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Book:

TEACH YOURSELF POWER POINT for Windows 95

by Tom Badgett    

MIS Press [Henry Holt  & Co.]  1995 

To see is to remember... That is the premise of the Power Point program and this book follows right along, with many screen prints so Power Point is presented clearly and becomes easy to use. 

It is no accident that speakers arrive with visuals, at our meetings as well as everywhere else. A slide or a handout accompanying a speaker’s words adds impact, clarifies the information and results in the audience remembering more of the material. Power Point makes it easy to prepare and present such visuals.  It also does limited graphics processing for use in the program, or when one does not have a full-graphics program and needs, for instance, to view e-mail attachments.   This book explains the program quickly, allowing the reader to prepare a presentation or deal with graphics almost right away.  

Power Point is less robust than other programs such as Harvard  Graphics and Lotus Freelance.  But, it is included as part of the Microsoft Office suite and, therefor, is available to many without extra cost.  It does not include some of the bells and whistles of the other programs but it does have much capability, especially for the beginning and intermediate user. 

With this book, I was indeed able to teach myself power Point in a very short time.  The book explains the program and many of the options in a logical order. Sample presentations are developed and extensive use of screen captures makes the process very clear.  Also, the book can readily be accessed for reference to the various operations. 

After reading the book, I found it easy to prepare my first computer slides for a talk.  Power Point was simple to use and the resulting slides achieved their purpose.  In addition, PP prepared an outline which I distributed to help the audience in following along, making notes and having information to be taken home.  I have also used the program to prepare a graphics poster to accompany a gift.  It is a versatile program. 

The book explains the many ways Power point can be used to develop presentation materials.  For instance, the program has many sample presentations which can be viewed, selected and used to develop final slides.  This is simple and quick and the product is definitely useful.  PP will aide in developing slides from an outline or can use a Q&A approach to guide in developing a presentation. For those with a more independent streak, PP allows creation from scratch.  All is pulled together nicely.  Each slide can be viewed and edited at any time.  The slides can be printed, in various formats, with the outline always available. 

PP prepares a slide show which can be put on disk and used from computers which do not have PP installed - a handy provision for those presenting with someone else’s  computer.  The book shows how to do this. 

A substantial number of click-art graphics are included and additional images can be imported from other sources.  Those without a stand-alone graphics program can prepare posters and other print-out materials with PP and can use it to view graphic attachments to received e-mail messages.  It is, in fact, a good beginning program for those starting into graphics. 

All in all, the  book makes Power Point easy to learn and use.  The book will be a big assist to those who make presentations that include slides, or even handouts alone.  Those who may not have another graphics program could use Power Point for its graphics and would be very well assisted by this book..