We’ve all been to the usual stock standard PowerPoint presentations that move through the content from A to Z, but what if you want to cover your material in a non-linear fashion? In this article, Mark Finney, Co-Founder and Facilitator at Keystroke Learning, explores the uses of PowerPoint Zoom – hint, it’s not what you probably think it is! This hidden gem in PowerPoint can really help improve the flow of your presentations.
Have you been in the audience of a PowerPoint presentation where the presenter had to jump around a bit to get to a specific topic? Maybe they had a question from the audience, or time was short, so they needed to skip ahead a bit. This is always interesting, watching people right click and then frantically try to get to the slide they want!
Many folks who’ve been subjected to lots of presentations over the years, consider Microsoft PowerPoint to be a legalized narcotic, putting people to sleep since 1987!
But what if I told you that there’s a better way to navigate your slides, using a feature that’s built into PowerPoint already? Let’s check it out and start to bring your presentation to life.
What is PowerPoint Zoom?
The Zoom tool in PowerPoint is a nifty feature that allows you the freedom to move through your slide deck in an engaging, non-linear mode. With Zoom, you can structure your presentation like an interactive map, making it more dynamic and engaging, by giving you the freedom to jump between sections as you want. It’s like a slide outline but using visuals instead of text. This makes it ideal for storytelling, business pitches, and more. I reckon there are a few good reasons to use this feature. Before going further, I should point out that 3 types of Zoom options are available. These are Summary Zoom; Section Zoom and Slide Zoom. You can get to the zoom tools from PowerPoint’s Insert tab.
In this article, I’ll go over some ideas and walk you through the steps to setting up PowerPoint Zoom to help you create non-linear presentations that keep your audience engaged. I’ll focus on Summary and Section Zoom and leave you to check out how to create a Slide Zoom on your own. Or better still, get in touch with us for some PowerPoint training!
What is a Non-Linear Presentation?
Most presentations start with slide 1, then continue in a sequential order, sometimes for longer than a Grateful Dead song! (If you’re young, just Google it!) That’s ok if you’re into that kind of thing, but wouldn’t it be nicer if you could easily jump to view sections or slides as you want? That’s where the “non-linear” part comes in. This kind of presentation allows you to use the zoom to move through your slide deck in any order you want, instead of following a fixed path. If you’ve ever seen a presenter zoom around using Prezi, then you’ll have an idea of this kind of what I’m talking about. This makes your presentation feel more interactive, more of a journey than a static slideshow.
Non-Linear presentations are handy for:
- Interactive Sessions – where a question from the audience can influence the flow of your presentation.
- Complex Topics – if you might need to dig deeper into specific sections of your content.
- Presenting to Varied Audiences – allows you to focus on content that’s most relevant based on the audience.
What is Summary Zoom?
Summary Zoom in Microsoft PowerPoint allows you to build a visual summary of your presentation, where your key slides are displayed as clickable thumbnails. It’s a bit like a table of contents, or a slide outline, but with a nicer outfit! Instead of moving to the next slide in a fixed order, you can go through slides in any order by clicking on the thumbnails to go wherever you want. Let’s face it, most slides have way too much text anyway! This is more dynamic and interesting, especially if you’re working with a lengthy presentation.
Summary Zoom adds an interactive element to your content, which can improve audience engagement and allow you to easily revisit the important bits. It’s great if you want to jump back to a section based on a question from the audience. The first slides of your summary act as an anchor, or home base if you like, allowing you to move on to the next slide, or go in any order you like. If you use a zoom transition when presenting, be prepared for people to ask, “How did you do that?”
How to Create a Summary Zoom
- With your presentation open, go to the Insert tab, then in the Links group, click on Zoom.
- From the Zoom options group, click Summary Zoom.
- In the dialog box, select the specific slides you want to use in your summary, then click Insert.
- A new slide is added with thumbnails of your selection.
- Add a title, such as Agenda or Table of Contents.
