Which PowerPoint Training Format Is Right for Me?

PowerPoint is the most commonly used presentation design software across dozens of professional industries. Anyone looking to work in a professional or office setting who anticipates needing to present information or data to an audience stands to benefit from learning PowerPoint. In addition, it can be a powerful, persuasive tool for those looking to help sell their products, ideas, or business models to investors and stakeholders. When comparing types of PowerPoint training, there are many factors to consider. Everyone learns differently, and choosing the proper training is critical to your experience.

Keep reading to learn more about the different formats of PowerPoint training, how they compare, and how to determine which is best for you.

What is PowerPoint?

Microsoft PowerPoint is the most commonly used presentation software across almost all professional industries. PowerPoint is one of the most important parts of Microsoft’s Office 365 programs, alongside Word and Excel. PowerPoint lets users easily create vibrant and memorable presentations that quickly communicate meaning in a professional setting. Users can add animations, transitions, graphics, and other imagery to their slides, ensuring they produce both communicative and impressive presentations for their audience.

PowerPoint is a slideshow editing tool built to give users the tools they need to organize information, communicate effectively, and produce presentations to deliver through live address or without a presenter. PowerPoint makes the job easier and more efficient, whether you manage important information in advance of a meeting, prepare a sales pitch to a potential client, or compile important workplace policies and procedures in a single place. This versatility has made PowerPoint an industry-standard tool in almost all professional contexts.

Read more about what PowerPoint is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with PowerPoint?

PowerPoint allows users to create vibrant and memorable visual presentations that can serve a wide variety of purposes. PowerPoint’s advanced features let users integrate dynamic animations and 3D modeled graphics into their designs, allowing them to create more complex presentations than simple text projected onto a screen. Whether you are attempting to keep an audience engaged during a critical seminar or make a sales pitch as memorable as possible, PowerPoint gives you the tools to wow your audience.

Some users will use PowerPoint to create informative slideshows that condense complicated information into a single, easy-to-digest presentation. This makes the program ideal for both instructors and professionals looking to host informational seminars regularly. In fact, many online classes you take will use PowerPoint to provide students with the main takeaways from a lecture. Some users, who need to persuade audiences, such as entrepreneurs meeting with potential investors, will use PowerPoint to create memorable and persuasive presentations that convince their audience to invest in their product.

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Training Formats for PowerPoint

In-Person PowerPoint Training

Students looking to learn PowerPoint skills may consider enrolling in an in-person training course. These courses allow students to work directly with a like-minded cohort of students and receive one-on-one instruction from trained professionals. These courses provide students with hands-on experience working with PowerPoint, ensuring they will leave the course with an understanding of the application. The main issue with these courses is that most training providers teach at only a few locations, which can restrict a student’s options for in-person training, mainly if they don’t live near a major city.

All of Noble Desktop’s PowerPoint courses are available in person at their Manhattan location. Students who commute to New York City can receive expert instruction from professional teachers in Noble’s on-site computer labs. These courses are ideal for students hoping to learn how to design professional quality presentations using PowerPoint. For students outside the travel time of Manhattan, there are service providers located in other cities, such as Training Connection in LA and Chicago or Digital Workshop Center in Denver. To compare the in-person PowerPoint training sessions available in your area, consult Noble’s Classes Near Me Tool.

Live Online PowerPoint Training

For some students, learning PowerPoint in person may not be an option. They may be too far away from a training center, or they may be unable to commute. For these students, live online training classes are available to provide them with professional instruction from the comfort of their own homes. These courses provide students with many of the same perks as an in-person training session, mainly by letting them interact directly with live instructors who are prepared to answer their questions and guide them through a PowerPoint education. The downside to these courses is that students won’t have access to any hardware or software and may need to acquire PowerPoint independently.

Noble Desktop offers all of its in-person PowerPoint courses as live online seminars. These courses come with Noble’s free retake option, expanding students’ ability to get even more hands-on experience with PowerPoint. Even in a live online course, class sizes remain small, ensuring students can work directly with Noble’s professional instructors. Online training providers such as Coursera and Udemy also offer PowerPoint training in a live online format. Students can compare their options for live online PowerPoint classes using Noble’s Classes Near Me tool.

Free Online Courses & Tutorials

For students who aren’t ready to enroll in a PowerPoint bootcamp or who just want to learn the basics of the program, free introductory resources may be an ideal place to start. Noble Desktop provides students with a free PowerPoint Presentation Design seminar in which students will learn the fundamental theories of design that go into creating evocative and memorable presentations. No one wants their presentations to bore audiences, and this seminar is designed to ensure that students have the skills required to keep audiences engaged.

Other service providers, such as Udemy and Coursera, offer additional free introductory courses teaching students how to use PowerPoint to design presentations. These courses won’t provide comprehensive skills training, but they are ideal places to start learning the basics of PowerPoint. In addition, Microsoft offers students with free training tutorials on subjects ranging from PowerPoint templates to using 3D models in a presentation.

Read about more free PowerPoint videos and online tutorials.

