HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text (PDF) An erratum has been published Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Schreibman, K. L. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Schreibman, K. L. Social Bookmarking                      What's this?

Hello, and Two Great Tricks

¹ Department of Radiology, Rm. E3/311, University of Wisconsin, 600 Highland Ave., Madison, WI 53792-3252.

Received June 7, 2001; accepted after revision August 6, 2001.

 
Address correspondence to K. L. Schreibman.

Introduction

Top Introduction Enlarging Your Cursor Launching Your Presentation...

 
As radiology moves into the 21st century with digital imaging, PACS (picture archiving and communications systems), and the like, it is time to take radiology teaching into the new millennium as well. More and more of us are moving away from 35-mm slides and toward electronic modalities.

However, this transition is not necessarily easy, and many obstacles must be overcome. Perhaps the greatest obstacle is mental. Many experienced lecturers see PowerPoint (Microsoft, Redmond, WA) as nothing more than a newfangled slide projector. Indeed, radiologists who are used to projecting their material using dual slide carousels may feel limited by having only a single computer projector to display their material. Then there is the fear of the unknown. How does one go about getting one's images into a PowerPoint format? And once you get your images into PowerPoint, what do you do next?

This series of articles seeks to allay these fears and overcome these obstacles for both the experienced and inexperienced PowerPoint user.

I have been creating PowerPoint presentations for 5 years, and rather than constraining me, it has freed me to present and explore material in methods not possible using conventional 35-mm slides. I have shared the tricks I learned for creating presentations with many people, from medical students to full professors. I now welcome the opportunity to share my ideas for using PowerPoint with the radiology community in general via these articles that will appear regularly in the AJR. I hope not only to share my experiences but also to encourage readers to explore their own ideas for PowerPoint, so they can use this powerful tool to present their material in new ways.

In each article, I will present two or three ideas to help people overcome obstacles in using PowerPoint. Both experienced and inexperienced users should find items of value in these articles. I will start with basic concepts and build up to more sophisticated tricks in later articles. If you have an assistant who helps create your PowerPoint slides, you may want to share these articles with that person.

In addition to the print versions of these articles, electronic copies will be available on the AJR Web site, www.ajronline.org. Also at this Web site you will find additional material to download that may help you through potentially confusing concepts. For example, for this month's article I have posted screen captures of some of the windows you will be navigating through. For future articles, I will post small PowerPoint presentations illustrating the points being discussed.

Please feel free to e-mail me at schreibman@arrs.org with your suggestions, questions, and criticisms. I will be happy to address additional topics based on your suggestions.

A few words of warning: I am a PC user. Although I suspect that many of the techniques I will discuss are applicable to Macintosh, I have not actually tested these concepts on non-Windows operating systems.

I use the Windows 98 operating system (Microsoft). I will attempt to confirm that these techniques work under other Windows versions.

I use the version of PowerPoint contained in the Office 2000 (Microsoft) suite of applications. Most of these techniques will work under the earlier PowerPoint 97 version. However, if you are working with PowerPoint 97, I urge you to download and install both Service Release 1 and Service Release 2, available from the Microsoft upgrade site, http://office.microsoft.com/Downloads.

At the time of this writing, Microsoft has just released the updated XP version of their Office suite. Early reports are that the XP version is not substantially different from the PowerPoint 2000 version. I intend to review PowerPoint XP in a future article.

OK, enough introduction. For this month's pointers, I am going to start with two great tricks that do not even involve PowerPoint.

Enlarging Your Cursor

Top Introduction Enlarging Your Cursor Launching Your Presentation...

 
We radiologists have the natural urge to point. Many of us cannot give a lecture without holding a laser pointer. Certainly, you can continue to use your laser pointer when projecting your PowerPoint presentation onto a screen in a lecture setting. But you don't have to. At any time during your on-screen slide show, you merely need to move your mouse and a cursor shows up on the screen. This cursor-pointer is particularly useful if you are presenting your material via a networked teleconference or at some other venue where a laser pointer is impractical.

However, I find that the little white arrow that is the Microsoft default cursor is too small. It is easily lost on a big screen, particularly at the now-standard 1024 x 768 pixel resolution. Fortunately, the Windows operating system makes it easy to enlarge your cursor. Although this can be done several ways, the following steps should work under any version of Windows.

Click the "Start" button in the lower lefthand corner of your screen, bringing up the basic Windows Start toolbar.

Click "Settings/Control Panel," which will open a window containing many system applications. (Underscored letters refer to Microsoft shortcuts; you can hold down the Alt key plus the underscored key, rather than click on the command.)

Find and double-click on the mouse icon (it probably looks like a mouse), which will open a window that allows you to modify your mouse settings.

Click on the tab "Pointers" at the top of this window.