Now the slides of your Summary Zoom are set up as preview thumbnails on the newly created slide, you can test them by starting your Slide Show (I like to do this with the keyboard shortcut F5). Once your slide is up in the full screen mode, click on any thumbnail image of the slide. This automatically applies a zoom transition, taking you directly to the slides you want. Nice trick don’t you think!
Once you click on the visible slide, you’ll return to the zoom summary where you can choose another path. It’s choosing your own adventure, with breadcrumbs to find your way back, just like Hansel and Gretel, but minus the witch!
What is a Section Zoom
Ok, now you’ve seen how to set up a Summary Zoom, we can check out Section Zoom. Did you know your PowerPoint slides can be divvied up into sections? It’s handy to do this even if you’re not using one of the Zooms. For example, you might have an introductory section with 3 slides, then a section for each main topic area with a varying number of slides, and a conclusion. You can also create sections for presentations that will have several presenters. Each presenter can have their own section of slides. This one is really handy if one of your presenters had a flight delay and is running late (Been there, done that!) It’s easy to swap sections around and move their content to the end before starting the presentation. That way you don’t have that awkward silence from the audience while you flick through 35 slides to get to your stuff!
Where was I? Oh, yeah, setting up a Section Zoom.
How to Create a Section Zoom
You’ll need to start with a presentation that has sections added. If not, you will need to add the sections before you can add a Section Zoom. You can add sections in Normal View by clicking on the slide thumbnail where you want the section, then from the Home ribbon, go to the Slides group and click Section > Add Section. Pop in a section name, then repeat to add more sections.
Ok, now that you’re back, let’s add a Section Zoom. I find it best to create a new slide first, then follow the steps below. This is because the section thumbnails are added to the current slide, so adding a new slide keeps things tidy.
- With your presentation open, go to Insert, then in the Links group, click on Zoom.
- From the Zoom drop down list, click Section Zoom.
- From the dialog box, choose the sections you want to add, then click Insert.
- Thumbnails are added to the current slide.
- Rearrange these however you like and add a title to the slide if you want.
Test your links as before. This time, the links will advance through all the slides in a section. You’ll return to the zoom slide after viewing sections. Once again, you can choose to navigate through the sections in any order you want. If you have multiple speakers, each link could take you directly to their content section, making it simple to change the order of presenters. It means you have one place in your presentation that acts as a starting point for your trips around the content. Happy days!
Tips on using Zoom for PowerPoint
Just like any new toy, it’s easy to get excited and go a bit overboard, so go easy on your first few trips until you get used to it.
- Use Zoom sparingly – It’s best not to go to over the top with Zoom links. All that zooming in and out could leave your audience a little seasick!
- Plan Ahead – Go with a master Zoom slide to get back to after each side trip. This helps to keep the big picture in mind.
- Practice – Navigating this kind of content can be a little messy if you’re used to linear presentations, so take some time to practice moving around. And don’t forget to try out slide zoom on your own.
Conclusion
Along with a variety of other applications, I teach Microsoft PowerPoint courses, so as well as delivering plenty of presentations myself, I’ve seen my fair share of presentations. Some of them have been informative and interesting, occasionally ever great, but let’s be honest, most are not so good. Outright snoozefests in many cases. But they don’t have to be that way.
Keep in mind the 3 ways of setting up the Zoom feature:
Summary Zoom – provides a clickable overview of your presentation. Great for longer presentations.
Section Zoom – used to navigate between the major sections of your presentation. Great for structured presentations, or those with multiple presenters.
Slide Zoom – good for zooming into individual slides for emphasis. Use when you need to return to specific content.
Used well, PowerPoint Zoom can be a fantastic tool to have in your bag of presentation tricks. It adds some Prezi pizzaz to make your presentations more dynamic and engaging. Using Zoom in PowerPoint allows you to navigate freely around your slides, then return to zoom when you want to move in another direction. You can get creative with your slides, instead of just stepping through from the first slide to the last in the typical sequence.
Trust me, your audience will thank you!
