and easy to follow. By the end, you'll know when and how to use PowerPoint effectively-and how to avoid common mistakes.

What Is Microsoft PowerPoint?

PowerPoint is a part of the Microsoft Office suite, and it's made to help people create digital slide shows. These slides can include:

Text (like titles and facts)
Images and graphics
Charts and graphs
Animations and transitions

You can control the order of your slides, add movement, and even include sounds or videos. It's great for classroom projects, book reports, science fairs, and more.

What Is a Slide?

In PowerPoint, slides are the building blocks of your presentation. Each slide acts like a digital page where you can present one idea or topic. When you put several slides together, you create a presentation.

You can:

Insert new slides as needed
Choose from different layouts for text and images
Change the order of your slides using the Slide Sorter view

Each slide can have a unique purpose-one might be your title, another might show pictures, and the next might list important facts.

Inserting and Using Text Boxes

A text box is where you type your content on a slide. You can place text boxes anywhere, giving you full control over layout and appearance.

To add one:

Click the Insert tab
Select Text Box
Click on the slide and drag to create the box

Text boxes can hold bullet points, descriptions, or single words. You can also change the font, color, and size to fit the design of your slide.

Take This Quiz:

PowerPoint Quiz: How Much You Know About MS PowerPoint?

Shapes and ClipArt for Visual Appeal

PowerPoint allows you to insert shapes like circles, stars, arrows, and banners, which help highlight key information. You can resize, rotate, and color them to match your design.

ClipArt refers to simple images available directly in PowerPoint (in older versions) or online through "Insert Pictures." It's often used to quickly add decorative or illustrative images like animals, tools, or symbols.

Shapes and ClipArt make your slides more interesting and easier to understand.

What Is SmartArt?

SmartArt is a tool that turns words into diagrams. Instead of writing out steps or comparisons, you can use arrows, charts, or cycles to show the flow of information.

For example:

Use a process diagram to show steps in an experiment
Use a pyramid layout to show ideas ranked from most to least important

SmartArt is great for making complex ideas look simple.

Adding Charts Using Excel

If you want to show numbers clearly, use a chart. PowerPoint lets you create bar charts, pie charts, and line graphs by linking to an Excel spreadsheet.

When you insert a chart:

A small Excel table opens where you enter your data
The chart updates automatically with what you type

This is perfect for projects like surveys or showing how data changes over time.

What Are Themes and Backgrounds?

A theme is a design that sets the style of all your slides. It includes background colors, fonts, and layouts. PowerPoint offers dozens of themes to choose from.

You can also:

Change the background color or image of a single slide
Use light backgrounds with dark text for easy reading
Keep things consistent so the presentation looks neat

Themes save time and make your presentation look professional.

Headers, Footers, and Slide Numbers

To help people know where they are in your slideshow, use headers (top) and footers (bottom). You can add:

Your name
Date
Slide numbers
Titles

This is useful for group projects or printed versions of your slides. It helps your audience follow along and keeps your work organized.

WordArt and Formatting Text

WordArt lets you turn simple text into creative, colorful art. You can:

Change text shapes
Add shadows or outlines
Make titles stand out

Use WordArt to make your main points pop on the screen.

Using Animations and Transitions

Animations make your objects move or appear in fun ways. Transitions make slides change with special effects.

Feature	Use It For
Animation	Make text, pictures, or shapes move or appear
Transition	Control how one slide switches to the next

But be careful-too many effects can be distracting. Use them wisely!

Action Buttons and Hyperlinks

You can add interactive buttons called Action Buttons. These can:

Link to another slide
Play a sound
Open a website

You can also add hyperlinks to text or images to jump to other slides or websites.

Example:

Clicking "Next" could take you to the next part of your presentation.

Auto-Advancing Slides

Sometimes, you want your slides to move automatically, like in a video.

To set this:

Click Transitions
Choose Advance Slide After X seconds

Use this carefully-test the timing so the slides don't go too fast!

Take This Quiz:

Microsoft PowerPoint Exam Quiz!

When to Use PowerPoint

PowerPoint is a great tool-but not always the right one.

Use PowerPoint When	Don't Use PowerPoint When
You want to present ideas visually	You need to write a long paper
You want to show graphs or pictures	You're organizing grades or math data
You're giving a live presentation	You're creating a website or form

Programs like Word or Excel are better for other types of work.

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