PowerPoint.Advanced.Presentation.Techniques [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Creating Handouts

As you may already know, a simple set of handouts is as easy to create as File⇨Print. Just decide on a layout (the number of slides per page) and then choose that layout from the Print dialog box when you go to print as follows:

Select the slides you want to include on the handouts if you don't want them all.

Choose File⇨Print, and in the Print dialog box, change the Print What setting to Handouts. The Handouts area of the dialog box becomes available, as shown in Figure 16-1.

Choose the number of handouts you want from the Slides per page drop-down list.

Depending on the number you choose, the Order controls may be available or not; if they are, choose Vertical or Horizontal.

Click OK. A set of handouts prints on your default printer.

Figure 16-1: Choose Handouts to print in the Print dialog box.

Now, let's look at some of the options that go with that.

Choosing an Appropriate Color/Grayscale Setting

The Color/Grayscale drop-down list in the Print dialog box has three available choices: Color, Grayscale, and Pure Black and White. Sounds pretty basic, doesn't it? But there are some little things associated with that choice that you might not have considered:

Color: Choosing Color creates handouts that look as much like the original slides as possible. Both the background and the text are the original colors. If you print on a black-and-white printer using the Color setting, you'll get various shades of gray that reproduce the original contrast as closely as they can.

Grayscale: Not only does Grayscale convert all colors to shades of gray (obviously), but it also removes the background color and makes all text black.

Pure Black and White: This setting converts almost all color and grayscale to either black or white, whichever it is closest to, but it also hides most shadows and patterns, resulting in a very spare and clean-looking printout. This setting is good when creating handouts for faxes and overhead transparencies. It does leave a few select item types in grayscale; see Table 16-1.

Curious about exactly what is changed and removed in Grayscale and Pure Black and White? Consult Table 16-1.

Here's a little-known but very handy option. Each slide and even each object can have its own custom behavior set for Grayscale and Pure Black and White printing modes.

To check this out, choose View⇨Color/Grayscale⇨Grayscale. The Grayscale View toolbar appears and the slide appears as it would look if printed with Grayscale chosen in the Print dialog box. To fine-tune that, open the Settings drop-down list and choose a different mode (see Figure 16-2).

Figure 16-2: Select a Grayscale mode for each slide.

You can do the same thing with individual objects on the slide. Select the object and then use that same Settings menu to apply a custom grayscale setting to it. Or, you can right-click the object and choose Grayscale Setting, and then choose one of the modes from the shortcut menu. (It's the same set of modes as on the Settings menu.)

You can move to other slides and preview/change their grayscale settings too; click Close Grayscale View when finished.

Then, you can repeat this process to customize the settings for the slide(s) when they are printed with Pure Black and White selected from the Print dialog box's Color/grayscale drop-down list. Choose View⇨Color/Grayscale⇨Pure Black and White and then make your selections.

It is possible to choose a grayscale setting for an object or slide for Pure Black and White mode, and vice versa. Those are just names of modes, not absolute rules as to how each object will appear. (Remember, in Table 16-1 there were some items that printed in grayscale by default even when in Pure Black and White mode.)

Setting Other Handout Print Options

Here are some of the other options you can set for handout printing in the Print dialog box:

Name: Choose among the available printers from this list (if you're lucky enough to have more than one).

Print Range: The default is All. Current slide prints only the active slide. If you selected more than one slide before you opened the dialog box, Selection will also be a choice. You can also choose a custom show (if you have any set up), or enter a range of slide numbers.

Number of copies: The default is 1. The Collate checkbox enables you to specify how multiple copies should print. Collated printing will print in sets, while uncollated printing will print all the copies of page 1, then all the copies of page 2, and so on.

Scale to Fit Paper: This enlarges the slides to the maximum size they can be and still fit on the paper when you print one slide per page.

Frame Slides: This places a black border around each slide. This is useful for slides that have white backgrounds because otherwise how will you distinguish between the white paper and the white slide?

Print Comments: This prints any comments that have been inserted with the Comments feature. This option is not available if you don't have any comments.

Print Hidden Slides: This includes hidden slides in the printout (see Chapter 15). This option is not available if you don't have any hidden slides.

Setting Printer-Specific Options

In addition to the controls in the Print dialog box, there are controls you can set for the individual printer you have chosen. These vary greatly depending on the printer, as they are supplied with the printer's driver rather than by PowerPoint. To access them, click the Properties button next to the printer name in the Print dialog box. (You can also access them from outside of PowerPoint through the Control Panel.)

These settings affect how the printer behaves in all Windows-based programs, not just in PowerPoint, so you need to be careful not to change anything that you don't want globally changed.

Here are some of the options you may see:

Paper Size: The default is Letter.

Paper Source: If the printer has more than one paper tray, you may be able to select a particular tray to pull from.

Copies: This sets the default number of copies for the printer. Beware: this is a multiplier. If you set two copies here and then set two copies in the Print dialog box in PowerPoint, you get four copies.

Graphics resolution: If your printer has a range of resolutions, you may be able to choose between them. Higher resolutions take longer to print, and on an inkjet printer anything higher than 720dpi usually requires special glossy paper.

Graphic dithering: On some printers you can set the type of dithering that makes up images. Dithering is a method of creating shades of gray from black ink by using tiny crosshatch patterns. The choices may include Coarse, Fine, or None.

Image intensity: On some printers there is a light/dark slider bar for darkness. Turn it darker if you are running out of toner on a laser printer to eke out a few extra usable copies.

Orientation: You can choose between Portrait and Landscape. I don't recommend changing this setting here, though; make such changes in the Page Setup dialog box in PowerPoint instead. Otherwise you may get the wrong orientation on a printout in other programs.

Page order: You may be able to choose the order in which the pages of a print job print.