Powerful presentations with

PowerPoint 2016

IT Showcase Productivity Guide

Published September 2015

Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 is here to help you create, share, and co-author
powerful presentations across Microsoft Windows, iOS, and Android devices
like never before. With new features—including modern chart types, screen
recordings, and the Microsoft Office Mix add-in with enhanced screen
recording functionality—PowerPoint 2016 allows you to bring your
presentations to a whole new level.
Topics in this guide include:

What’s new Getting started Collaborating and

sharing

Using Office Mix Using PowerPoint For more

on a phone or tablet information
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What’s new
Enhanced sharing and co-authoring are now available for presentations stored on Microsoft
OneDrive or Microsoft SharePoint Online. When you are using SharePoint Online or Microsoft
OneDrive for Business, you can take advantage of the new history feature, which stores versions of
your presentations that you can return to if necessary.

Plus, you can now work across platforms, creating, editing, and presenting information from your
Windows desktop or laptop computers, tablets, Windows Phone, and iOS and Android devices. And
when you want to record your presentations, you can use Ink playback to show your handwritten
notes in the correct times and places.

Tell Me
You do not need to be a power user to use the power of Microsoft PowerPoint. Tell Me will guide
you to the feature you need, to get the results you want. This built-in search saves time that you
would spend looking for a specific feature.
Using Tell Me

1. At the top of the ribbon, type what you are looking for in the Tell Me box. As you type,
possible results are shown.

2. Select the result that applies to your task.

For example, when you want to insert a graphic, type “add graphic,” and Tell Me brings back
the Insert SmartArt and Image (ActiveX Control) commands.

Viewing previous commands

 Select the Tell Me box. The Recently Used drop-down list appears and displays the last five
commands you executed from within Tell Me.
Smart Lookup
Smart Lookup, powered by Bing, uses the term you highlight and other contextual information from
within your presentation to deliver search results from the web while you read or work on it. With
information from a variety of sources, you can find anything from a quick definition to a detailed
exploration without leaving your presentation.

Accessing Smart Lookup

1. Highlight the word or phrase you want to find information on.

2. Do one of the following:

 Right-click the word or phrase, and then select Smart Lookup on the menu that appears.

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 On a touchscreen device, press and hold the word or phrase, and select the arrow at the
right edge of the floating formatting toolbar. On the menu that appears, select Smart
Lookup.

 On the ribbon, on the Review tab, select Smart Lookup

The Insights pane opens, displaying information relevant to your selection.

Note: If you are just looking up Insights for one word, you can skip highlighting and
simply right-click or press and hold on the word.
PowerPoint 2016 has several new chart types to choose from:

 Waterfall – This chart shows how an initial value is changed by intermediate values to reach a
final total.
 Pareto – This chart automatically sorts the frequency of the most prevalent issues and adds a
Pareto line that shows the additive contribution of each issue along the horizontal axis.
 Treemap – This chart shows hierarchical data in nested rectangles.
 Histogram – This chart type shows both the frequency and probability of a value by using
rectangles of varying height and width. It looks similar to a bar chart.
 Box & Whisker – This chart type shows the distribution of the chart data, with the median and
quartiles in the box, and the extremes on either whisker.
 Sunburst – This multi-level pie chart shows hierarchical data in concentric rings.

Sharing with others

There is a new Share button in the upper right of the PowerPoint window.

If your presentation is not already stored on the cloud, when you select the Share button, you will
be prompted to save it to the cloud. After your presentation is in the cloud, selecting Share opens
an invitation form, where you can enter people who need access and specify the level of access they
need.

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Getting started
PowerPoint presentations work like slide shows. To convey a message or a story, you break it down
into slides. Think of each slide as a blank canvas for the pictures, words, and shapes that will help
you build your story.

Templates
All your presentations start as a template. This might be as simple as a blank slide, or as complex as
a full presentation with placeholder images, a theme, formatting, and transitions. After you have
selected a template, you can insert pictures, text, videos, transitions, and animations.

Create your first slide

1. Start PowerPoint, and then select Blank Presentation. A new presentation with a blank title
slide appears.

2. To insert a new slide, on the Home tab of the ribbon, select New Slide.

Working with the ribbon

The ribbon brings important features and tools to your fingertips to help you be more effective.
Appearing at the top of each window, the ribbon displays tabs that contain the most commonly
used features and tools. And as you perform various tasks, such as working on a chart or inserting a
picture, other contextual tabs appear with tools specific to the task at hand.

Inserting pictures, text, and charts

One of the most commonly used tabs in PowerPoint is Insert, where you can insert a picture, text, a
chart, a transition between slides, or an animation.

