Judging by most office PowerPoint presentations, most employees don't realize that there is much more to PowerPoint than just graphs and text bullets. How many important points have your co-workers failed to get across in meetings because of dreadful presentations made with PowerPoint? Advanced techniques make your presentations more powerful and effective. Here are just some of the ways advanced PowerPoint users implement these techniques in their presentations.

Animated Charts

Basic users of PowerPoint create charts that are simple and static. PowerPoint advanced users inject life into their charts by adding simple animation.

To do this, view the chart you wish to animate and select "Slide ShowCustom Animation" Select the chart object then click "Add EffectEntrance" on the custom animation panel to bring up a list of animation effects such as Blinds and Checkerboard. Once the effect is selected you can modify features such as the direction and speed of the effect.

The chart is listed on the elements list at the bottom of the animation panel. Click the down arrow next to the chart name to show new selections such as "Effects Options" which allows you to customize the animation. For example, you can have the entire chart appear at once or each element can appear in sequence.

Skipping Slides

Let's say you are training two groups of employees on a new computerized expense reporting system. One group is office workers who use the company computers every day, while the second group is lab technicians, many of whom have never logged onto the company network. The core presentation is the same for both groups, but the second group will need additional training on basic company computer protocols.

Do you prepare two different presentations? Do you make the clerical staff sit through the basic computer training?

PowerPoint advanced training demonstrates the creation of a hyperlink that allows the presenter to skip the basic computer training if the audience won't need it.

From the slide before the basic computer section, select "Slide ShowAction Buttons" and pick one of the buttons presented. The "Action Settings" dialog appears. Select "Hyperlink to:" then from the dropdown menu below that, select the slide that follows the basic computer training.

Create a Self-Running Presentation

Putting a self-running presentation on a kiosk can be a terrific technique for presenting information to a changing audience, for example at a trade show. Once started, it will run automatically without needing a presenter. This PowerPoint advanced technique is actually very easy to set up.

Select "Slide ShowSlide Transition..." to display the Slide Transition dialog. Under "Advance slide" click "Automatically after" and enter a time in seconds for each slide to be displayed. You can change the other settings on this panel as desired.

Now select "Slide ShowSet Up Show." Under "Show Options" select "Loop continuously until 'Esc'" and under "Advanced Options" select "Use timings, if present". You can also select "Browse at a kiosk" under "Show type" to limit viewers' ability to change the slide show.

These are just a few of the techniques you will pick up in a PowerPoint Advanced course to make your presentations capture the interest of your audience. You may want to gain the advantage over your co-workers and take an individual PowerPoint Advanced class. Or perhaps you're so frustrated with your co-worker's less than professional PowerPoint presentations that you schedule an in-house training session for the whole team. Either way, with a bit of PowerPoint advanced knowledge, more lively meetings and presentations are sure to follow.