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PowerPoint allows you to insert a video onto a slide and play it during your presentation. This is a great way to make your presentation more engaging for your audience. You can even edit the video within PowerPoint and customize its appearance. For example, you can trim the video's length, add a fade in, and much more. Optional: Download our practice presentation.

PowerPoint allows you to add audio to your presentation. For example, you could add background music to one slide, a sound effect to another, and even record your own narration or commentary. You can then edit the audio to customize it for your presentation. Optional: Download our practice presentation. Watch the video below to learn more about inserting audio in PowerPoint. TO INSERT AUDIO FROM A FILE: In our example, we'll insert an audio file saved locally on our computer. If you'd like to work along with our example, right-click this link to our example file and save it to your computer (music credit: Something Small (Instrumental) by Minden, CC BY-NC 3.0). From the Insert tab, click the Audio drop-down arrow, then select Audio on My PC. Inserting audio from a file - www.office.com/setup Locate and select the desired audio file, then click Insert. Selecting the desired audio file - www.office.com/setup The audio file will be added to the slide. The inserted audio file - www.office.com/setup RECORDING YOUR OWN AUDIO Sometimes you may want to record audio directly into a presentation. For example, you might want the presentation to include narration. Before you begin, make sure you have a microphone that is compatible with your computer; many computers have built-in microphones or ones that can be plugged in to the computer. TO RECORD AUDIO: From the Insert tab, click the Audio drop-down arrow, then select Record Audio. Clicking Record Audio - www.office.com/setup Type a name for the audio recording if you want. Renaming the audio recording - www.office.com/setup Click the Record button to start recording. Clicking the Record button - www.office.com/setup When you're finished recording, click the Stop button. Clicking the Stop button - www.office.com/setup To preview your recording, click the Play button. Previewing the recording - www.office.com/setup When you're done, click OK. The audio file will be inserted into the slide. The recorded audio file - ww

SmartArt allows you to communicate information with graphics instead of just using text. There are a variety of styles to choose from, which you can use to illustrate different types of ideas. Watch the video below to learn more about working with SmartArt. TO INSERT A SMARTART GRAPHIC: Select the slide where you want the SmartArt graphic to appear. From the Insert tab, select the SmartArt command in the Illustrations group. selecting the SmartArt command on the Insert tab - www.office.com/setup A dialog box will appear. Select a category on the left, choose the desired SmartArt graphic, then click OK. choosing a SmartArt graphic - www.office.com/setup The SmartArt graphic will appear on the current slide.

A chart is a tool you can use to communicate data graphically. Including a chart in a presentation allows your audience to see the meaning behind the numbers, which makes it easy to visualize comparisons and trends. Optional: Download our practice presentation for this lesson. Watch the video below to learn more about using charts in PowerPoint. TYPES OF CHARTS PowerPoint has several types of charts, allowing you to choose the one that best fits your data. In order to use charts effectively, you'll need to understand how different charts are used. Click the arrows in the slideshow below to learn more about the types of charts in PowerPoint. Slide 1 - www.office.com/setupPowerPoint has a variety of chart types, each with its own advantages. Click the arrows to see some of the different types of charts available in PowerPoint. Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup IDENTIFYING THE PARTS OF A CHART In addition to chart types, you'll need to understand how to read a chart. Charts contain several different elements-or parts-that can help you interpret data. Click the buttons in the interactive below to learn about the different parts of a chart. Book sales chart - www.office.com/setup LEGEND The legend identifies which data series each color on the chart represents. In this example, the legend identifies the different months in the chart. INSERTING CHARTS PowerPoint uses a spreadsheet as a placeholder for entering chart data, much like Excel. The process of entering data is fairly simple, but if you are unfamiliar with Excel you might want to review our Excel 2016 Cell Basics lesson.

Have you seen the new Microsoft Forms? One of the most popular articles on my blog in the last 12 months was related to its predecessor - Excel Surveys. Not only did that post get a lot of views, but it also got a lot of comments from people with questions about the features of Excel Surveys, or more importantly for some, the features it did not have. You can still use Excel Surveys, but Microsoft are in the process of transitioning to something better - Microsoft Forms. This version includes automatic grading and built-in student feedback. Here's what you need to know.

