Okay, what is the blank presentation option?

This option gets you started making slides from scratch. It's the building block of a presentation. Let me show you how.

My Aunt Edna used to make pancakes from scratch. Mmm.

Uh, don't pour any maple syrup on the slides, though, Jim. Heh heh.

Creating a slide from scratch In the next step you will create a Title Slide for your presentation using the Blank Presentation option. You will be working in Slide View. 1. Open the PowerPoint program. Powerpoint automatically opens a new presentation. A new title slide will appear for you to work with. 2. Alternatively, let's say you are already working in Powerpoint and want to create a new presentation. In the Open window, click "Create a new presentation" link. 3. The New window will appear. Click Blank Presentation, and the Slide Layout window appears. It allows you to apply a slide layout. 4. The Title Slide layout will automatically appear, ready for you to work with. Note: If you are already working in PowerPoint and want to create a new blank presentation, you can also click the New button on the Standard Toolbar or follow these steps: 1. Click the File menu, then Click New. 2. In the New Presentation window, click Blank presentation, and then click OK. The Title slide will automatically appear.

Okay, now we have a Title Slide. But something's missing. Any guesses?

Hey, who's interviewing who here?

I know. The title!

Good guess, Sue. Let me show you how to add text to those blank slides.

Adding text to a slide The Title Slide layout contains text boxes for a title and a subtitle. Try typing text into these boxes. 1. Click in the Title text box. A thick gray border appears around the text box indicating that it is selected. 2. Type a title. 3. Click the Subtitle text box and type a subtitle. Congratulations! You've just created your first slide in PowerPoint.

Okay, you've created an impressive Title Slide for us. But that's just one slide! We need to create more slides or else we're going to have a pretty darn short presentation, aren't we?

Wow, these hard-hitting investigative questions don't let up do they? You should be on 60 Minutes or start your own blog. Here, let me show you how to add another slide...

Adding another slide 1. Click on the Insert dropdown menu and choose New Slide. 2.  The Slide Layout window will appear on when you create a new slide. Just click on whatever text or content layout you want to have for the new slide. Alternatively, if the Slide Layout window is already open, move your mouse to the desired layout, click the dropdown menu and choose Insert New Slide.

Okay, so now we have multiple slides for our presentation. But how do we move from slide to slide?

It's as easy as the click of a button. Literally. Just click and you've moved to a new slide.

That's great! You've got the moves, baby.

Moving from slide to slide Let's say you've created several slides for your presentation. You've finished working on the last slide, and now you want to take a look at your other slides. Here's how you move from slide to slide in Slide View. To move to a previous slide: 1. Click the upper double-arrow button on the lower right corner of the PowerPoint window. The previous slide will appear. To move to the next slide: 1. Click the lower double-arrow button on the lower right corner of the PowerPoint window.