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...

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...

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...

Handling Bulleted and Numbered Lists

What is a PowerPoint presentation without a list or two? It is like an emperor without any clothes on. This part of the tutorial explains everything there is to know about bulleted and numbered lists. These lists can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. PowerPoint offers a bunch of different ways to format these lists, but if you are in a hurry or you do not care whether your lists look like everyone else’s, you can take advantage of the Numbering and Bullets...

Fun with Text Boxes and Text Box Shapes

Text boxes give you an opportunity to exercise your creativity. They add another element to slides. Use them to position text wherever you want, annotate a chart or equation, or place an announcement on a slide. You can even create a vertical text box in which the text reads from top to bottom instead of left to right, or turn a text box into a circle, arrow, or other shape. Figure shows examples of text boxes and text box shapes. In Office 2007 terminology, a PowerPoint text box...

Create a Custom Calendar

In this tutorial, I’ll show you a way to create your own customized calendar and prepare it for print.   Go to “Insert”, then “Tables” and choose “Insert Table”. Choose 7 columns for the 7 days of the week, and about 7 rows. You might need more rows or delete unused ones later. In the first row of the table, select it all by selecting the first cell and dragging your mouse till the last one. Then go to “Layout” and click...

Controlling How Text Fits in Text Frames and Text Boxes

When text does not fit in a text placeholder frame or text box, PowerPoint takes measures to make it fit. In a text frame, PowerPoint shrinks the amount of space between lines and then it shrinks the text itself. When text does not fit in a text box, PowerPoint enlarges the text box to fit more text. PowerPoint handles overflow text as part of its AutoFit mechanism. How AutoFit works is up to you. If, like me, you do not care for how PowerPoint enlarges text boxes when you enter the...

Text Boxes and Text Box Shapes

Text boxes give you an opportunity to exercise your creativity. They add another element to slides. Use them to position text wherever you want, annotate a chart or equation, or place an announcement on a slide. You can even create a vertical text box in which the text reads from top to bottom instead of left to right, or turn a text box into a circle, arrow, or other shape. Figure shows examples of text boxes and text box shapes. In Office 2007 terminology, a PowerPoint text box is an...

Location-aware search with Apache Lucene and Solr

Location, location, location! Just as location is king in real estate, search plus location awareness can yield significant dividends in helping users effectively and efficiently find information. For instance, if you are a business-directory provider (such as a "Yellow Pages" site), when a user searches for a plumber, the site should return results for plumbers near the user's home. If you run a tourism site, you might want to allow travelers to search for places of interest near their...

Using Polylines

  Polylines Polylines draw lines similar to the line command we used in lesson 2, but are a lot more powerful. Let's start by drawing the same plot of land we drew in lesson 2, but this type using polylines. The polyline command is situated on the 'draw' toolbar. 1) Choose the polyline command 2) For a start point, enter 50,50 3) ...