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Creating a Presentation in PowerPoint
Rather than cover each and every option available in PowerPoint, this concise guide takes users through a single presentation and demonstrates the quickest, easiest, most effective way to communicate their ideas, starting with creating a slide and continuing through formatting charts and tables, incorporating sound and video, creating transitions, and adding a bit of panache to the final result. Beginner.
142 pages, Paperback
First published October 16, 2004
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April 3, 2016
"Creating a Presentation in PowerPoint" is a dual-purpose book. It teaches the basics of using PowerPoint 2003 for Windows and PowerPoint 2004 for the Mac OS. This means that a lot of the instructions are included twice: once for how to perform them on each of the different versions. While this may seem a little tedious, it is implemented fairly well and allows you to skip the pages that focus on the OS you're not using. So the dual format doesn't detract that much from the learning process.
What does detract, and what is this books biggest downfall, is the fact that it doesn't provide any actual project for you to work through. (So the use of the term "QuickProject" in the title is a bit misleading.) If you don't have a PowerPoint project of your own to work on, then, basically, all you're doing is reading about what the author did in creating his project. Even if you do try to copy the author's project, you have no access to the slide designs and graphics that he uses in his illustrations. And, let's face it, being able to work along with the instructions in a book like this is the main reason you would buy it.
But, before you pass on this book as being completely worthless, take a look at the structure. The author presents the creation of a PowerPoint project in a way that I have never seen before and that makes a lot of practical sense. Whereas all other PowerPoint training books I've seen jump almost immediately into the use of different slide layouts and design elements, Negrino starts by concentrating on how to develop the presentation itself, not on the looks of the presentation. As Negrino says, "We've all seen PowerPoint presentations where the presenter spent more time on the appearance than the message. But your message is the most important part of your presentation."
And that's exactly where he starts, after showing you around the PowerPoint interface. Chapter two is all about how to write your presentation, first, to make sure that you are saying exactly what you want to say in the best way possible. Chapter three is dedicated to teaching you to think about what you want to include with your words in the way of pictures, sounds, art, etc., and planning where to put them in your presentation. Then he uses the rest of the book to show you the nuts and bolts of adding all the bells and whistles.
As a tutorial for using PowerPoint, it does a fairly decent job. It touches on all of the major points, but doesn't really go into the gory details other books do. If you want something that gives you a real look under the hood, you'll do better with a different book. But if you want something that actually teaches you the basic fundamentals of creating a successful presentation, and then using PowerPoint to produce it, this is a good starting point, even if you have moved on to the latest and greatest, chrome-plated version.
What does detract, and what is this books biggest downfall, is the fact that it doesn't provide any actual project for you to work through. (So the use of the term "QuickProject" in the title is a bit misleading.) If you don't have a PowerPoint project of your own to work on, then, basically, all you're doing is reading about what the author did in creating his project. Even if you do try to copy the author's project, you have no access to the slide designs and graphics that he uses in his illustrations. And, let's face it, being able to work along with the instructions in a book like this is the main reason you would buy it.
But, before you pass on this book as being completely worthless, take a look at the structure. The author presents the creation of a PowerPoint project in a way that I have never seen before and that makes a lot of practical sense. Whereas all other PowerPoint training books I've seen jump almost immediately into the use of different slide layouts and design elements, Negrino starts by concentrating on how to develop the presentation itself, not on the looks of the presentation. As Negrino says, "We've all seen PowerPoint presentations where the presenter spent more time on the appearance than the message. But your message is the most important part of your presentation."
And that's exactly where he starts, after showing you around the PowerPoint interface. Chapter two is all about how to write your presentation, first, to make sure that you are saying exactly what you want to say in the best way possible. Chapter three is dedicated to teaching you to think about what you want to include with your words in the way of pictures, sounds, art, etc., and planning where to put them in your presentation. Then he uses the rest of the book to show you the nuts and bolts of adding all the bells and whistles.
As a tutorial for using PowerPoint, it does a fairly decent job. It touches on all of the major points, but doesn't really go into the gory details other books do. If you want something that gives you a real look under the hood, you'll do better with a different book. But if you want something that actually teaches you the basic fundamentals of creating a successful presentation, and then using PowerPoint to produce it, this is a good starting point, even if you have moved on to the latest and greatest, chrome-plated version.
Displaying 1 of 1 review