Home / Non-Accredited / Microsoft Office & Computer Skills / Microsoft PowerPoint Beginners (1 day)
Quick Look Course Summary:Microsoft PowerPoint Beginners (1 day)
-
Length: 1 day(s)
-
Price (at your venue): 1 Person R 5,654 EX VAT 3 Person R 3,982 EX VAT 10 Person R 2,954 EX VAT
-
Certification Type:Non-Accredited
-
Locations & Venues: Off-site or in-house. We train in all major city centres throughout South Africa.
PowerPoint 2016 Essentials – self-paced online, 6 months’ access: R1,250 per learner (ex VAT); teams of 10 or more pay less.
Get Free & personalised
Training Advice
Microsoft PowerPoint Beginners (1 day)
Delegates leave able to build a clean, consistent, on-brand presentation from a blank file and present it without fumbling.
Most South African offices run on slides: the Monday management report, the tender pitch, the induction deck, the board pack. Yet many of the people building them have never been shown how PowerPoint works. The result is decks that take a whole afternoon, mix three fonts and fall apart on the boardroom screen. A practical one-day PowerPoint course fixes that quickly and for good.
Microsoft PowerPoint Beginners is a hands-on day for staff who are new to the program or who have only ever edited someone else's slides. Working on their own laptops, delegates start with the window, views and themes, then build a presentation slide by slide: layouts, text, lists, pictures, icons, SmartArt, tables and charts, including a chart brought across from Excel. In the afternoon they add transitions and simple animation with restraint, insert video, rehearse the timing and present with Presenter View, speaker notes and the pen. The day ends with saving to OneDrive, sharing for comments and exporting to PDF or video.
Every delegate finishes with a short presentation of their own and the habits to keep their decks consistent. Slide masters, custom layouts, sections and merging presentations are left to the Advanced day, so nothing is taught twice.
Why this course
For your organisation
- Reports, proposals and training decks that look like they come from one organisation
- Fewer hours lost to formatting and last-minute fixes before a meeting
- Staff who can present confidently with speaker notes and Presenter View
- A single day off the floor – easy to schedule for a whole department
- Decks that export cleanly to PDF and video for clients and remote teams
For your delegates
- Build a presentation from a blank file instead of hacking an old one
- Know which view, layout and theme to use, and why
- Pictures, charts, SmartArt and video that look deliberate
- A short presentation of your own, built and presented on the day
- Keyboard shortcuts and the Accessibility Checker, so decks are faster to build and easier to read
What delegates will be able to do
- Navigate the PowerPoint window, ribbon and views, and create, save and reopen a presentation
- Start a presentation from a theme or the organisation's template and choose the right layout for each slide
- Add, duplicate, reorder and delete slides, and draft content quickly in Outline view
- Apply theme colours, fonts and effects consistently and align content with grids and guides
- Format text, bullets and spacing, and convert a list into a SmartArt diagram such as an organisation chart
- Insert, crop and style pictures, stock images, icons and shapes
- Build tables and charts on a slide and bring a chart in from Excel
- Add transitions, simple animation, video and audio without distracting the audience
- Rehearse timings and present with Presenter View, speaker notes, the laser pointer and ink
- Save to OneDrive, share a deck for comments, and export it to PDF or video
Who should attend
New PowerPoint users and staff who have only ever edited someone else's slides: administrators, PAs, coordinators, sales and marketing assistants, trainers, team leaders and graduates who now have to build their own decks. No previous PowerPoint training is needed; comfort with Windows and a mouse is enough. Delegates who already build decks and need slide masters, templates and reviewing tools should book Microsoft PowerPoint Advanced instead.
