Office 2016 is available within education at no cost, as part of your academic institution’s existing Microsoft licensing agreement. You can check your eligibility to upgrade to Office 2016 with your academic email address.
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In recent weeks since the launch of Office 2016 we have been sharing a number of Quick Start Guides for the Office applications you know and love to use within education. Having previously taken a closer look at Word, Excel and OneNote, we're now turning our attention to PowerPoint.
Whether a teacher covering new material in class, or a student demonstrating their understanding of what they have learned, PowerPoint is a tool that allows all people to present information in a variety of engaging and creative ways, as well as including all sorts of other media through the use of PowerPoint add-on Office Mix.
So whether you're new to PowerPoint 2016 or upgrading from a previous version, this Quick Start Guide will help you to learn the basics and take you through some of the new features.
Create something
Begin with a Blank Presentation to get right to work. Or save yourself a bunch of time by selecting and then customizing a template that resembles what you need. Click File > New, and then select or search for the template you want.
Stay connected
Need to work on the go and across different devices? Click File > Account to sign in and access your recently used files anywhere, on any device, through seamless integration between Office, OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint.
Find recent files
Whether you only work with files stored on your PC’s local hard drive or you roam across various cloud services, clicking File > Open takes you to your recently used presentations and any files that you may have pinned to your list.
Set your preferences
Something not working quite as expected? It’s easy to change and customize options at any time. Click File > Options, and then set up PowerPoint 2016 the way you want.
Change your layout
Good presentations adapt their structure to the points that are being presented. Switch things around on the fly to make them fit — literally or figuratively. On the Home tab, click Layout, and then browse through the available options. New slides will adopt your current choice, which you can just as easily replace with a new one.
Keep slide notes handy
The cornerstone of any good factual presentation is the data that backs up your points. Avoid overwhelming your audience by front-loading every detail in your deck; instead, keep important facts and figures in the Notes pane for easy lookup — either while you rehearse, or in the heat of the moment.
Format shapes with precision
Achieve precise picture, shape, and object formatting with the comprehensive formatting tools in PowerPoint. Start by making a selection on your current slide. On the Home tab, in the lower right corner of the Drawing ribbon group, click the Format Shape button to open the task bar.
Share your work with others
To invite others to view or edit your presentations in the cloud, click the Share button in the top right corner of the app window. In the Share pane that opens, you can get a sharing link or send invitations to the people you select. Begin with a Blank Presentation to get right to work. Or save yourself a bunch of time by selecting and then customizing a template that resembles what you need. Click File > New, and then select or search for the template you want.
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Our final Quick Start Guide will look at Outlook 2016.