Presentations are an essential part for students and working professionals. It’s a medium that allows you to express your knowledge on a topic to your colleagues in a concise manner. Microsoft PowerPoint is arguably one of the oldest and most widely used tools for making presentations. Over the years it went through significant changes in its software by adding new and unique features to make enhanced presentations. We shall look at a few of its unique features in this article.
Collaboration
- If you are a student then you might be participating in several group projects. It’s not easy and convenient always to gather in one place and make a presentation. For such times the collaboration feature comes in handy. Simply click on the share option and add the emails of your friends with whom you want to collaborate. PowerPoint will automatically upload your file on your one drive [cloud storage]. Using cloud computing you along with your friends will be able to operate on the same file. This means any changes you make will be reflected in real-time on your friend’s computer as well.
- This is not just for the student, as a working professional, you might need assistance while making a presentation. Using this feature you can share your file with your colleagues who can help you assist with your difficulties.
Presenter mode
- Giving a presentation is not an easy task. Be it giving to the masses or in front of your seniors. It’s always good to practice beforehand. Microsoft PowerPoint is not just for creating, rather it provides tools that can help you practice as well as tools to help you while presenting. Let’s look few of those.
- In any professional setting most likely you will be connecting your laptop with the projector to present. You may present in PowerPoint’s presenter mode. Your slides will be shown on the screen of the projector in full, but your laptop will have numerous windows open. One displays your current slide, while the other gives you information about your upcoming slide. Additionally, you may choose to view every slide at once. This removes the requirement for you to recall your slides and prompts you about the next slide. Additionally, there is a note pane where you may pre-write any keywords or significant material that you want to cover in the presentation.
- One more tool is the rehearse timings tool which you can find under the slideshow menu. As the name suggests it helps you with rehearsing your timings. The way it does so is by providing a clock. While in rehearsing mode there will be a clock displayed which will note the total time as well as the time you took for each slide to present. This information can help you prepare and adjust your slides as per your criteria.
Templates
- Making your presentation look presentable takes effort and time. Powerpoint provides several templates to address this problem. Typically, PowerPoint offers you the option to select a template or begin with a blank document as soon as you launch it. All that remains to be done is to enter your content once the template has been chosen.
- This is ideal for people who find it hard to navigate through the entire process or for someone who is looking for a quick, simple presentation at their disposal.
Editing
- Powerpoint allows you to edit your photos and videos within the presentation itself. Over the period, Microsoft has added more detailed tools to edit your images and videos. Not only that it also allows you to present screen recording or even enables you to record your screen while you are giving your presentation. Using external mics you can even record your presentation with audio and later export it in video format.
3D models
- There are many smart tools present in PowerPoint. One of them is to add a 3D model. Microsoft already has a stock library but you can download any other models as per your requirements.
- These 3D models are not just 3D images, but there are interactive. This means, say you inserted a 3D model of lungs, you can rotate the model about its axis to view it from different angles. Not just that the models themself can be animated. So say if you inserted a 3D model of the volcano, it would show the entire animation of the eruption in 3D.
Conclusion
Microsoft PowerPoint is a powerful tool to make your presentation. What we saw above is just barely scratching the surface. From data visualization to more, it is a very versatile tool that can assist with your presentation. If you want to know about the product specification you can click here.