Pres-ident article:

Learning new skills

Learning new skills

Learning a new skill is something that can be done at any time during our lives and is usually a rewarding experience, either personally or financially. During these unprecedented times where we find ourselves with available time to do things which we wouldn’t have considered before, learning a new skill is an excellent thing to do and will stand you in good stead when we evolve from our locked down existences.

If you’ve ever thought about expanding your Powerpoint knowledge, now could be the perfect time to learn more without the usual time constraints you would have if you were working in, and travelling to and from the office on a daily basis.

If you’re a complete beginner, you could try:

• Creating a new document, adding a few shapes and text then saving in the different, available formats;

• Creating a master layout to use across multiple slides;

• Adding text, then seeing how different fonts can look by selecting from the fonts list;

• Using colours to change how text or shapes look;

• Add an image and see what effects you can apply from the picture tools.

If you’ve used Powerpoint before, you could re-acquaint or familiarise yourself with the following:

• Master layouts and how they work;

• Creating colours for your brand;

• Saving your master files as templates;

• Breaking text-heavy slides into multiple slides while still keeping the message by using the Notes field for the speaker;

• Adding shapes and icons;

• Text within shapes, text wrap and text margins.

If you’re an advanced level Powerpoint user:

• Take a look at all the new animations available;

• Nail the perfect formats and resolutions for your inserted media;

• Insert some video and animation files to see which formats work best;

• Export to online media;

• Export some themes (.thmx) to save on your server for use across all your organisation’s Microsoft documents;

• Give 3D a go - layout a room or town in 3D!

Feel free to get in touch with us at Pres-ident by email to show us how you got on and if you have any extra questions. Happy learning!