Thetownend.com

Dear TEF,

I've been tasked by my boss to  become a powerpoint master. Do any of you bastards have experience of training in powerpoint and if so can you recommend me a training centre or any alternative to getting proper good at it?

Thanks in advance

What version and what sort of thing are you trying to achieve?

Are you sure he doesn't want you to just plug things in?

Teach yourself like everyone else does

Work have 2007 installed although have 2010 at home so whichever is best. What I'm trying to acheive is a good understanding of all the functionality available to be able to produce decent looking presentations. I guess being able to produce something along the lines of the presentations in the link below.

http://labnol.blogspot.co.uk/2007/05/best-powerpoint-presentations-in-world.html

Actually looking at them I'd probably also need to become a good graphic designer too which isn't going to happen overnight. So I probably just need a course to show me all the bells and whistles which I might not find by bumbling through myself.

http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-powerpoint/

These are quite good books. Ideal for first users.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0735627282/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_3?pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0538748435&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=06CK692CEN50R1A8YZN8

Highlight everything.

Animation > Fly In From Right

Job done.

Don't bother with any of it. Do any presentations David Brent style, with a boom box and a baseball cap.

I'm a PowerPoint trainer at work and a few tips I would give are;

Don't overkill the animations it will take away from what you are saying.

PowerPoint is meant to assist you and highlight main points in your presentation only and is not meant to be your presentation it can remove personality from it.

Don't put on paragraphs and read word for word use bullet lines and print off notes pages and add your own notes to them to remind yourself if you need to embellish a section.

Keep all fonts the same and only have 2 or 3 sizes.

If you're using a new version then add border effects to pictures, something simple and if you have slide with only text on add a simple small picture to the corner somewhere to break the text up, a white stick man is the type I often use.

fuck that!

Make everything fly in, spin then explode when you've finished making your point, all with accompanying sound effects obviously.

One of my sales guys added applause once to his sales figures when they came up.  :no:

:D

I'm a big fan of Train Signal (trainsignal.com) training video's. I've never tried their Office stuff but I've used their IT certification videos (Cisco, Microsoft, VMware) and they are better than anything else I've seen.

Agree, have used Train Signal myself and also Lynda.com.  Lynda have a free week trial which is long enough to take a single course.

White back ground, black font.  Have something decent to say and the PPT is not so important

Fucking love that......

I can just see the faces at our death by powerpoint sales meetings, priceless. :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Here are my tips for being a PowerPoint Master...

Make your first page have really big letters

Make sure you fill your sub pages with as much detail as possible - to get the most out of your page use a really small font - you can get loads of lines in then and it will draw your audience in

Use lots of flashing effects... That way, if your audience do get bored, they will be distracted by the people with epilepsy

Rehearse what you have written on your slides... There's nothing people enjoy more than being to read along to your presentation word for word

Slip a humour slide in... You know the sort, an embarrassing Christmas photo of the boss at the christmas party...

People make a big deal out of the transition effects - to me they're fucking pointless unless you add sound as well like a 'swooooosh' for slide in/slide out or a big bang for the explode effect.

Finally, tell your boss that to make a really good impression you must have a sound system... Make sure you by one of those cheek mics... They look really cool and people will know straight away that you are The Presentation Master

Racist...

I do work for a German company though.

Put a graphic at the bottom, which shows how far through the presentation you are

If you have a lot of text, present it as scrolling text like the opening of star wars - "In a sales office, far, far away...."

Use word art

Some top quality suggestions so far. Most have confirmed my suspicions that powerpoint is piss easy and there isn't much to find. Still, in times of austerity, when pay rises are rare as australian golds at the Olympics then being given money for training cannot be sniffed at so I'll be having a look into the train signal jobby or whatever the other one from the last page was which I've forgotten already.

I always use a little picture of a cartoon character throughout the presentation - it moves from slide to slide and is very small (about the size of one letter).

Very few people have asked me why I do it but they like the "where's wally"  side to it.

This year I have been working my way through Mr Men.

(note: don't do this on board presentatons)

If you are seriously suggesting spending money on Powerpoint training, you are probably too stupid to use a computer.

Google is the only thing you need to learn any computer based skill. And I say this as a 3rd line infrastructure engineer.

Don't agree with that. Self training through the internet is fine in general but there is always the risk you will miss some important bits out which would only be covered by an in depth course or reference materials.

Not all people are good at self training either and really need classroom training or whatever to learn.

Besides, how would you use Google to learn how to use web browsers and search engines?

By, errrrm, doing a search?