Insert a picture
1. Select the Insert tab.

2. Select the type of image you want to insert in the Images group. You can choose from:

 Pictures – Browse to pictures on your computer.

 Online Pictures – Browse to pictures on a website.

 Screenshot – Insert a picture you recently took of your computer screen (by using the
Print Screen key).
 Photo Album – Choose pictures from an album you create in PowerPoint.

3. Insert your picture.

Note: When you insert a picture, a new contextual tab called Picture Tools appears.
This has a Format tab containing tools for working with the picture.

Insert text

1. Select the Insert tab, and then select Text Box in the Text group.

2. Enter your text, and then format it to your taste.

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Insert a chart

1. On the Insert tab, select New Slide, and then select Blank.

2. In the Illustrations group, select Chart.

3. Select a chart type, and then select OK.

Edit data in an inserted chart

After you insert a chart, you can edit its underlying data.

1. When you insert a chart, the Chart Tools contextual tab appears, with Design and Format
tabs. Make sure you select the Design tab.

2. Select Edit Data. Microsoft Excel opens in a new window and displays the worksheet for the
selected chart.

3. In the Excel worksheet, select the cell that contains the title or the data you want to change,
and then enter the new information.
4. Close the Excel worksheet. PowerPoint updates and saves your chart automatically.

Insert transitions between slides

Standard presentations often have abrupt changes from slide to slide, which can be jarring to your
audience. If you want the pace of your presentation to look controlled and flowing, just add
transitions between your slides. Slide transitions are the animation-like effects as you move from
one slide to the next during an on-screen presentation. Everything you need is on the Transitions
tab.
1. In the Navigation Pane, select the slide you want to apply a transition to.

2. On the Transitions tab, find the effect you want for that slide in the transitions gallery. Then,
select that effect to see a preview. To see the entire gallery, select the More button .

3. On the Transitions tab, select Effect Options to change how the transition occurs—for
example, you can choose the direction the slide enters from.

4. Use Duration to set how fast each transition takes place. To make the transition slower, you
will need to set the number higher.

5. Select Preview to see what the transition looks like with all your new settings.
Tip: If you want all slides in your presentation to transition the same way, select Apply To All
in the Timing group.

Insert animations
To impress your audience and draw attention to a specific piece of content on a slide, apply
animation effects (motion) to text, pictures, shapes, SmartArt graphics, and more. Animations are
not the same as transitions. A transition animates the way one slide changes to the next, whereas
an animation makes an object within a slide move.
1. Select the object or text on the slide that you want to animate.

2. On the Animations tab, select Add Animation, and then choose an animation effect.

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Using Presenter View

If you are using two monitors, Presenter View lets you see your notes, the current slide, and the
next slide as you present on one monitor, while the audience sees only the current slide on the
other monitor. Presenter View is enabled by default. You can turn off Presenter View from the Slide
Show tab on the ribbon, by clearing the Use Presenter View check box in the Monitors group.

Working with a touch device

PowerPoint supports your touch devices with new Ink to Math and Ink Playback functionality. If
your presentation requires a formula, you can write the formula by hand, and PowerPoint will
format it as a typed formula. And if you are recording a live presentation and use your finger to
write on a slide on a touch-enabled screen, your recording will include the written notes at the
correct times and places in your presentation.

Create a recording to play during a presentation

You can insert a screen recording into a slide without leaving PowerPoint. This is great for when you
want to include a screen capture demonstration of your product in your presentation—you do not
need to work with a third-party application.

1. On the Insert tab, select Screen Recording. The PowerPoint window becomes minimized.
2. In the screen recording tool, select the Select Area button.

3. Drag to draw a rectangle for the area of the screen you want to record.

4. If you do not want to record audio or your pointer, deselect the Audio or Record Pointer
button.
5. Select the Record button.

After a three-second countdown, the recording begins.

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Tip: If you move your pointer away from the recording control window, it might disappear. To
lock the recording control window in place, select the pushpin button in the lower-right
corner.
6. To end the recording, select the Stop button.

Tip: You can also press the Windows logo key+Q to stop recording.

Best practices
Here are some tips for giving your presentation maximum impact:

 Keep your message short and simple. Make sure your presentation is focused and no longer
than needed.
 Use an easy-to-read design and theme. The predefined themes are designed to be effective
without being showy. They are generally a good choice to help get your point across.
 Use pictures to illustrate your message. PowerPoint is a visual presentation tool, so use images
whenever possible to tell your story.
 Limit the information on each slide. Just as your presentation should be simple and focused, so
should each slide.
 Use animation sparingly. Animation is meant to draw attention to an element on the slide and
can distract from everything else in your presentation if it is used excessively.

