Presentation

Lessons

Senior 3 · ICT

Presentation

5 lessons

Lesson 1 of 5

Presentation Applications, Slides and Views

45 min

Five minutes at the assembly

On Friday, each club leader has five minutes at the school assembly to report on the year. Last year one leader read a page of notes aloud while 600 students looked at the floor. Another showed six slides: a title, a photo of the club's tree nursery, a chart of seedlings planted each month, three short points, and a final slide inviting new members. People still remember the second talk.

A presentation application helps a speaker show the right picture, number or key words at the right moment. In this unit you will build a presentation from a blank file to a confident delivery on a projector.

Definition

Presentation application: software for creating and showing a sequence of slides to support a talk. Examples: Microsoft PowerPoint, LibreOffice Impress (free and open source), Google Slides (in a web browser) and Apple Keynote.

Slide: one screen of a presentation, which may hold text, pictures, tables, charts, video and sound.

Slide layout: the arrangement of boxes on a slide, such as Title and Content or Two Content.

Placeholder: a dotted box on a layout, such as “Click to add title”, waiting for text or an object.

Slide show: the presentation played full-screen, one slide at a time, for an audience.

The role of presentation applications

Support a speaker: key words, pictures and charts help an audience follow and remember a talk.
Organise ideas: one main idea per slide forces the speaker to plan a clear order.
Show what words cannot: photos, diagrams, charts, short videos and sound.
Give speaker notes and handouts: notes for the speaker's eyes only, and printed pages for the audience.
Run on their own: a looping show at an open day or in a reception area.
Share: send the file or a PDF of it, or present online in a video call.

The PowerPoint window

Mock-up drawn by Ganzaa of PowerPoint for Microsoft 365. ① Slides pane (thumbnails) ② Slide pane, where you edit ③ placeholder ④ Notes pane ⑤ view buttons and zoom on the status bar.

Create, save and open

Task	Steps	Shortcut
Create a blank presentation	Start PowerPoint → Blank Presentation, or File → New → Blank Presentation. To start from a design, pick a template instead.	Ctrl + N
Save for the first time	File → Save As → Browse, choose a folder, type a clear name (for example Environment_Club_2026), keep the type PowerPoint Presentation (.pptx), click Save*	F12
Save changes	Click the Save icon, or File → Save	Ctrl + S
Save in another form	In Save As, change Save as type: PDF to share a copy that cannot be edited; *PowerPoint Show (.ppsx)** to open straight into the slide show	–
Open	File → Open; pick from Recent, or Browse to the file	Ctrl + O

Inserting, navigating and rearranging slides

Insert: Home → New Slide (Ctrl + M) adds a slide after the selected one. Click the arrow on New Slide to choose its layout: Title Slide, Title and Content, Section Header, Two Content, Comparison, Title Only, Blank, Content with Caption or Picture with Caption. To change an existing slide's layout, use Home → Layout.
Duplicate: right-click a thumbnail → Duplicate Slide (Ctrl + D), when the next slide is similar.
Delete: click a thumbnail and press Delete.
Navigate: click a thumbnail, or press Page Down and Page Up. Ctrl + Home goes to the first slide, Ctrl + End to the last.
Rearrange: drag a thumbnail up or down in the Slides pane. For a long presentation, use Slide Sorter view, where all slides appear as a grid, and drag them there.

Presentation views

View	Where	Use it to
Normal	View → Normal	Build and edit slides; the usual view
Outline View	View → Outline View	Type and reorder all the slides' text as one list
Slide Sorter	View → Slide Sorter	See all slides at once; move, delete or hide them
Notes Page	View → Notes Page	Write and print speaker notes under each slide
Reading View	View → Reading View	Play the show inside the window, to check it on your own
Slide Show	Slide Show → From Beginning (F5)	Present full-screen to an audience

Worked example 1: planning the club's five minutes

A rule of thumb for a short talk is about one slide per minute of speaking, plus a title slide. The Environment Club leader plans six slides and picks a layout for each:

Slide	Content	Layout
1	“Environment Club: our year”, her name	Title Slide
2	Photo of the tree nursery, one caption	Picture with Caption
3	Chart: seedlings planted each month	Title and Content
4	Before and after photos of the school garden	Comparison
5	Three points: what we learned	Title and Content
6	“Join us: Wednesdays, 4 p.m., Room 6”	Section Header

Worked example 2: rearranging

Her slides are in the order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 above. The teacher advises: “Start with what you learned, then show the evidence.” She drags slide 5 up to just after the title. The new order is: Title, What we learned, Nursery photo, Chart, Before and after, Join us. PowerPoint renumbers the slides itself: “What we learned” is now slide 2 and the chart is slide 4. Nothing has to be retyped.