*Edit

Hang on, if by that you are referring to people that may not know how to use google, then that is really scraping the barrel. If somebody needs detailed instructions on how to use a search engine then, to be frank, it's probably best for them they didn't work with computers at all.

My Q&A forum wouldn't have any answers  :no:

Plenty of people (especially older people who didn't grow up with them) don't know how to perform basic functions, such as navigating Windows and using a mouse, on a computer. If you don't know what a web browser is, don't know what a url is, don't know what a search engine is then using Google to self train isn't really an option.

It's not scraping the barrel - there are plenty of people I've helped, some of whom couldn't even turn a computer on. Saying they shouldn't be allowed to use computers is just naive, ignorant and rude.

Whatever you do, don't get a job as an IT trainer or working in IT support as you wouldn't last 5 seconds.

Are you enjoying them? I used to have the books as a kid.  ;)

Instructions....

1) Push that button to turn on.
2) Double click that icon to open browser
3) Type in www.google.com
4) Type in your search query
5) Press enter

THAT IS IT

I stand by what I said. If following those 5 simple instructions is beyond you, then computers are not for you. If they can't achieve that, how the fuck could they be expected to achieve anything else?

Technically it'll be 6 steps where do they type address for google?

You got me there Walcot, that'll be a mind blower.

- You forgot to turn on the monitor.
- What about selecting an account and logging on?
- You haven't shown them how to use a mouse.
- What does double click mean?
- What about single click?
- What is the enter key?
- What if there isn't an icon for the browser on the desktop?
- Where do they type in the url?
- Where do they type the search query?

Because it's so simple to you, you've made the mistake of assuming it will be simple for everyone else and it's not.

It was interesting watching my niece and nephew learn how to use a computer, they basically just copied with some trial and error thrown in. Remember my nephew sitting at the computer (when he was tiny and hadn't been talking for long) and then using Google to search for some Disney characters when he'd never been shown how to do anything. His explanation (using hand gestures and garbled words) was; I saw you double click on that thing, then type google.com there so I did that and then I copied the Disney character name from the packaging on my toy and it brings up pictures. Adults don't think like that, hence the saying you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

This thread reminds me of work...booo.

 :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

My word

Try this......

It is understandable that somebody completely new to computers will be clueless and will perhaps take some time to find their way around. Fair enough, it's to be expected.

But if they don't have the nous to get to grips with the very basics, how on Earth can they be expected ti get to grips with the more advanced stuff?

Pericarp posts on here! Nuff said.

Depends on your definition of advanced stuff.

You learn the basics, same as anything and you pick it up as you go along.

One of the most frustrating things i've ever done is try to teach my Mother how to use a computer. Now she uses email, browses and all sorts.

But she did learn the basics and from there, she went on to learn more.

Johnny is using examples of teaching people to use powerpoint, for example, when they can't turn the machine on yet. How could anybody get anything from a computer that isn't turned on?

No I'm not. I was replying to this comment and then you jumped in;


I was making the point that using Google is a computer based skill and there are a lot of steps before that for a novice.

I train people on CAD and other software and if you cant bloody use google to figure stuff out for yourself you shouldn't be in a job that involves using computers imo. And powerpoint is just like word with fancy effects, its a piece of piss to learn.

There you go cookie, pm pvs

If you can't turn a computer on, you shouldn't being using a computer. There, I said it.

PS, I've worked in IT support for 12 years, I have no formal qualifications. Today, I installed some SSL certificates on a load balancer to get an internal website working on port 443. I did not know how to do this, so I learned. Using Google.

I've got images of people sat in a classroom learning powerpoint or other software, where they don't even know what a double click or the enter button is yet (and the monitor is off). Select "Zoom in from left". Yeah, right. 

Nothing surprises me anymore. From experience, I've learnt the first thing to check if a server keeps powering down is that someone isn't pulling out the power supply to plugin their phone charger or a hoover.

What the fuck are they doing in the server room?   :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Hoovering, or charging their phone?

Server room? A lot of smaller companies don't even have a server cabinet. I know how stupid that is but some people view getting a new water cooler or coffee machine as more important than protecting their server with a cabinet. Though that normally changes when someone spills a cup of coffee from the aforementioned new coffee machine on the server.

www.upssystems.co.uk

Unless you're going to spend a shit load of money on a UPS system, all they do is clean the power and allow a controlled shutdown of the server when power is lost.

Exactly I'm self taught on everything from CAD to SQL the trick is not to worry about doing something wrong and just see what happens when you try something.

Give this a go as it should help with the basics and there are more advanced ones on the site also
http://bookboon.com/en/business-ebooks/office/microsoft-office-powerpoint