Riya wants to make a presentation about her school’s Annual Day, but she does not know how to design slides from scratch. Her computer teacher says, “You do not need to design everything yourself. PowerPoint gives you ready-made presentations called templates!”

A template is a well-developed presentation. Templates can include layouts, colours, fonts, effects and background styles already set up for you. You only need to change the text, and your presentation is ready.

To use a built-in template: Step 1 Click the File tab. Step 2 Click on the New option. Step 3 You will see a list of ready-made templates. Choose a template. Step 4 Click on the Create button. You will then see a presentation with many slides already formatted.

Once you have slides, you can make them look even better by applying a theme. A theme is a set of predefined layouts that adds a professional touch to your presentations. The Design tab provides a variety of options for designing and formatting a presentation, including predefined colour palettes, fonts, backgrounds and formatting effects. You can also customise existing themes or build your own.

To choose a theme: Step 1 Click on the Design tab. Step 2 Place your mouse pointer over any of the themes. The design is reflected immediately on your slide, so you can see how it will look before applying it. Step 3 Click the design theme thumbnail when you find the one that suits your needs. The selected theme will be applied to your presentation.

After choosing a theme, you can still fine-tune how it looks. PowerPoint lets you change the theme’s colour scheme, its fonts and its background style, all from the same Design tab.

Changing Theme Colour Schemes: Step 1 Click on the Design tab. Step 2 Click on the Colors command at the right end of the Themes group. Step 3 Place your mouse pointer over the various colour schemes in the drop-down list, such as Office, Blue Warm, Blue Green, Green Yellow, Orange Red or Median, and click the one you want to apply.

Changing Theme Fonts: Step 1 Click on the Design tab. Step 2 Click on the Fonts command at the right end of the Themes group. Place your mouse pointer over any font family to see how that group of fonts will look. Step 3 Click the mouse when you find a suitable font family. This font family is applied to your presentation.

Changing Theme Backgrounds: Step 1 Click on the Design tab. Step 2 Click the Background Styles command in the Background group. Place your mouse pointer over any of the background styles to preview it. Step 3 Click when you find a background style that you like.

Alignment helps you align the text of the slide in various directions. Alignment can make your presentation look more visually cohesive and professional. There are four types of alignment: Align Left shifts text to the left side of the slide window, Align Right shifts text to the right side, Center shifts text to the centre, and Justify gives a clear look to the text and aligns it from both the left and right sides.

To align text: Step 1 Select the text to be aligned. Click on the Home tab. Step 2 Select any one alignment option as required from the Paragraph group. The text will be aligned according to the selected option.

Pictures make slides and presentations look more attractive. PowerPoint lets you insert pictures already saved on the computer, pictures from online, and pictures using a placeholder.

Inserting Picture from a File: PowerPoint lets you insert saved pictures that you may have created, downloaded or scanned. Step 1 Click on the Insert tab. Step 2 Click on the Pictures command in the Images group. The Insert Picture dialog box appears. Step 3 Select the desired image file and click on the Insert button to add it to your slide.

Inserting Online Picture: Step 1 Place the cursor where you want to insert the picture. Click on the Insert tab. Step 2 Click on the Insert Pictures option. An Online Pictures dialog box appears. Step 3 Type in the Bing image search text box and press the Enter key. Select a picture. Step 4 Click on the Insert button, and the selected picture is inserted. Always respect other people’s rights, including copyright, when using online images.

Inserting Picture Using Placeholders: A placeholder is a container box in PowerPoint that contains dotted lines and is used to insert images, text, shapes, videos, etc. Step 1 Insert a slide with a layout that contains a placeholder. Click on the Pictures icon located on the placeholder. The Insert Pictures dialog box appears. Step 2 Select the image that you want to insert. Step 3 Click on the Insert button.

WordArt is a gallery that contains text styles to make slides more attractive and colourful. It allows you to create text effects that are not available through formatting. WordArt is used to create titles, logos and text that stand out by applying colours, effects and different styles.

