Building the Switchboard (first slide)

This page guides you through the process of building The Chicken's first slide, the switchboard. Make sure you closed the Master view as mentioned at the end of page 5 and are looking at the side show's first slide. You might also want to close the task pane on the right side of the screen because we won't use it anymore. Your view of PowerPoint will then look something like this:

If your slide doesn't look like the example above, it might be because PowerPoint didn't properly refresh the slide based on the new Master format. The easiest way to fix this situation is to create a new slide based on the new Master. Click in the white area below the small slide thumbnail on the left side of the screen, and then press the Enter key. You now have two slides. Delete the first (original) slide.

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Adding the Title

The first thing we'll do is add a title to the slide.

• Click once anywhere in the yellow title text that says "Click to add title." The placeholder text disappears and you now can type your title. Type "Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?" Resize the text if necessary so that the title fits on one line at the top of the slide.
• Next, delete the large text box (body text box) below it.
  

Deleting the Body Text Box

• Click on the border of the box containing the white placeholder text (body text) to select it.
• Press the Delete key.

Inserting the Thumbnails

At this point you are ready to insert the 21 pictures of celebrities and arrange them in three rows. Use the example below as a guideline. There are several different ways to insert pictures onto a slide. The method described below is probably the fastest in this case.

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• Click the Insert Picture icon on either the Drawing or Picture toolbar.
• The Insert dialog box appears.
• Navigate to your Chicken Resources/Thumbnail Images folder. You should see the 21 thumbnail images.
• Click one of these thumbnails to select it.
• Then, while holding down the Ctrl key, press A to select all of the thumbnails in the folder.
  

• Click the Insert button. The thumbnails appear on the slide, cascaded on top of each other.

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Arranging the Thumbnails

• Click somewhere on the slide to deselect all of the thumbnails, and then arrange them one by one into their correct order and row. Note that the thumbnails are in order already, with the bottom right thumbnail (Sanders) on top.
• You might wish to use PowerPoint's guide feature to speed alignment. On the View menu, click Grid and Guide, and then place a check mark in the box next to Display drawing guides on screen. Click and drag the guides to reposition them.
  
  

Adding Text Boxes for the Names

• When the thumbnails are positioned, make a text box above each thumbnail and add the person's name. You can use the Text Box icon on the Drawing toolbar.
• The fastest way to do this procedure is to make one box first, with the proper formatting, and then copy it for the rest of the thumbnails, changing only the text inside the respective boxes.
• The easiest way to copy a box and move it to a new location is to select the box, and then hold down both the Shift and Ctrl keys while left-clicking and dragging the mouse sideways.

When all of the text boxes are in place, you are finished with Slide 1 for the moment. We'll come back and add links to the thumbnails later.

Save your presentation.

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