Course outline
Day 1 – Building and presenting a clean deck
Getting started and building the structure
- The start screen, recent files and the PowerPoint window: ribbon, Quick Access Toolbar and the views you will actually use
- Creating a new presentation from a blank file or a theme; saving, AutoSave and saving to OneDrive
- Adding, duplicating, hiding and deleting slides
- Choosing the right layout: title, title and content, two content, section header, picture with caption
- Typing a whole deck quickly in Outline view
- Reordering slides in Slide Sorter view
- Planning a management report deck before you open PowerPoint
Design that stays consistent
- Applying a theme and its variants to a deck
- Theme colours, fonts and effects, and why you should not override them slide by slide
- Backgrounds, and placeholders versus loose text boxes
- Aligning objects with grids, guides and Smart Guides
- Designer suggestions and when to accept them
- Keeping the organisation's branding consistent across every slide
Text, lists and SmartArt
- Text boxes, fonts, size, alignment and line spacing
- Bulleted and numbered lists that can be read from the back of the room
- Text effects, used sparingly
- Turning a list into a SmartArt process diagram or an organisation chart
- Headers, footers, slide numbers and dates
Pictures, shapes, tables and charts
- Inserting pictures and stock images; cropping, transparency, filters and picture styles
- Shapes, icons and the drawing tools
- Inserting and formatting a table
- Creating a chart and choosing the right chart type for the numbers
- Bringing a chart across from Excel and keeping it linked to the workbook
Movement and media
- Transitions, and the Morph transition for a before-and-after slide
- Simple entrance animations and reading the Animation Pane
- Inserting video and audio and adding captions
- Rehearsing timings and recording a narration
- The tender-pitch rule: movement only where it helps the message
Presenting, sharing and finishing
- Presenter View, speaker notes, the laser pointer and ink
- A self-running presentation for the reception screen
- Sharing via OneDrive, co-authoring and comments with @mentions
- Exporting to PDF and video
- The Accessibility Checker and the keyboard shortcuts worth learning
- Closing exercise: build and present your own short deck
How it is delivered
One day, 08:30-16:00. In person at your offices anywhere in South Africa, at a BOTI venue, or live online. One delegate or a group of up to 20, each working on their own laptop; laptops with the software can be supplied on request. Printed workbook, exercise files and a short presentation built by each delegate on the day. Taught on the Microsoft 365 version of PowerPoint; PowerPoint 2024 and 2021 users will find the screens almost identical. We deliver it at your offices in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town and anywhere else in South Africa, at a BOTI venue in Johannesburg, or live online for teams in different places.
What our clients say
“The facilitator effectively encouraged participation and used practical examples, discussions and interactive activities to ensure that the concepts were understood and could be applied in the workplace.”
“The training was very informative and practical, leaving our employees feeling confident in their ability to leverage Excel more effectively.”
“The training courses were efficiently scheduled and planned around our timetable. We were impressed by the quality of training. I look forward to working with Business Optimization Training Institute in the future.”
Frequently asked questions
Can you run this course at our offices?
Yes. Most groups are trained at the client's premises anywhere in South Africa – Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town and smaller centres. We can also host the day at a BOTI venue or run it live online.
Do delegates need their own laptops?
Ideally each delegate works on their own laptop with PowerPoint installed, so they practise on the set-up they use at work. If that is not possible, laptops with the software can be supplied on request.
Is it accredited?
No. It is a non-accredited short course and delegates receive a BOTI certificate of attendance. If you need an accredited route, ask us about BOTI's End User Computing skills programmes (QCTO accreditation pending).
What if some of my staff already know the basics?
Book them on Microsoft PowerPoint Advanced (1 day), which covers slide masters, custom layouts, sections, custom shows, animation control and reviewing and merging presentations. If the whole team needs to move from scratch to confident, Microsoft PowerPoint Beginners to Advanced (2 days) runs both days back to back.
Can you use our own corporate template and real presentations?
Yes. Send us your template and one or two typical decks beforehand and the facilitator builds the exercises around them, so delegates leave with work they can use on Monday.
How many people can attend?
From one delegate to a group of about 20. Smaller groups get more one-to-one time at the screen. The price per delegate drops as the group grows – see the price table or ask us for a quote.
Get your price – the more delegates, the less each pays
Change the options to see your price per person, then email yourself the quote and course outline.
Contact us now – we reply within 15 minutes during office hours
Monday to Friday, 08:00–17:00. After hours, we reply on the next working day – or call 011 882 8853.