To add WordArt to a slide: Step 1 Click on the Insert tab. Step 2 Click on the WordArt command in the Text group. Step 3 Select the desired style. A text box will appear in the slide. Step 4 Enter text in the text box. After entering the text, click anywhere on the slide outside the text box.

PowerPoint comes with a set of ready-made shapes, also called auto shapes, that you can use on slides to highlight ideas.

To insert shapes: Step 1 Click on the Insert tab. Step 2 Click on the Shapes command in the Illustration group. Step 3 Choose a desired shape from the drop-down menu. The desired shape will be inserted into the slide. You can resize a shape by dragging its size handles, and to select more than one shape at a time, hold the Shift key and click on each required shape.

Filling Colour in Shapes: Step 1 Select the shape. Step 2 Click on the Shape Fill command in the Shape Styles group under the Format tab. Step 3 Select the colour you like. Step 4 Click inside the shape. The selected colour is filled in the shape. You can also apply a ready-made design to a shape through the Shape Styles group under the Format tab.

It is easy to understand a topic when it is expressed as diagrams and lists. In PowerPoint, we use SmartArt to do this. SmartArt is a tool that uses graphics instead of text to visually represent your ideas, using layouts such as List, Process, Cycle, Hierarchy, Relationship, Matrix and Pyramid.

To insert SmartArt: Step 1 Click on the Insert tab. Step 2 Click on the SmartArt command from the Illustrations group. This opens the Choose a SmartArt Graphic dialog box. Step 3 Select a diagram type from the left section of the dialog box. Step 4 Select a design of the diagram you want to insert. Step 5 Click on the OK button. This inserts a SmartArt graphic with [Text] boxes. Step 6 Click on the [Text] boxes and enter your text. You can change the colour and design of the SmartArt graphic using the commands available under the new Design tab.

The Slide Show tab lets you set up how your show will progress. To preview your show, click the Slide Show tab, then select either From Beginning (to see the show from the first slide) or From Current Slide (to see the show starting from the slide selected in the Slide Pane). Click the mouse to move to the next slide during the show. A speaker can also write notes in the Notes Pane; these notes do not appear when the presentation runs.

Image prompt: Flat illustration of an Indian student browsing a gallery of colourful ready-made slide templates on a laptop screen.

A template is a ready-made presentation with layouts, colours, fonts and effects already set.

Key idea: You open it from File > New, then just change the text.

Image prompt: Flat illustration of a hand hovering over a row of coloured theme thumbnails on the PowerPoint Design tab, with a live preview on the slide.

A theme is a set of predefined layouts that gives a presentation a professional look.

Key idea: Hovering over a theme shows a live preview before you click it.

Image prompt: Flat illustration showing four small slide icons side by side, each with text lined up left, right, centre and justified.

Alignment arranges text to the left, right, centre, or justified on the slide.

Key idea: All four options are found in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.

Image prompt: Flat illustration of an Indian child dragging a photo file into a PowerPoint slide, with a small Bing search icon nearby.

Pictures can be inserted from a saved file, from an online search, or using a placeholder.

Key idea: The Pictures and Online Pictures commands are on the Insert tab.

Image prompt: Flat illustration of colourful, stylised 3D letters spelling a word, floating above a PowerPoint slide.

WordArt is a gallery of text styles used to make titles and logos stand out.

Key idea: You add it from the WordArt command in the Text group on the Insert tab.

Image prompt: Flat illustration of a hand selecting a coloured triangle and rectangle shape on a slide, with a paint bucket icon nearby.

Shapes are ready-made auto shapes you can insert, resize and fill with colour.

Key idea: Shape Fill is found under the Format tab once a shape is selected.

Image prompt: Flat illustration of a simple SmartArt cycle diagram with five connected circles, each holding a short label, on a laptop screen.