On-Demand Classes

Many students find that live instruction is the most effective way to learn skills like PowerPoint. These courses let students interact directly with live instructors who can provide feedback and answer questions. These courses are available both in-person and online, giving students additional flexibility in learning PowerPoint. In these classes, students will receive hands-on training in PowerPoint design, making the classes ideal for students hoping to quickly pick up the necessary skills to start using PowerPoint professionally. These courses require students to attend live instruction seminars, which may burden students with minimal free time. In addition, in-person classes will require students to commute to a campus or training center, whereas online instruction will likely require students to obtain PowerPoint.

Comparison of PowerPoint Training Formats

Students may find that the number of different options they have for learning PowerPoint can be intimidating. The options can be overwhelming between concerns about where they will learn PowerPoint and how they will learn it. Students must consider their own needs and limitations when deciding what courses to select.

The primary form of PowerPoint training is through live instruction, either in-person or online. These courses will let students interact directly with live instructors who are ready and available to provide students with feedback and assistance. Many students find these courses the best way to learn professional skills like PowerPoint.

In-person instruction will let students receive immediate feedback from instructors, and they will be able to collaborate with like-minded colleagues in their classrooms. In addition, they are likely to have access to a service provider’s computer equipment. However, they will need to commute to a campus, adding both time and cost to what is already the most expensive and time-consuming option for learning PowerPoint.

Live online courses address the need to be in a specific location for training. These courses let students learn from expert instructors without having to leave their own homes. However, they may need to provide their own hardware and software, which can be a barrier for some students, and they will lose out on the advantages offered by working close to other students.

For students who can’t attend a live training session, on-demand PowerPoint classes provide students with an alternative option. These courses give students greater flexibility over the pace and style of their training, making them perfect for students who need control over when and where their training takes place. These courses lack live instructors, so students who become lost in the material need to find other means of assistance, which can be time- and labor-intensive.

Is it Possible to Teach Yourself PowerPoint?

New users hoping to learn the basics of PowerPoint may wonder if they can teach themselves how to use the program. This is an achievable goal for users who only want to learn the basic elements of PowerPoint for occasional use in a professional setting. Watching free tutorial videos and experimenting with the program's features should suffice for anyone hoping to simply learn how to create slides and populate them with text and images.

There are two aspects of PowerPoint training in which students greatly benefit from guided instruction. Students looking to learn advanced features of PowerPoint, particularly those that integrate programs like Excel, will need additional training, which can be hard to self-teach. In addition, students interested in the visual design elements of PowerPoint can experiment with the program. Still, they may find that without a live instructor, they aren’t making progress in learning how to design a presentation. In both contexts, getting help from professional, expert instructors can make the process much more painless.

How to Decide the Best Way to Learn PowerPoint

Students must consider their goals and learning styles with the many different ways to approach a PowerPoint education. Some students may find that they need a lot of PowerPoint training, while others may discover that an accelerated training program is the best fit for them.

Students who want to receive intensive training in PowerPoint will want to consider a certificate-granting training program, like the PowerPoint Bootcamp offered by Noble Desktop. These courses are built with professionally-focused students in mind and aim to teach students all the advanced skills they will need to use PowerPoint in their daily careers. They are for students who plan to use PowerPoint regularly for building complex presentations.

Students who feel they need to know more in-depth PowerPoint skills but do not regularly use the program's advanced features may want to consider a shorter skills training program, like Noble’s PowerPoint Level 1 course. This class will give students an introduction to the basic elements of building a PowerPoint presentation, such as adding images and animations to a presentation or utilizing graphs and charts. Students can also take their knowledge from this course and enroll in PowerPoint Level 2 to spread out the training they would receive in the PowerPoint Bootcamp.

PowerPoint novices, particularly those who don’t imagine that they will be using the program regularly or in high-stakes presentations, may want to consider a free online tutorial, such as Noble’s PowerPoint Presentation Design seminar. In classes like this, students will receive free training in the basic functions and design theories that go into building a compelling PowerPoint presentation. While these courses won’t cover enough information for students who regularly need to use PowerPoint, they are ideal places to start one’s PowerPoint training.

Learn PowerPoint with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Professionals looking to learn PowerPoint may consider skills development training through Noble Desktop. These courses, available in person at Noble’s Manhattan campus and through live online instruction, will give students hands-on training in designing and organizing information using PowerPoint. These courses, which expert instructors teach, will provide students with the experience needed to build evocative and memorable presentations. Even in online courses, class sizes are kept small, so students can interface directly with their instructor to receive assistance and feedback. Plus, Noble offers free retakes on all its courses, giving students more opportunities to practice building presentations in a professional environment.

Noble offers a PowerPoint Bootcamp, which teaches students, even those without prior PowerPoint experience, how to design compelling and evocative presentations. In this certificate-granting program, students will learn how to work with PowerPoint layouts, add animations and graphics, and work with layers, charts, graphs, and other objects. Then, students will receive advanced skills training, such as creating reusable PowerPoint templates, utilizing multimedia features in a presentation, and recording a presentation for later use. These skills will take students from novices to PowerPoint experts and prepare them to use the program professionally.

Since PowerPoint is a design program, Noble also offers students a PowerPoint Presentation Design course. This class focuses on the rhetorical and theoretical side of communicating through PowerPoint. In this class, students will learn design principles related to color, typography, graphic images, and other visual design elements. Whereas a bootcamp course teaches students how to use the tool to build presentations, this course will teach students how to design them, giving them the composition and design theories they need to make their presentations memorable and effective.