Warning

Common mistakes

The wall of text: full paragraphs on a slide, read aloud. Slides hold key words; the speaker says the sentences. A common guideline is no more than about six short lines per slide.
Not saving until the end: save with a clear name as soon as you start, then press Ctrl + S often.
Bringing only a .pptx to another computer that may lack your fonts or PowerPoint. Bring a PDF copy too.

GCFLearnFree (LearnFree): PowerPoint slide basics: inserting, duplicating, moving and deleting slides, choosing layouts and changing views.

Tip

Using LibreOffice Impress? It works the same way: Slide → New Slide, layouts in the Layouts panel of the sidebar, and the views under View (Normal, Outline, Notes, Slide Sorter). It saves as .odp by default, and can save as .pptx for PowerPoint users.

✦

Hands-on: a club presentation skeleton

Open PowerPoint and create a blank presentation. Save it at once as Club_Report_YourName.pptx.
On slide 1, type your club's name as the title and your name as the subtitle.
Add five more slides with Ctrl + M, choosing the layouts from Worked example 1. Type a title on each; leave the content for the next lesson.
In the Notes pane of slide 2, write two sentences you would say aloud.
Switch to Slide Sorter and move the “What we learned” slide to position 2. Duplicate the last slide, then delete the copy.
Try every view on the View tab. Press F5 to play the show; press Esc to stop.
Save, close PowerPoint, and reopen the file from File → Open → Recent. Then save a copy as PDF.

Practice

Define a slide, a slide layout and a placeholder.
Name three presentation applications, and say which one is free and open source.
Give four roles of a presentation application.
Write the steps to insert a new slide with the Two Content layout.
Which view would you use to (a) move slides in a 30-slide presentation; (b) write speaker notes and print them; (c) check the show without filling the screen?
Explain the difference between saving as .pptx, .ppsx and PDF.
A presentation has slides A, B, C, D, E, F in order. Slide E is dragged to just after A, then slide B is deleted. Write the new order and give the number of slide D.
A pupil plans a 3-minute talk with 15 slides, each with a paragraph of text. Evaluate the plan and suggest improvements.

Show answersHide answers

Slide: one screen of a presentation. Slide layout: the arrangement of placeholders on a slide. Placeholder: a dotted box waiting for text or an object, such as “Click to add title”.
Any three: Microsoft PowerPoint, LibreOffice Impress, Google Slides, Apple Keynote. LibreOffice Impress is free and open source.
Any four: support a speaker; organise ideas; show pictures, charts, video and sound; provide notes and handouts; run on their own; share presentations.
Home → click the arrow on New Slide → Two Content.
(a) Slide Sorter; (b) Notes Page; (c) Reading View.
.pptx is the normal editable file; .ppsx opens straight into the slide show (still editable in PowerPoint); PDF is a fixed copy anyone can open but not easily edit, with no animations.
After the move: A, E, B, C, D, F. After deleting B: A, E, C, D, F. D is slide 4.
Poor plan: 15 slides in 3 minutes is 12 seconds each, too fast to read, and paragraphs make a wall of text that the audience reads instead of listening. Better: about 3–4 slides (one per minute plus a title), key words or a picture on each, with the sentences in the speaker notes.

Sources and credits

Presentation program, Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Adapted by Ganzaa.
Steps checked against Create a presentation in PowerPoint, Microsoft Support (facts only).
Video: PowerPoint: Slide Basics, GCFLearnFree (LearnFree), embedded from YouTube.
The mock-up, tables, worked examples, hands-on task and practice items were written by Ganzaa. The club and its talk are invented.

This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1Five minutes at the assembly

2The role of presentation applications

3The PowerPoint window

4Create, save and open

5Inserting, navigating and rearranging slides

6Presentation views

7Hands-on: a club presentation skeleton