SmartArt turns a list of ideas into a graphic, such as a cycle or hierarchy diagram.

Key idea: It is inserted from the SmartArt command in the Illustrations group.

Image prompt: Flat illustration of an Indian student presenting a full-screen slide show to classmates, with a small speaker-notes card in hand.

A slide show can be run From Beginning or From Current Slide, using F5 or Shift + F5.

Key idea: Speaker notes typed in the Notes Pane never appear on screen during the show.

Riya’s school in Thane asks her to prepare a presentation for the Annual Day welcome speech, but the event is only two days away. She tells her computer teacher she does not have time to design slides from the start. Her teacher opens PowerPoint, clicks the File tab, then New, and shows Riya a list of ready-made designs. Riya picks one with a festive look, clicks Create, and is amazed to see several slides already formatted with colours and layouts. She only has to add her own text.

Questions

1. What feature of PowerPoint did Riya’s teacher show her?
2. Which two clicks, after the File tab, are needed to see the list of templates?
3. What does a template already include, apart from text?
4. What does Riya still have to do after choosing the template?
5. Why was using a template a good choice for Riya’s situation?

Rohan, from a school in Nashik, applies a nice green theme to his Social Science presentation, but he feels the default colours look dull next to his photographs. He remembers his teacher mentioning that a theme can still be adjusted. He clicks the Design tab, opens the Colors command, and tries a few colour schemes until he finds Blue Green, which matches his pictures well. He then opens the Fonts command and picks a bold font family for his titles.

Questions

1. Which tab did Rohan use to adjust his theme?
2. Which command did he use to change the colours of his theme?
3. Name the colour scheme Rohan finally chose.
4. Which command did Rohan use to change the font family?
5. Could Rohan have also changed the background style the same way? Explain.

Sunita, a student in Mumbai, is making one slide with a long paragraph about Republic Day for her class poster competition. The text looks messy because the right edge of every line ends at a different place. Her friend suggests she select all the text, go to the Home tab, and try the alignment options in the Paragraph group. Sunita tries Justify, and the paragraph now lines up neatly on both the left and right sides, making the slide look much tidier.

Questions

1. What problem was Sunita facing with her paragraph?
2. Which tab and group hold the alignment options?
3. Which alignment option did Sunita finally choose?
4. What does Justify alignment do to a paragraph?
5. Name one other alignment option Sunita could have tried, and what it would have done.

Arjun, from Pune, is creating a presentation on Indian wildlife. He has some photos saved on his computer from a school trip, but he also needs a picture of a tiger that he does not have. For his saved photos, he clicks Insert, then Pictures, and selects the files from his computer. For the tiger picture, he clicks Insert Pictures, types ‘tiger’ in the Bing search box, presses Enter, and picks a picture, remembering to check that he is respecting copyright before using it.

Questions

1. Which two methods of inserting pictures did Arjun use?
2. Which command did Arjun use for his saved school-trip photos?
3. Which search box did Arjun type into for the online tiger picture?
4. What should Arjun remember to respect when using an online picture?
5. Name the third way to insert a picture that Arjun did not use in this story.

Meera’s class in Nagpur is asked to present on Republic Day using WordArt, a shape, SmartArt and a working slide show. Meera inserts WordArt for her title ‘Republic Day’ in a bold red style. She adds an Indian flag-coloured rectangle shape and fills it with colour using Shape Fill under the Format tab. Then she inserts a Cycle SmartArt diagram to show ‘Freedom, Unity, Pride, Duty’ as four connected ideas. Finally, before class, she practises by pressing F5 to run her slide show from the beginning.

Questions

1. Which command did Meera use to make her stylish red title?
2. Which tab’s Shape Styles group holds the Shape Fill command?
3. Which type of SmartArt diagram did Meera choose?
4. What key did Meera press to run her slide show from the beginning?
5. What key combination would have started the show from her current slide instead?