You already spent hours putting together your presentations. On today's "Call for Help," I'll teach you a few shortcuts to speed up the process and make your presentations look even more professional.

Create a custom diagram
You can use rectangles, arrows, and images to create a quick flowchart that shows a process or activity.

1. Select the rectangle on the drawing toolbar.
2. Drag out the rectangle or hold the Shift key to create a square.
3. Start typing to add your text. When you finish, the object should still be selected.
4. Click the line thickness tool to make the border of the rectangle thicker.
5. Use the fill color tool (bucket) to change the fill color.
6. Add custom animations to make your effects appear sequentially.

These other techniques can help you tweak your slides quickly.

• Ctrl + drag
  To duplicate elements for consistency, select one or more objects, hold down the Ctrl key, and drag out a copy of the selected elements.
  
  
• Straighten multiple objects
  If you need to straighten your duplicate objects, select them and choose Align and Distribute from the draw menu on the drawing toolbar. Click Align to straighten the objects by their centers or borders. Click Distribute to space the objects equally either vertically or horizontally.
  
  
• Reorder layers
  You can also select multiple layers by using the order option in the draw menu to cover up or reveal overlapped shapes. Everything on your slide is a layer. Changing the order moves an item to the front or back of the slide. If you can't select an object because it's hidden, select any object and click Tab to locate and select other shapes.
  
  
• Using arrows
  Use your arrow keys to nudge objects and move them a little bit at a time.
  
  
• Copy formatting
  Use the format painter on the standard toolbar to copy formatting and apply it to another object. Double-click the format painter to apply formatting to multiple objects, one after the other.
  
  
• Create multiple slides
  Click Insert and select Duplicate Slide to create multiple slides with custom diagrams.
  
  
• Add bullets
  If you want to add bullet points to one of your slides, delete your duplicate elements, go to the slide layout task pane, and change your slide layout to accommodate bullets.

Glue AutoShapes together
The AutoShape gallery contains a bunch of shapes. Click the arrow next to AutoShapes to see them all. If you have more than one shape in your slide, you can connect them so that they remain connected no matter where you drag them.

1. Under AutoShapes, go to the connectors panel.
2. Drag a connector onto your slide and click to glue it onto one shape, then another.

Other AutoShape tricks
Different types of AutoShapes can liven up a scanned or static image.

• Block arrows.
  Drag out a block arrow and add text to point to important items in a slide.
  
  
• Callouts
  Drag out a callout and add text to point to important items in a slide.
  
  
• Hollow circles
  Click the oval on the drawing toolbar, and hold down your Shift key to drag out a circle on the slide. Use the line thickness tool to thicken the border and the line color tool to change the border color, then click the arrow next to the fill color tool. Select No Fill color to make an empty circle, which you can drag over a highlight portion of the slide.
  
  
• Convergent arrows (grouping concept)
  Drag out four arrows, all pointing to an important area of the slide. Select them, click Draw on the drawing toolbar, and select Group. All four arrows are now one unit and can be animated together.
  
  Open the custom animation task pane, and with these objects selected, give them an entrance effect to liven up the slide by having them come in and point to or highlight other objects in the slide.
  
  
• Easy navigation
  Some AutoShapes have associated actions such as Next Slide, Previous Slide, or Play Sounds and Media. You can find them in the AutoShapes action buttons panel.

Drawing toolbar heavy hitters
Finally, add 3-D effects and pictures to finish your presentation. To add a 3-D effect, do the following.

1. Select your object.
2. On the drawing toolbar, click the three-dimensional cube.
3. Click 3-D Settings and test the amazing lighting and extrusion capabilities.

Here's how to add an image.

1. Click the image or clip art icon on the drawing toolbar.
2. Bring in a "Picture from File."
3. With a picture selected, you'll see the picture toolbar. Use it to crop images, compress images on a slide, or compress images on your entire presentation.

If you're interested in learning more about PowerPoint, try one of my online Extreme PowerPoint classes.

Tom 'Professor PowerPoint' Bunzel is author of Teach Yourself PowerPoint 2003 in 24 Hours.

"Teach Yourself PowerPoint 2003 in 24 Hours"