Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 Tutorials

Here is a comprehensive demo of all the transitions that ship with PowerPoint 2010. Enjoy!

Learn more about PowerPoint 2010 Transitions.

Videos can give your PowerPoint presentation a stunning new dimension and can help captivate your audience. You can embed either videos that are saved on your hard drive and you can even embed Youtube videos in PowerPoint 2010 (and videos from other video sharing sites like MetaCafe and Revver).

Here, we are going to look at embedding videos that exist on your hard drive. You can use videos of the following popular formats in PowerPoint:

• AVI
• MPEG, MPG
• WMV
• MOV, MP4
• SWF

Insert Media Clip Button

The following slides display an Insert Media Clip button on them that you simply have to click to get started adding videos:

• Title and Content
• Two Content
• Comparison
• Content with Caption

When you click on the Insert Media Clip button, the standard file explorer window appears. Navigate to where your video resides on your hard drive, select it and click Insert. The time taken to embed the video depends on its size, so be prepared for a long wait if you decide to embed a huge video.

When the video has been inserted, you can see video controls that display beneath it.

Using these controls you can start playback, pause and stop it. You can also step forwards and backwards and change the volume. If you aren’t sure what control does what, just hover your cursor over a particular control and a tooltip will appear to explain its use.

Using The Ribbon To Embed Videos

Another was to embed a videois to click Insert > Media > Video, in the ribbon. Using the bottom half of the Video button (that displays the down arrow) you get the choice between selecting a video on your hard drive to embed, or using some embed codes from a video sharing site like Youtube. When you click the top half of the button, you can only embed videos that are saved on your hard drive. If you decide to embed a video from your hard drive, the usual file explorer window is displayed and you can just follow the directions given in the previous section.

Video Tools Contextual Tabs

Whenever you select a video in your presentation you will see the Video Tools contextual tab appear in the ribbon. The Format and Edit subtabs allow you to apply video effects and styles to the video and also provide you with some basic video editing tools.

Check out this tutorial on formatting video in PowerPoint 2010.

Microsoft are forging ahead with PowerPoint 2010’s ability to handle all kinds of video. Not only are you able to embed videos on your hard drive into a PowerPoint presentation, but you can now embed Youtube videos too. The process is fairly simple and also applies to adding video from other video sharing sites such as Vimeo, MetaCafe and Revver. As long as the video publisher provides an embed code, you can use it in PowerPoint 2010.

How To Embed A Youtube Video In PowerPoint 2010

First of all, locate the video you want to embed. For this demonstration, we’re going to use this video:

On the Youtube video page, copy the embed code.
Flip back over to the PowerPoint 2010 presentation you’re editing and click Insert > Video (the down arrow) > Video from Online Video Site.

In the Insert Video From Online Video Site dialogue box, paste in the Youtube embed code and click Insert.

Note that you can’t use embed codes (and hence insert Youtube videos) when you use the Insert Media Clip button seen on some slides. You have to use the Video button in the ribbon. Once the Youtube video has been embedded, it will look like this:

It doesn’t look much, but wait ’til we run the presentation! Press F5 on the keyboard or click Slide Show > Start Slide Show > From Current Slide. Now you should be able to see the typical Youtube video controller complete with playback controls.

The video will now play exactly as it would if you were viewing it on Youtube. You will need to click the play button to start the video and you can use the timeline controls as normal.

Unlike videos inserted by selecting a file on your hard drive, you cannot apply some effects to Youtube videos. For example, the new and improved video reflection works on all frames of a standard video whereas it simply shows a black to white gradient for Youtube videos.

The PowerPoint team have been working hard to craft a multimedia experience that allows users to effectively harness the storytelling power of audio and video content. They have revamped PowerPoint’s media playback technology, improved the whole media workflow including insertion, editing, and distribution and presentation.

Every effect that you can apply to a picture in PowerPoint 2010, you can apply to an embedded video too. The effect works on every frame of the video during playback, not just the first one.

Video handling is much improved, owing to the introduction of new features that help you trim media, integrate with the animation timeline, and even export your PowerPoint presentation to video. Now you don’t need high-end video editing software to tackle the common video media tasks involved in basic video editing .

There is a lot you can now do with video in PowerPoint 2010, so check out the following mini tutorials:

• Inserting Youtube videos
• Embedding videos from your hard drive
• Applying A Reflection To A video
• Trimming Video

What were previously called shortcuts (before 2007) are now called Key Tips. Key Tips in PowerPoint 2010 make it easier to use commands by providing a way to perform them using only the keyboard. This is of great advantage to people who are afraid of mice!

Press the ALT key on the keyboard to display the Key Tip badges for all the tabs on the ribbon, the Office Button and commands that appear in the Quick Access Toolbar.

Pressing the key on the keyboard that represents a tab will open that tab and display all the commands within, along with their Key Tips too. To activate any command you need to use, press its Key Tip.

Microsoft have tried to use the letters that you would intuitively associate with their function. For example, ‘H’ is for the Home tab, ‘A’ is for Animations etc. Let’s just run through how we would quickly add a picture to a slide using PowerPoint’s Key Tips:

ALT > N > P, and then navigate to where the picture is and select it. N takes you to the insert tab, and P to the file explorer to insert a picture.

You can toggle the display of key tips on and off by pressing the ALT key again.

Many of the old keyboard shortcuts that you may know from previous versions of PoerPoint are still available, such as ctrl-c (copy) and ctrl-v (paste).

