ADVANCE WORD TOPICS

Sending a Word Outline to PowerPoint

"I can NOT afford to allocate twelve days of my classroom time to another project using PowerPoint!"

If you have said (or thought) that, I would like to present a simple way of putting together the content of a PowerPoint show. Notice the emphasis. Too often a PowerPoint show is all about glitzy graphics and fancy animation. The following procedure puts the emphasis squarely on content.

Step 1. Open Word.

Step 2. Begin typing at the top line of the document. Do not skip a line. Do not do anything to change the format of what you type.

Step 3. Think in outline terms. Type a major idea on one line. Press Return/Enter to move to the next line and type a sub point.

Step 4. Do not skip lines, even between major points. Do not try to tab, do not use Roman Numerals, or any other outlining procedure. Simply type points followed by sub points, which would then be followed by another major point. Download a sample document to see an example.

Step 5. Identify the major points of your outline. Each of these will be the title of a new PowerPoint slide. Put your cursor at the beginning of the first major point. (Actually your cursor can be anywhere in that line)

Step 6. In the Formatting toolbar, change the style of that line from Normal to Heading 1.

Step 7. Repeat this procedure for each of the major headings. In the sample document from Step 4, my major points are red. If you are familiar with using the Format Painter, that would simplify your task.

Step 8. The remaining points in your outline are sub points. Using the same procedure from step 6, change the style of each of the sub points to Heading 2. Download a sample document to see what the finished document would look like.

Final Step. From the File menu select Send To, then select PowerPoint. Your outline is turned into a PowerPoint show with content only. Download a sample show to see what the presentation would look like.