PowerPoint Prerequisites

You might worry that PowerPoint will be too hard to learn. PowerPoint is the commonly used presentation design application available as a part of Microsoft’s Office suite. Almost every professional or office setting will use PowerPoint in some way, so it is an incredibly versatile skill for white color business professionals to learn. This guide will help you understand the best methods for learning PowerPoint and what you should study to make the learning process easier. This way, you’ll be successful however you choose to apply your new skills. 

What is PowerPoint?

Microsoft PowerPoint is the most commonly used presentation software across almost all professional industries. PowerPoint is one of the most important parts of Microsoft’s Office 365 programs, alongside Word and Excel. PowerPoint lets users easily create vibrant and memorable presentations that quickly communicate meaning in a professional setting. Users can add animations, transitions, graphics, and other imagery to their slides, ensuring they produce both communicative and impressive presentations for their audience.

PowerPoint is a slideshow editing tool built to give users the tools they need to organize information, communicate effectively, and produce presentations to deliver through live address or without a presenter. PowerPoint makes the job easier and more efficient, whether you manage important information in advance of a meeting, prepare a sales pitch to a potential client, or compile important workplace policies and procedures in a single place. This versatility has made PowerPoint an industry-standard tool in almost all professional contexts.

Read more about what PowerPoint is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with PowerPoint?

PowerPoint allows users to create vibrant and memorable visual presentations that can serve a wide variety of purposes. PowerPoint’s advanced features let users integrate dynamic animations and 3D modeled graphics into their designs, allowing them to create more complex presentations than simple text projected onto a screen. Whether you are attempting to keep an audience engaged during a critical seminar or make a sales pitch as memorable as possible, PowerPoint gives you the tools to wow your audience.

Some users will use PowerPoint to create informative slideshows that condense complicated information into a single, easy-to-digest presentation. This makes the program ideal for both instructors and professionals looking to host informational seminars regularly. In fact, many online classes you take will use PowerPoint to provide students with the main takeaways from a lecture. Some users, who need to persuade audiences, such as entrepreneurs meeting with potential investors, will use PowerPoint to create memorable and persuasive presentations that convince their audience to invest in their product.

Is PowerPoint Easy to Learn?

PowerPoint is a very accessible program; users can learn the basics of the application in only a few hours of guided training. Students seeking more advanced training, particularly in integrating more complex applications and data functions into a PowerPoint presentation, will need more advanced training. Still, most professionals will only need some training to become proficient in PowerPoint. This can be made even easier by enrolling in a skills training course.

What to Know Before Learning PowerPoint

There are no formal prerequisites to learning PowerPoint. However, students should be familiar with using a desktop computer. In addition, they should consider the professional contexts in which they plan to use PowerPoint so they can consider whether or not they will also need design training.

Computer Literacy

While PowerPoint is an accessible program, students should still be comfortable using computers before undertaking advanced PowerPoint training. While students with minimal computer experience can manage while learning the basics of PowerPoint, such as navigating files and creating folders, learning more advanced PowerPoint features will be more difficult if students aren’t comfortable with this technology.

Design Aspirations

Students should consider how they plan to use PowerPoint in their regular workday. Some professionals will be using PowerPoint to persuade, while others will use PowerPoint to inform, and some will be doing both. Each use of PowerPoint will require different design skills, so users should contemplate the kinds of projects they plan to design and structure their training accordingly. Entrepreneurs will develop different types of presentations from office managers, so students should consider their aspirations and desires.

Key Insights

• PowerPoint is a relatively accessible program. Users hoping to learn how to use PowerPoint can do so in only a few hours of intensive study.
• There are no formal prerequisites for learning how to use PowerPoint, but students should be comfortable using computers.
• Students hoping to use PowerPoint as a persuasive tool will want to learn basic design and composition skills.
• Once students are comfortable with their baseline knowledge, Noble Desktop makes PowerPoint training easy with comprehensive in-person and live online course offerings.

Learn PowerPoint with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Professionals looking to learn PowerPoint may consider skills development training through Noble Desktop. These courses, available in person at Noble’s Manhattan campus and through live online instruction, will give students hands-on training in designing and organizing information using PowerPoint. These courses, which expert instructors teach, will provide students with the experience needed to build evocative and memorable presentations. Even in online courses, class sizes are kept small, so students can interface directly with their instructor to receive assistance and feedback. Plus, Noble offers free retakes on all its courses, giving students more opportunities to practice building presentations in a professional environment.

Noble offers a PowerPoint Bootcamp, which teaches students, even those without prior PowerPoint experience, how to design compelling and evocative presentations. In this certificate-granting program, students will learn how to work with PowerPoint layouts, add animations and graphics, and work with layers, charts, graphs, and other objects. Then, students will receive advanced skills training, such as creating reusable PowerPoint templates, utilizing multimedia features in a presentation, and recording a presentation for later use. These skills will take students from novices to PowerPoint experts and prepare them to use the program professionally.

Since PowerPoint is a design program, Noble also offers students a PowerPoint Presentation Design course. This class focuses on the rhetorical and theoretical side of communicating through PowerPoint. In this class, students will learn design principles related to color, typography, graphic images, and other visual design elements. Whereas a bootcamp course teaches students how to use the tool to build presentations, this course will teach students how to design them, giving them the composition and design theories they need to make their presentations memorable and effective.