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If you can copy & paste, you don't have anything to worry about. A lot of presentations come in the form of shells with adjustments based on the client, slides from other teams, market updates, etc. Make sure to print out decks & proof before sending it up the chain.
all the Microsoft applications mesh really well now so you'll pick it up quickly. i guess a quick pointer i'd throw in is to just remember to align objects, it always makes the slide appear more sharp.
Biggest thing will be learning your firm’s keystroke shortcuts,
Align left, right, center, vertically, middle
Know how to resize a picture by its height and width
Know how to make a custom color
Other than that the more you can do without a mouse the faster and more efficient you’ll be.
Print everything out and manually check it off with a highlighter or pen before you send it up the chain.
Agree with this. Keystrokes are clutch. If you really want to go overboard on the prep you can practice general office shortcuts ahead of time, but they won't expect you to know this going in.
Holding down control before nudging left/right allows you more granular repositioning.
That is literally the only thing I wanted my interns to know.
Holding down control while moving an object will copy it, holding down shift will move the object linearly (either vertically or horizontally), and holding both will copy while moving linearly. Time saver here.
A couple ones that were very helpful for me:
Understand how to use the eyedropper when changing the shape fill color of a large amount of text boxes. Furthermore, understanding that F4 can be used to repeat any action you just performed.
Most importantly, learn how Alt + JD + AA + O (and all other respective functions work, e.g. Alt + JD + AA + C). Aside from that, locking a shapes ratio is important but very easy to learn. Learn how to save graph templates in PP so when you build out your graph in excel and are ready to export, then you simply just need to apply the format of the graph you are replacing (templates saved in PP apply to files or graphs in Excel). This is very helpful when you are working on replacing pages of any deck where all that changes is the data and the time frame (e.g. quarters). If you have time, try and learn as many of the shortcuts as possible. While they don't save as much time as they do in excel, I have found them to be very helpful.
One thing that takes time and reps is learning how to take odd data and build it out into aesthetically pleasing charts or diagrams. When you have your standard bar graph info, the process is easy. However, when you are trying to incorporate 3-5 moving parts and you have just a fraction of a single slide to work with, creativity comes into play. Analysts at my firm build out a lot from scratch (as do the interns), and I know I am not alone when I say I have spent 2+ hours on a single more intricate diagram. Example of what I mean http://www.jegi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Software_MA_Q3_2016.jpg</a">here
Final thought: don't underestimate the importance of carefully checking your work when you are asked to build something out in PP. I can spend an hour editing a single slide (I am still new and don't have the reps of a seasoned analyst). To piggyback off of that, when you are given a template to use (even when it is already printed and you don't have an actual Excel graph to rely on) make sure that you copy the formatting to a T. Ensuring the colors and contrasts align is difficult, and thus printing out a number of drafts is worthwhile.
Some of these things may seem painfully obvious, but I tried to highlight what was most useful to me and what I struggled with the most during my first two months in as an IB intern. Hope it helps!
Paste special in all its forms and alignment are key. I recommend setting up hot keys for alignment that are shorter than the ppt shortcuts.
This isn't a shortcut thing but I just want to nail home the importance of saving versions especially as an intern. This will save a bunch of time when you inevitably screw something up or loose a version of something to a computer failure.
Rookie question here but how do you set up the hotkeys for PP?
It is very simple to use but couple of things people miss.
If you go into the view tab you can check a box called guides. This gives you lines on the page which you can move to ensure things are aligned.
You can align manually but it is often better to use the position objects feature which you can find on the home tab. Just select the items you want to align, hit the arrange icon under drawing then go to align and you can align left, right, top or bottom. Really useful.
Can't say I ever use shortcuts for powerpoint.
I think you should just look at any publicly available decks and try to recreate yourself; that is probably the best way to learn this. You can also take a look at BIWS PowerPoint tutorial.
Get used to people calling it "the deck." Corporate jargon, gotta love it
Align center: Alt + H + G + A+ C
Align middle: Alt + H + G + A + M
Second the points about ctrl+arrow keys to manually move objects.
Try to avoid linking things to the deck, always alt + e + s + enhanced metafile. The links are bound to break when the file gets big and there's tons of links within it. There's always the directors that always click "update links" when opening the file no matter how many times you tell them not to do that.
Always send as a pdf when sending a final version, especially externally
Always save revisions as another version (v1, v2, v3, etc.) Directors are bound to want to remove edits and this will save you work. Or they might want to look at an original version and you'll be fucked if you don't have it.
things that helped a lot were
Ctrl + S
My number one recommendation is to learn how to use the slide master. It will save you time and make your slides look cleaner, plus you'll avoid the frustration of an analyst who discovers 20 different slide masters in your deck!
alt h c p to copy anything in excel to ppt
Learn how to customize your quick access toolbar. You can make a shortcut for all of your most used PPT functions.
Know how to copy a chart from excel to ppt. I was an idiot who screenshot the chart and then paste it to ppt during my first internship...
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