The addition of the Office Button to Powerpoint 2007 and subsequent display when clicked caused a shock to the system for existing users of Microsoft’s presentation program. In PowerPoint 2010 users should be prepared for another surprise as now when they click the Office Button, Backstage View is displayed.

Backstage View offers commands whose functionality affects the whole Powerpoint presentation (for example, saving, opening, closing, printing etc) and the Powerpoint 2010 application itself (for example, PowerPoint options, Add-Ins and exiting the program).

Each application in the Office 2010 suite is characterised by its own uniquely coloured Backstage View. Whereas the Backstage View in Powerpoint is a rusty orange colour, the one in Excel, for example, is green. To exit Backstage View you can either press the escape key or click the Back button.

Turning Off Backstage View In Powerpoint 2010

For those who don’t like change, you can revert back to the 2007 style display when you click the Office Button, however I would urge you not to do so. Although initially unfamiliar, you will find that using Backstage View will speed up your workflow and make using Powerpoint 2010 easier. Here is an article explaining how to turn off Backstage View by changing some registry settings. The article erroneously refers to the Backstage View as “outspace”, however it is only the registry key that is named “outspace”.

Just like PowerPoint 2007, PowerPoint 2010 uses the ribbon. If you are familiar only with pre-2007 versions of PowerPoint, you may find the replacement for the menu and toolbar system quite a surprise. All the old functionality is still there, and much more besides. The ribbon is designed to streamline your workflow and aims to provide everything you need with the minimum number of mouse clicks.

Each tab contains a selection of commands that relate to a particular area of work, and the commands are broken up into groups. To open a new tab, click on its name in the ribbon.

Some commands have buttons that are split horizontally into two, with the bottom half displaying a down arrow. Clicking on the down arrow presents more options, whilst clicking on the top half executes the command with default settings. For example, clicking on the top half of the New Slide button adds a new a Title and Content slide, whereas if you click on the down arrow, you get a selection of available slide types to choose from.

Customizing The Ribbon In PowerPoint 2010

The ribbon in PowerPoint 2010 is much more flexible, as you can now do the following:

• Create new tabs.
• Create new groups within a tab.
• Add commands to a group.
• Change the order in which tabs appear.
• Change the order in which groups appear on tabs.

Let’s demonstrate how we can customize the ribbon with a little example.

Click the Office Button > PowerPoint > Options > Customize Ribbon. The panel on the right displays what tabs you can currently see in the ribbon, what groups exist in each tab, and also what commands are in each group. The panel on the left lists commands and macros that you can add.

Create A New Tab On The Ribbon

To create a new tab on the ribbon, first of all select a tab in the panel on the right. Click New Tab and the new tab will is positioned immediately after the tab you selected. It’s given the default name of “New Tab (Custom) and the default group within it is named New Group (Custom). We can rename both tab and group by selecting them one at a time and clicking Rename. Type in something meaningful for the name of the tab and group.

Creating A New Group In A Tab

To create a new group in a tab, select the tab and click New Group. The new group is given the default name and you can change it using the rename button, as described earlier. If you select a particular group within the tab before creating a new group, the new group is positioned directly after the selected group. This is true of all additions – the new one appears after the selected one.

You’ll notice that tabs and groups have either a ‘+’ button or a ‘-‘ button displayed to their left: you can use these buttons to expand and collapse the display of groups or commands within them.

Changing the order in which tabs, groups or commands appear is very easy. One method of doing this involves clicking on what you want to move and dragging it upwards or downwards. A selection bar appears when you do this, and this helps you to determine where the tab, group or command will be dropped when the mouse is released. Another method is to select something and then click the up or down arrows over to the right.

To remove a tab, group or command, select it in the panel on the right and click Remove.

Adding Commands To A Group

To add a command to a group, select the group in the panel on the right, select the command in the panel on the left and then click Add. As you’d expect, adding a command whilst another command is already selected will place the new command after the selected one. In contrast, if you add a command while the group itself is selected, the new command appears at the end.

Above the command list panel is a drop down list that allows you to filter the list by the following categories:

• Popular Commands
• Commands Not in the Ribbon
• All Commands
• Macros
• Office Menu
• All Tabs
• Main Tabs
• Tool Tabs
• Custom Tabs and Groups

Restoring The Ribbon’s Defaults

If you make a mess of your ribbon customization, don’t worry because you can restore the ribbon’s default settings. You do this by clicking the Restore Defaults button at the bottom of the window, and then by selecting either Restore only selected Ribbon tab or Restore all Ribbon tabs and Quick Access Toolbar customizations. These options are fairly self explanatory.

Importing Or Exporting Ribbon Customizations

If you create a ribbon customization that you think may be useful to other people you work with, you can export your settings for them to import. When they import your customizations, their ribbon setup will look the same as yours.

To export your ribbon customizations, click Import/Export at the bottom of the window and then select Export All Ribbon And Quick Access Toolbar Customizations. Find a place on your hard drive or network, type in a name for the customizations file and click Save. The file is given a “.exportedUI” extension.

To import a ribbon customization, click the Import/Export button and this time select Import Customization File. Find where the customization file is, select it and click Open. You will then see a confirmation prompt asking you whether you want to replace all existing ribbon and quick access toolbar customizations. Clicking No will cancel without making any changes, whereas clicking Yes will overwrite your existing ribbon configuration with the one saved in the customization file you just imported.

To apply the changes you have made, click OK at the bottom of the PowerPoint Options window.

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