Tech Thursday: PowerPoint Potential!

Technology Thursday is a weekly linky dedicated to all things technology related. Share reviews of websites or apps you've tried, tech tips that make your {teaching or personal} life easier, and helpful tutorials. Our hope is that this linky provides a place for teachers to share and learn new ways to use technology and engage students!

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This week, we are excited to introduce a new series of Technology Thursday posts...

I know many of you already know this, but some may not... PowerPoint is NOT just for creating presentations! In fact, I probably use PowerPoint more than any other Office program these days. Unless I'm typing a paper (Word) or dealing with data (Excel), chances are good that I'm creating in PowerPoint.

Why, you ask? Freedom. Sweet Freedom! PowerPoint kind of lets you do whatever you want... there are no "lines" or margin to deal with like there are in Word. You can layer things on top of each other all day long and manipulate them in tons of ways!

Our first tutorial is simple, but important... How to change slide sizes and print from PowerPoint. Here goes:

One of the first issues you may have thought of with using PowerPoint for something other than presentations is that the slides are not the same size as paper. Fortunately, this is an easy fix!

Open a new PowerPoint file. Select the Design tab at the top of the screen. Click Slide Size and then select Custom Slide Size.

I know a lot of people set their size to 8.5x11 because that's paper size, but I like to set my slide size at 8x10.5 so I don't have to worry about margins. Either way, set your size in inches, click OK, and you're good! 

Printing Tips...

Printing from PowerPoint has been something that several of my buyers have struggled with in the past. Here's the "how to" info you need to do it right! 

In your print settings, be sure you have selected "Full Page Slides" and check "Scale to Fit." Checking Scale to Fit will put about a quarter-inch white border around the image so that it prints without cutting off the edges (easily one of the most common errors I have seen when printing from PowerPoint).

If the file is printing without all of its graphics, be sure you have selected to print in COLOR, even if you're using a black & white printer. Otherwise, PowerPoint tries to save you ink by not printing background patterns and images. 

That's it for this week's PowerPoint tips. Here's a peek at what we have planned for future posts:

*Embedding fonts

*Manipulating images, shapes, and text

*Saving flattened images

*Creating your own design templates

*Aligning elements

...and more! 

What would you like to learn about PowerPoint? We are looking for ideas for future posts and would love to answer your questions! Leave them in the comments, and don't forget to link up your own Tech Tips! (Don't worry, your posts do NOT have to be PowerPoint related to link up!)

Don't forget to enter our giveaway before you leave! You have through Saturday night to enter, and we will announce a winner in this week's Sunday Scoop! 

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