Collaborating and sharing

By sharing presentations that are saved to OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online, you can
ensure your colleagues have the latest versions to view and edit. This enables you and your team to
co-author the same presentation at the same time, whether you are using PowerPoint on your
desktop, tablet, or phone, or Microsoft PowerPoint Online. From your phone, tablet, or PC or Mac,
you can also add and reply to comments right next to the slide you are discussing. That way,
everyone can see who replied to whom.

Working in the cloud

PowerPoint works on OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint Online. Working in the
cloud means you can share and work with your colleagues, but it also means your presentations are
protected from loss. In addition to the redundancy in cloud storage, PowerPoint also maintains a
version history when presentations are stored and edited on either OneDrive for Business or
SharePoint Online.

Co-authoring features
After you have shared your presentation, you and colleagues who have edit access can work on the
presentation at the same time. In addition, if your presentation is on OneDrive for Business or
SharePoint Online, PowerPoint keeps a version history of your presentation. If a team member
makes a change that you do not want to keep, you can roll back to the previous version.
1. On the File tab, select History.

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If you do not see History on the File tab, your document is not saved to the cloud or to a
location that has version history tracking enabled.

2. The History pane appears, showing the current and previous versions.
Select the previous version you want to restore. The selected version opens in a new window.

3. Select the Restore button.

Threaded comments
Threaded comments in PowerPoint allow people to have useful conversations right next to relevant
text. You can see who replied to whom and when.

Using threaded comments

 In the comment you want to reply to, select the Reply button to add a response.

Using Office Mix

Office Mix is a PowerPoint add-in with its own ribbon tab that contains tools for recording your
presentation, creating screen capture demos, inserting quizzes, and exporting presentations to a
Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) package. You can use a SCORM package in a
learning management system (LMS), and in a Mix site for storing and sharing your Mix
presentations (Mixes).

Office Mix gives you a better way to share your presentations. You can share read-only
presentations with full animations and transitions, and measure their impact and audience
engagement. You can easily embed Mixes on company blogs, websites, and social media. With
Office Mix, you can transfer knowledge more effectively by adding voice, video, and digital ink to
your slides. You can see who watched which portions of your content and survey your audience,
gaining valuable feedback and insights.

With Office Mix, you control who has access to your content. Office Mix provides multiple levels of
access control, allowing you to publish content to the web or restrict it to your organization.

Office Mix ribbon tab

The Office Mix add-in adds a new Mix tab to the PowerPoint ribbon. This tab gives you access to
the Office Mix recording, quiz, and publishing features, and also provides a link to a set of tutorials.

Getting started with Office Mix

Install the Office Mix add-in:
1. In your web browser, go to https://mix.office.com/.

2. Select Get Office Mix.

3. Sign-in with your Microsoft account.

4. Select Run to run the OfficeMix.Setup.exe setup file.

Note: You need to quit PowerPoint before running this file.

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Create your first Mix:

1. Select the Using Mix button on the Mix tab. This opens an Office Mix Welcome pane that
includes the following tutorials:
 What is Office Mix – A video tutorial explaining Office Mix.
 Screen Recording – A video tutorial showing how to use Office Mix to create screen
recordings.
 Publish and Share – A video tutorial showing how to publish and share your Mixes.
 Create your First Mix – An interactive PowerPoint tutorial that walks you through creating
a simple Mix.

2. Select Create your First Mix.

3. Follow the directions to create, upload, and share your first Mix.

Visit the Office Mix site for more information. For more information, examples of Mixes, and
tutorials on using Office Mix, go to https://mix.office.com/.

Using PowerPoint on a phone or tablet

In addition to using PowerPoint on your computer, you can use PowerPoint (part of Microsoft
Office Mobile) on a Windows phone, an iPhone or iPad, or an Android tablet or phone.

Use the following links to get started:

Use PowerPoint Mobile for Windows Phone

https://support.office.com/en-US/article/use-powerpoint-mobile-for-windows-phone-da9ff3b1-
0278-454b-8796-e75ce3ce5738

Install and set up Office on an iPhone or iPad with Office 365

https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Install-and-set-up-Office-on-an-iPhone-or-iPad-with-
Office-365-9df6d10c-7281-4671-8666-6ca8e339b628

Office on your Android tablet

https://products.office.com/en-us/mobile/office-android-tablet

Office Mobile for Android phones

https://support.office.com/en-US/article/Office-Mobile-for-Android-phones-ee598133-59d1-43c3-
b47c-aac3f2d9a605

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For more information

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IT Showcase Productivity Guide