Click on the [Start] button on the taskbar, point to Corel WordPerfect Suite 8, and select Corel Presentations 8. The "Document Selection" dialog box appears. There are various options here, including the "Work On" and "Create New" project Tabs. For now, to begin your slide show, select the "Create New" Tab, select "Presentations Slide Show", and click the [Create] button.

The "Startup Master Gallery" dialog box appears. The first step in this dialog box is to select a gallery, which applies a background format for the slides. Click on the category list button to see the possible formats.

Gallery Options

The gallery slide show masters are background patterns created by a graphic artist. After picking one of the backgrounds, all the elements in a slide "fit" into the colors for that background. That is, the colors for titles and bullets and charts "relate" to the color scheme for that master. Typically, the gallery master also has some graphic element that is repeated on all slides, to further help the slide set look like a related unit. The gallery feature is one of the appealing aspects of using Presentations. You do not have to be an artist to create attractive slides.

The backgrounds are grouped into several categories: 35mm, business, color, design, nature, printout, and theme.

The choices of 35mm, color, or printout determine basic design elements such as color choices and aspect ratio for the type of media. You would use Color if you plan to display the presentation on a color monitor or have a color printer. Choose 35mm if you plan to convert the slides to photographic slides. Choose Printout for simple backgrounds that will print well on a monochrome printer. Note, however, that these groupings are there for your convenience. If you pick another category (like Business), you could still print to 35mm film or a color printer.

If you do not see all of the above categories for galleries, then the complete gallery collection was not installed. To use all of them, go back to the Corel CD Master and install only the Presentations program, but be sure to select all of the galleries. You will need to use the Custom installation option. The complete gallery will need about 12 megabytes of disk space.

Layout Options

Layouts are pre-created templates for a slide. There are seven layout templates with the 8.0 release: title, bulleted list, text, organization chart, data chart, combination, and none. You will learn more about these options in this and subsequent lessons. Just keep in mind that the layout is a template for a type of slide and has existing place holders for information.

Exercise 1

Load the Presentations 8.0 program. When the "Document Selection"dialog box appears, click the "Create New" Tab, select "Presentations Slide Show" and click the [Create] button. The "Startup Master Gallery" appears. Pick the category of Business, and click on the background called "Corners". This is in the third row of the samples, on the right side. When you click on the gallery sample, its name appears in the window below the sample display area. After you select your gallery master, click on the [OK] button.

Learning Corel Presentations 8.0