Near the top of this window you will now see a line listing the cursor scheme you are currently using (probably Windows standard). Click on the little down-triangle at the right side of this line and a pull-down menu of cursor schemes will appear.

I recommend you try "Windows Standard (extra large)." (If you don't see the extra-large pointers, don't panic. I'll tell you how to install them in just a moment.)

Select the desired cursor scheme and click "Apply." The little white arrow will now be a big white arrow. I find that this large white arrow shows up nicely during on-screen presentations. Indeed, I use this large arrow as my standard default arrow. If you don't like this one, try a different one. If this arrow is too large for you for everyday use, you can easily switch between a more desirable cursor for your standard use and a larger cursor for your presentations. Try it yourself.

The extra-large pointers may not have been preinstalled under your version of Windows. Fortunately, they are easy to install. Have your Windows disk ready and take the following steps:

• Under the Control Panel, double-click on "Add/Remove Programs."
  
• Click on the tab at the top of this window that says "Windows Setup."
  
• Double-click the word "Accessories," which opens a new window.
  
• In this Accessories window, scroll down the list of components until you find "Mouse Pointers." Click on the little square to the left of the icon, and a check mark will appear in the square.
  
• Click "OK" at the bottom of the Accessories window.
  
• Click "OK" at the bottom of the Add/Remove Programs window.
  
• You'll now be asked to insert your Windows disk. Do so and click "OK."
  
• That's it. Now you're ready to enlarge your cursor as previously instructed.
  

Launching Your Presentation Without Opening PowerPoint

Top Introduction Enlarging Your Cursor Launching Your Presentation...

 
Let's face it, one of the reasons for doing on-screen slide shows is to look slick. We want to click one button and have our slide show suddenly come to life. But instead, I have all too often seen the presenter first open the PowerPoint application...then search for the specific file...then open the file...then go to the Slide Show menu...then push the View Show button. Although this works, it is not as slick as it could be. Furthermore, there are times when I don't want my audience to get an advance look at my PowerPoint slides, such as when presenting unknown cases to residents. The trick to being slick is to place a shortcut to your presentation on your desktop and launch the slide show directly from the shortcut. Here's how:

I will presume that you have already created a presentation, and stored it in a folder on your hard drive. (If you have not yet created your first presentation, come back to this trick after next month's article.)

Using Windows Explorer, open the folder containing your presentation.

If you double-click on the presentation icon with your left mouse button, the PowerPoint application will launch, opened to your presentation. If, instead, you single-click with the right mouse button, a pull-down menu will appear. Single-click on the word "Copy" with either the left or right mouse button. You may now minimize or close Windows Explorer.

You should minimize or close all your applications until you are looking at your computer desktop. This is the basic Windows screen that appears when you first boot your PC. Unless you have previously customized your desktop, it is probably turquoise, the Windows default color. (I will discuss customizing your desktop in a future article.)

Right-click on a blank part of your desktop (not on a preexisting icon). A pull-down menu will appear. Click on "Paste Shortcut."

A new icon will appear on your desktop with a similar name and title to your PowerPoint presentation. It will probably have a little arrow in the corner indicating it is a shortcut.

If you were to double-click on this shortcut using your left mouse button, the PowerPoint application would open your presentation just as if you had double-clicked on the file itself in Windows Explorer. However, if you right-click on this shortcut, a menu will appear. Click on the word "Show." Voilà! Your slide show is now running without the fuss of opening PowerPoint first.

As you have just seen, under the Windows operating system the right mouse button is quite powerful. Right-click opens context-sensitive menus that depend on what the cursor is pointing to. PowerPoint and other Microsoft applications contain many useful shortcuts accessible via the right mouse button. Check them out!

Next month I will discuss getting images from your PC into PowerPoint.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. Sistrom and J. Honeyman-Buck A Simple Method for Importing Multiple Image Files into PowerPoint Am. J. Roentgenol., June 1, 2004; 182(6): 1591 - 1596. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				R. H. Daffner On Improvement of Scientific Presentations: Using PowerPoint Am. J. Roentgenol., July 1, 2003; 181(1): 47 - 49. [Full Text] [PDF]

				G. A. Taylor Initial Steps in Image Preparation Am. J. Roentgenol., December 1, 2002; 179(6): 1411 - 1413. [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. Fessler Free "PowerPointing" Am. J. Roentgenol., May 1, 2002; 178 (5): 1289 - 1290. [Full Text] [PDF]

				Erratum Am. J. Roentgenol., January 1, 2002; 178 (1): 243 - 243. [Full Text] [PDF]

				L. F. Rogers PowerPointing Am. J. Roentgenol., November 1, 2001; 177(5): 973 - 973. [Full Text] [PDF]

This Article Full Text (PDF) An erratum has been published Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Schreibman, K. L. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Schreibman, K. L. Social Bookmarking                      What's this?