By Casey Parkhurst/reporter

Because some think PowerPoints are a necessary evil in college, the South Campus center for academic success coordinator helped South students understand the software Nov. 9.

In PowerPoint Tips and Tricks: Make Your Presentation the Best Ever, Chris Carcerano said students should think of a PowerPoint as a slide show, but better. He described it as text with pictures, video buried in multimedia and animations with timed progressions.

“PowerPoints are user friendly,” he said.

When students start a PowerPoint, they need a title page and content pages, Carcerano said.

But they do not need a title page for every slide. He demonstrated how to add slides and text and explained how to change the format on the slides.

Carcerano also offered advice on manipulating words.

“You need to know how to manipulate words to be good and to make your words fit,” he said.

Then Carcerano showed how to add clip art to slides and how to move images and size them. 

“If you want to make a picture or image bigger or smaller to fit on your slide, then go to the sides or the corner dots and size your picture,” he said.

Carcerano also demonstrated how to add pictures from the Internet.

Afterward, the class practiced all the given tips while Carcerano offered one-on-one assistance and advice.

“A great PowerPoint will not save a bad presentation, but a good PowerPoint always make a good presentation better,” he said. “PowerPoints are virtually impossible to mess up to the point that you cannot fix it.”