Today, we are pleased to announce the availability of Microsoft Forms for our Office 365 Education customers. Forms is the result of direct feedback from educators that they want to have a quizzing function with Office 365 Education. Educators told us they need an easy way to assess student progress on an ongoing basis. They also told us they want an assessment solution that will save them time, help differentiate instruction for all students and provide quiz takers with real-time personalized feedback.

Today marks the general availability of Office 2016 for Windows, a suite of desktop applications that together with new mobile and web apps pushes Microsoft's new vision for PC-based productivity. Office 2016 is available immediately to Office 365 subscribers, as well as to individuals who would prefer to buy the software in standalone form. "We see Office 2016 as being just as important as the first release of Office," Microsoft group program manager Shawn Villaron told me in a briefing last week. "In the early days, Office was about bringing really important tools together to empower the individual for personal productivity. That was the way people wanted to work at that time. And for 20 to 30 years, Office fit right in. Today, things are changing. More people collaborate on work as groups and teams, so Office 2016 represents the change from personal productivity to team productivity."

These days it's all about Sway - the first of many native apps to be rolled out to Microsoft Office 365 subscribers. To put it simply, Sway is a web browser-based storytelling app. It allows anyone with the most basic computing knowledge to create beautiful-looking websites and presentations with images, text, tweets, videos or whatever other media you want to include. It works a bit like Word and Powerpoint combined - and finished products can be used on websites to display family photos, or in a beautiful work presentation.

Windows 10 has grabbed the attention of social media and customers alike more so because it is a crucial operating system for Microsoft after the debacle of Windows 8 and a not so great reception for Windows 8.1. But, Microsoft has another major product on their cards now, Office, which enhances the Windows productivity of five major products into a system of applications. With Office 2016, Microsoft plans to build from scratch, a mobile and cloud first approach which is customer centric and doesn't only focus on web compared to Office 365 and 2013. Office 2016 has recently been launched on September 22, 2015. www.office.com/setup The Cost factor The first and the most important thing we look at during major software products and updates is the price tag that comes along with it as there are so multiple updates for major software and it is not feasible to go through each and every revision. The all new Office 2016 suite is free for customers on mobile and tablets (conditions apply) and pretty cheap at $145 for "Office Home & Student 2016" and the RRP version of the same is priced at $165, along with subscription version of the suite (Office 365 Personal) at about $70 per year.

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Office 365 and Office 2016 share a lot of similarities, yet deciding between the two involves a lot of factors. Office 365 is a subscription-based service that currently uses Office 2016 apps, but when the next version of Office is released, users will get that as part of their subscription. Office 2016 is a buy-once app suite that brings you the Office 2016 apps as they are, without any available updates in the future. If you want to upgrade to the latest version of Office without paying for a subscription, you'll have to pay full price for the new version - there's no discounted upgrade option. These are only a couple differences between the two products. Looking to invest in Office? We break down the differences between the two products to help you decide which is better for personal and home use.

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Indenting text adds structure to your document by allowing you to separate information. Whether you'd like to move a single line or an entire paragraph, you can use the tab selector and the horizontal ruler to set tabs and indents. Optional: Download our practice document. Watch the video below to learn more about how to use indents and tabs in Word. INDENTING TEXT In many types of documents, you may want to indent only the first line of each paragraph. This helps to visually separate paragraphs from one another. - www.office.com/setup It's also possible to indent every line except for the first line, which is known as a hanging indent. - www.office.com/setup TO INDENT USING THE TAB KEY A quick way to indent is to use the Tab key. This will create a first-line indent of 1/2 inch. Place the insertion point at the very beginning of the paragraph you want to indent. - www.office.com/setup Press the Tab key. On the Ruler, you should see the first-line indent marker move to the right by 1/2 inch. The first line of the paragraph will be indented. - www.office.com/setup If you can't see the Ruler, select the View tab, then click the check box next to the Ruler. - www.office.com/setup INDENT MARKERS In some cases, you may want to have more control over indents. Word provides indent markers that allow you to indent paragraphs to the location you want. - www.office.com/setup The indent markers are located to the left of the horizontal ruler, and they provide several indenting options: First-line indent marker adjusts the first-line indent Hanging indent marker adjusts the hanging indent Left indent marker moves both the first-line indent and hanging indent markers at the same time (this will indent all lines in a paragraph) TO INDENT USING THE INDENT MARKERS Place the insertion point anywhere in the paragraph you want to indent, or select one or more paragraphs. - www.office.com/setup Click and drag the desired indent marke