Translating Foreign-Language Text

PowerPoint offers a little gizmo for translating words and phrases from one language to another. The translation gizmo is good only for translating single words and well-known phrases. To translate an entire PowerPoint presentation, you have to seek the help of a real, native speaker. Follow these steps to translate text: Select the word or phrase that needs translating and then go to the Review tab. Click the Translate button. The Research task pane opens, as shown in Figure ...

Working with Text Written in a Foreign Language

In the interest of cosmopolitanism, PowerPoint gives you the opportunity to construct presentations in foreign languages or include foreign-language text in a presentation otherwise composed in English, and still be able to spell check your work. To enter and edit text in a foreign language, you start by installing proofing tools for the language. With the tools installed, you tell PowerPoint where in your presentation a foreign language is used. After that, you can spell check any...

Fine-tuning the spell checker

Especially if you deal in jargon and foreign languages, you owe it to yourself to fine-tune the spell checker. It can help you proofread foreign languages and make sure that your jargon, no matter how arcane, gets used correctly in slide presentations. These pages explain the nuances of the spell checker. Choosing how to handle uppercase words, numbers In spell checks, PowerPoint ignores the following: Words in uppercase letters, which are considered acronyms and not worth ...

Correcting Your Spelling Errors

PowerPoint keeps a dictionary in its hip pocket, which is a good thing for you. Spelling errors really stand out in PowerPoint presentation because the text is so big. PowerPoint consults the dictionary as you enter text and draws lines in red underneath words that are misspelled and words that were entered twice in a row. To correct misspellings, you can either address them one at a time or start the spell checker and proof many slides or an entire presentation simultaneously. You...

Formatting with WordArt

Standard formatting options, such as bold, italic, and underline, are all available on the Home tab. WordArt, however, is just as useful in formatting even though it is typically used sparingly in presentations. WordArt Styles You can find WordArt text effects in the Text group on the Insert tab. When you apply a WordArt text effect, PowerPoint 2007 displays the Format contextual tab under Drawing Tools. Using the Quick Style gallery in the WordArt Styles group, you can choose to...

Using Headers and Footers

PowerPoint 2007 slides by default do not contain headers, just footers. You can certainly add headers to any slide by moving a footer to the header position. As you follow the steps in this section, it might be a little disconcerting to see the Header And Footer dialog box, shown in Figure, when in reality, you can add headers only to notes or handout pages through this dialog box. Just remember that the dialog box is referring to notes and handouts only, not slides, when ...

Adding Punch to Your Bulleted Lists

In most PowerPoint 2007 presentations, you will see at least one slide with a bulleted list. Some presentations go overboard and include multiple slides with bulleted lists. Although these lists are easier for audiences to understand and follow at a glance, using several within one presentation can make a viewer’s eyes glaze over. The next time you add a bulleted list to your presentation, consider converting the text to a SmartArt graphic. This gives your information a...

Finding and Replacing Words or Phrases

If you need to quickly find every occurrence of a certain word or phrase within your presentation or on even just one slide, you will find the commands you need on the Home tab. By typing the word or phrase you want to find, you can have PowerPoint 2007 search the entire presentation and highlight every occurrence of the word or phrase it finds. You can easily quit the process by clicking the Close button whenever you want. You can locate and change specific text in a presentation...

Adding a Text Box to a Slide

A typical PowerPoint slide lets you type text in the Title text box or the Subtitle text box. When you type text in the Title or Subtitle text box, the contents appear as slide titles and subheadings within Outline view. However, PowerPoint also offers you a third option for displaying text on a slide: You can create your own text box and place it anywhere on the slide. When you create your own text box and fill it with text, this text will not appear within Outline view. The...

Putting Footers (and Headers) on Slides

A footer is a line of text that appears at the foot, or bottom, of a slide. Figure shows a footer. Typically, a footer includes the date, a company name, and/or a slide number, and footers appear on every slide in a presentation if they appear at all. That does not mean you cannot exclude a footer from a slide or put footers on some slides, as we explain shortly. For that matter, you can move slide numbers, company names, and dates to the top of slides, in which case they become ...