Outlines, Notes, and Handouts

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PowerPoint II >>
Outlines and Handouts

For your assignment, you will be required create a brief presentation and use outlines and handouts to support your students' learning.

Outlines

Rather than work on each slide independently, you can work on an outline for your presentation.

To do this in PowerPoint 97, go to "View" and select "Outline." An "Outlining" toolbar will be displayed automatically. If it doesn't appear, go to "View" then "Toolbars" and select "Outlining." The buttons on this toolbar will allow you to move slides or text, change the indentation of your points, make only titles visible, be able to view the overall flow of your presentation, etc.

To do this in PowerPoint 2000 or XP, go to the "Normal" view and then click on the "Outline" tab in the left window pane.

In either the "outline" or "slide sorter" view, you can create a "summary" or "agenda" slide that can be used at either the end or beginning of a presentation. A new slide will appear in front of the first selected slide and include each slide title in a bulleted list. You can also move this slide by clicking and dragging it in the Outline view.

For your assignment, create a summary slide in a brief presentation. You could use your PowerPoint I presentation in this assignment. To do this, you will first need to select the slides whose titles you want to include (hold down the CTRL key to select more than one).

Next, click on the "Summary Slide" button. In PowerPoint 97, this button will appear on the Outlining Toolbar, whereas in PowerPoint 2000 or XP, it will appear in the Slide Sorter Toolbar.

Speaker Notes

You can create notes pages while you are working on your presentation. These can be printed off and used to assist you in delivering your presentation. (Try not to "read" your presentation to your audience, though - just use the material to support you where you think you might need it). To create notes,

Go to the "View" menu
Select "Notes Page"
Click on the "notes" box and type in your notes for the slide you are on
To make the notes view larger, use the "Zoom" drop-down menu to increase it to 100%

Another way to enter notes, but while remaining in the slide view, is to have use the speaker notes dialogue box. To do this,

Go to the "View" menu
Select "Speaker Notes"
Type in your notes. They will be added to your notes page for the current slide.

For your assignment, you are asked to include notes for some of the slides in your presentation (either a brief one or existing one).

Handouts

You can also create handouts of slides for the audience to walk away with or for them to take notes on. For your assignment, you will need to edit the Handout Master. To create a handout,

Go to the View menu
Select "Master" then "Handout Master"
Try out the various layouts of your slides by clicking the buttons on the Handout Master toolbar.
You can add art, text, headers, footers, date, time, and page numbers to your handouts. For your assignment, choose at least two of these features. The features you add will only appear on the handouts and will not affect your presentation slides. You can set some of these features by going to the "View" menu, selecting "Header and Footer," then setting your preferences on the "Notes and Handouts" tab.
Once formatted, click "Close"
Although printing out a handout is not required here, because you will be submitting your presentation electronically, your handout preparations will be marked. If you did want to print a handout, though, you would go to the File menu, select Print, and choose "Handouts" (either 2, 3, or 6 slides per page) from the "Print What" drop-down menu.

Using with Word

You can send your notes, handouts, or outline to Microsoft Word for editing. For your assignment, you will be asked to send your handouts to Word, then save the file, and submit it with the rest of your work for this module. To send your handouts to Word,

Go to the File menu
Select Send To
(For best results when printing, click "Black and White" from the "View" menu before using "Send To")
Choose Microsoft Word
Choose the layout you want (select "blank lines" for handouts) and whether slides should be included or linked (select "included"). Use the "question" button () to learn more about each setting by clicking on the button then on the feature you wish to learn more about.
Word will then open with your handouts. Save your document as "XXXhandouts" (with XXX being your initials).

Please continue to the next lesson on Action Settings.