PowerPoint Tutorials

If you are looking for help creating an effective visual in PowerPoint but don’t find the “help” feature very helpful or you get lost trying to figure out which page in a Google search will be helpful, the list below will help. I have listed links to tutorials from trusted colleagues and sites, along with my own articles and videos to give you the help you need right now. This isn’t a complete training course, but a list of some of the techniques I use and teach.

If you want the “how-to” techniques for the visuals I currently teach, check out my Implementation Guides. These are written tutorials for the visuals in my latest book Select Effective Visuals and the collection of guides is the handout for the second day of my two-day customized workshops.

If you are looking for the basics on getting started with PowerPoint, the best tutorials are by fellow PowerPoint MVP Geetesh Bajaj on his website Indezine.com. I link to a number of his tutorials below. The link provided is to the tutorial for the features as it exists in the latest version of PowerPoint. Often you will find links to the same topic for other versions at the bottom of the tutorial page.

Video tutorials on YouTube

I have playlists on YouTube that contain tutorials for PowerPoint and Excel:

This playlist contains tutorials for PowerPoint such as breaking an image into pieces to animate it piece by piece, and showing context for complex diagrams before zooming in to show the details.

This playlist contains Excel Chart Tips including ways to copy an Excel chart into a PowerPoint slide either with our without a link to the source worksheet, how to create a chart in PowerPoint using values copied from Excel, and how to create various Excel charts.

Creating graphs in PowerPoint

Many presenters have never created graphs in PowerPoint before. In addition to the videos in the Excel Chart Tips playlist above, here are some tutorials from Indezine.com on creating graphs in PowerPoint.

Creating a graph; Using Excel data in a graph; Editing the data in a graph; Changing chart type

Understanding chart elements

Formatting: Working with gridlines; Column/Bar width; Fill/Border colors; Fonts & Text options;

Data labels: Data label basics; more data label options; formatting data labels

Axes: Min and Max values; Tick marks; Major units (control position of gridlines)

 

Making text visual

Formatting bullet points

Group text in shapes instead of bullets

Organic highlighting using ink

 

Creating diagrams & timelines

Ctrl+drag to duplicate shapes (to quickly copy shapes instead of Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V)

Merging shapes (to create custom shapes)

Drawing shapes including Shift to constrain proportions (to create perfect circles or squares)

Rotating shapes (including using the Shift key to move in 15 degree increments)

Align shapes (to perfectly line up shapes with each other)

Create a Gantt chart with Milestones using a Stacked Bar Chart

Creating a Monthly timeline Gantt chart with Milestones in Excel or PowerPoint

Download free Timelines & Calendars

Free Pre-Made Diagrams

Selection Pane and Visibility of slide elements

 

Working with Photos & Images

I have made my Implementation Guide on using Photos free to download, so go here and download this useful guide.

 

Multimedia Content

This article on what video file formats work in different versions of PowerPoint

This page on Indezine.com that offers tutorials for every version of PowerPoint on the audio and video features

These articles on different aspects of using video in PowerPoint

Autoplay Vimeo or YouTube video on a slide (https://www.thinkoutsidetheslide.com/how-to-automatically-play-a-vimeo-or-youtube-video-full-screen-in-a-browser-from-a-powerpoint-slide/)

 

Animation

This page on Indezine.com that offers tutorials for every version of PowerPoint on the animation and slide transition features.

Video on breaking apart an image and building it piece by piece

 

Other topics

Save time with Custom Shows

Three uses for a black slide