Who doesn’t love going to an old school roadside American diner? A tiny jukebox mounted in every turquoise vinyl booth, miles of white, gold-flecked Formica, and a huge, ten-page menu printed in ten-point type with so many options you have to wonder if their walk-in refrigerator is bigger than the kitchen.
But let’s face it, most of us won’t look at every single option that’s on the menu searching for something that will satisfy the exact craving we have at that exact moment. Usually, we’re too hungry or in too much of a hurry or just jump to the old, tried and true choice even if it’s not exactly what we’re looking for. A lot of servers will tell you that regular customers usually only order one of a small handful of favorites and rarely try anything new.
I’m willing to bet most people tend to use PowerPoint this way. We open it up, use the same handful of tools, commands, and functions to make slides and sometimes settle for something that isn’t exactly what we wanted; something that doesn’t quite completely satisfy.
If this sounds familiar, I suggest that you set aside some time, open up a copy of an old PowerPoint file, and slowly peruse each of the menus, trying out each item that you’re not particularly familiar with. Expand your PowerPoint palate in other words. I’m certain you will find yourself saying, “wow, that’s great” or “I didn’t know PowerPoint could do that!” And even if none of what you see and try makes it into your usual PowerPoint diet, you’ll now know exactly where to go when it’s late at night and you have a craving for one of the exotic new items you discovered.