Introduction to Microsoft PowerPoint 2016

Take your presentations from "so-so" to sensation with PowerPoint. This course will help you discover how to use Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 to create professional-quality slide presentations that grab attention from start to finish and make your message memorable.

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6 Weeks / 24 Course Hrs
Starting  May 14, 2025
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Georgia College & State University

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Introduction to Microsoft PowerPoint 2016

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Course code: ip6

Take your PowerPoint presentations from ordinary to extraordinary! In these lessons, you'll learn how to use Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 (now available through Office 365) to create professional-quality slide presentations that grab and hold your audience's attention from start to finish.

You'll see how to plan a presentation for your audience, format it with themes and color, and use the slide master and layout master to make global changes. You'll embellish your slides with text and objects, including pictures, shapes, WordArt, and SmartArt, and learn to add multimedia effects to create animated presentations and more. If you want to become a PowerPoint pro, this is the course for you!

What you will learn

  • Learn how to plan a presentation for your audience
  • Understand how to format it with themes and color and use the slide master and layout master to make global changes
  • Explore how to embellish your slides with text and objects, including pictures, shapes, WordArt, and SmartArt
  • Learn to add multimedia effects to create animated presentations
  • Explore the options on the PowerPoint Ribbon, including the new Online Pictures command, File menu options, and Backstage View
  • Learn how to print slides, handouts, and even an outline
  • Discover the best view for creating and editing your slides and running your presentations

How you will benefit

  • Master PowerPoint skills that will help you produce better presentations
  • Become an integral team member at your company with professional presentation design skills
  • Gain skills that will transfer to any organization and will look great on your résumé

How the course is taught

  • Instructor-Moderated or Self-Guided online course
  • 6 Weeks or 3 Months access
  • 24 course hours

Come explore the basic features of Microsoft PowerPoint 2016! You'll learn about the Ribbon, which replaces the menu and toolbars so common in other programs written for the Windows operating system. You'll find out how to plan a presentation and start the PowerPoint program and practice working with different views, task panes, tabs, and templates.

Now that you know the basics of PowerPoint, it's time to create a presentation from scratch. You'll start by choosing a theme for the presentation and create slides with a variety of slide layouts. You'll find out about the Live Preview feature and learn how to save a file so that you can find it later. You'll also create and edit slides in the slide pane and in Outline view. Finally, the lesson will go over the ways to put on a slide show.

Including tables in your presentation lets you present a lot of information in a little space. So in this lesson, you'll add, revise, and format tables. You'll also learn multiple ways to open a presentation. Then, the lesson will teach you how to preserve different versions of your work by saving with different filenames.

This lesson will cover two topics: printing and proofreading. You'll learn to print your presentation as slides, handouts, an outline, and notes pages. This versatility will really help you connect with audience members! To make sure your printed presentation is as close to perfect as it can be, you'll explore the Spelling, AutoCorrect, and Thesaurus features, along with the new Smart Lookup feature.

You're going to switch gears in this lesson and work with images instead of text, which you'll probably enjoy. You'll see how to embellish your slides with media clips, which could include illustrations, clip art, and photographs. You'll even learn how to download an image from a website and insert the image on a slide.

You're going to work with WordArt, Shapes, and SmartArt Graphics in this lesson, which is very exciting. It's fun to transform text into colorful WordArt objects and to draw and fill shapes with color and special effects. You'll learn to group and edit the objects you create and add visual sophistication to your text with SmartArt Graphics.

In this lesson, you'll create and edit a chart slide to illustrate statistical data. You'll find this lesson easy if you like working with numbers! If you don't enjoy math, that's okay—the lesson will walk you through everything you need to know and do to create a chart slide. It will also show you how to change the look of your chart by using the options on the Chart Tools contextual tab and the chart formatting buttons.

Making the same changes to dozens of PowerPoint slides is boring and time-consuming. In this lesson, you'll look at global changes you can make to your slides, handouts, and notes. For example, if you want to increase or decrease the font size on all the slides in a presentation, just make the change on the slide master. You'll also make global changes when you modify your presentation's theme colors or background.

In this lesson, you'll work with hyperlinks and action buttons. You'll enliven your presentation as you learn to create links from text or objects to other slides, presentations, documents, and web pages. You can even add sounds and 3D effects!

Have you seen a presentation where text, images, or entire slides fly in from the top or push up from the bottom? That's animation. In this lesson, you'll learn about slide transitions, the options on the Transition tab, and you'll apply animation to text and objects on slides and the slide or layout master with the options on the Animations tab. You'll then find out how to add sound effects, such as chimes and whooshes, to slide transitions. Perhaps most important, you'll also learn how to avoid overdoing these effects!

You already know how to apply animation to your slides as they transition. Now it's time to apply advanced animation effects to text and objects on slides and slide and layout masters. With the animation commands and the Animation Pane, you'll add and reorder animated text and objects on slides. You'll also add an audio clip to your presentation.

Now that you know so much about creating PowerPoint presentations, you'll focus on different ways to save and share them. You'll see how easy it is to export your presentation as a PDF file, so it'll be accessible on computers that don't have PowerPoint 2016. You'll learn to open, edit, and share your presentation online with a Windows OneDrive account and PowerPoint Online and how to turn your presentation into a video.

Kathy Van Pelt

Kathy Van Pelt has taught computer courses at a community college for the past 25 years. She specializes in Microsoft Office applications, Google Drive and Google Applications, the Windows and Mac operating systems, and keyboarding. She spent seven years teaching word processing and business classes at a private business college and loves being in the ever-evolving educational field.

Instructor Interaction: The instructor looks forward to interacting with learners in the online moderated discussion area to share their expertise and answer any questions you may have on the course content.

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites to take this course.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

  • This course must be taken on a PC. It is not suitable for Macs.

Software Requirements:

  • PC: Windows 8 or later.
  • Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge is also compatible.
  • Microsoft Office Home and Student 2016 or a subscription to Office 365 (not included in enrollment).
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader.
  • Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

  • Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

Instructor-Moderated: A new session of each course begins each month. Please refer to the session start dates for scheduling.​

Self-Guided: Your course begins immediately after you enroll.​

Instructor-Moderated: Once a course session starts, two lessons will be released each week for the 6 week duration of your course. You will have access to all previously released lessons until the course ends. You will interact with the instructor through the online discussion area. There are no live sessions or online meetings with the instructor.

Self-Guided: You have 3 months of access to the course. After enrolling, you can learn and complete the course at your own pace, within the allotted access period. You will have the opportunity to interact with other students in the online discussion area.

Instructor-Moderated: The interactive discussion area for each lesson automatically closes two weeks after each lesson is released, so you're encouraged to complete each lesson within two weeks of its release. However, you will have access to all lessons from the time they are released until the course ends.​

Self-Guided: There is no time limit to complete each lesson, other than completing all lessons within the allotted access period. Discussion areas for each lesson are open for the entire duration of the course.

Instructor-Moderated: Students enrolled in a six-week online class benefit from a one-time, 10-day extension for each course. No further extensions can be provided beyond these 10 days.​

Self-Guided: Because this course is self-guided, no extensions will be granted after the start of your enrollment.

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