You've Got the Power! Using Microsoft PowerPoint with JAWS for Windows.

Introduction.

Put simply, Microsoft PowerPoint is a way of creating and delivering presentations so as to communicate your ideas in dynamic and visually compelling ways. In most cases, when a slideshow presentation is delivered to an audience, its purpose is to supplement the subject matter you are talking about.

If you have a story to tell, or an important message to get across, PowerPoint can help you communicate it in a number of ways. Your presentations can contain text, graphics, sound, movies and other types of information. Each presentation can be displayed on the computer to an audience and each slide can be set to move on in different ways:- either automatically after a set period of time, or manually by the presenter. PowerPoint can be a good way of showing information to a group of people as it can give structure to the presentation, make the subject more interesting and allow photos, videos etc to be used within it.

What should be immediately obvious from the above paragraphs however is that PowerPoint is visually demanding. However as blind people, particularly when in education or employment, we need to be in a position where we can create PowerPoint presentations. We might be able to communicate our message by speaking effectively, but in today's world of multi-media presentations, we have to be at the forefront of delivering more dynamically challenging content too. By the end of our latest training course, "You've Got the Power", we hope you will be able to do just that.

Course Objectives.

Due to their being a good deal of terminology associated with creating PowerPoint presentations, on this occasion we will not list each and every topic the training course is expected to cover. However, we do want to outline several core objectives the course hopes to fulfil.

• Customising PowerPoint for optimum accessibility.
• Orientation of the PowerPoint screens and using the Ribbon to good effect.
• Creating a PowerPoint presentation. This would include learning about title, sub-title and content placeholders, and inserting pictures, audio, video and images into slides, bulleted lists, adjusting font size and style, adjusting foreground and background colours, applying alternative text to images.
• Working with PowerPoint in an accessible way. Moving between, and in and out of, objects. The JAWS vocabulary for describing objects. Determining if text overflows the object. JAWS keystrokes for PowerPoint.
• Editing existing slides: Navigating through slides, rearranging slides, inserting additional slides, deleting slides, changing the size of slides.
• Applying an image as a background.
• Working with tables in presentations.
• Delivering a presentation to the audience. Slideshow view, moving through slides manually and at prescribed intervals.
• Adding public and private Speaker's Notes.
• Creating accessible PowerPoint presentations.
• Creating hand-outs for your audience.
• The differences between PowerPoint access in JAWS 2019 and earlier.
• Effective use of JAWS Picture Smart.

While this training course teaches you how to use PowerPoint in an accessible way, it goes much further. As blind people, one of the things we must do is to ensure the quality of our presentation is delivered in a way which is equal to those delivered by sighted colleagues. The last thing we would want is for people to "have to make allowances" because we have little or no vision. Furthermore, there is a more urgent need for our presentations to be very effective to prove that we are on an equal footing.
Therefore, a discussion will take place concerning:

• How to ensure you can refer to your notes without disturbing the visual focus. You want the audience attention to be on what you are saying and your awesome content. You would not want to see, for example, focus moving into a word processor for you to check your notes.
• How to read notes for each slide on a Braille display without moving focus away from the slideshow.
• How to hear your notes discretely if you are not a Braille reader.
• Summarising your points pertaining to the subject matter effectively.

Lastly, if you purchase the training course, you will be provided with specially written JAWS script files. These will allow you to work with your presentations in an accessible way together with providing many shortcut keys which are not available to you at the current time. For example, a special mode has been created for Braille users so that you can access notes for each slide without disturbing visual focus.

Who is the Course For?

The training course is for anyone who wishes to learn how to create presentations from the outset. In order to participate in the training course, you will need JAWS for Windows version 2018 or 2019. You will also need access to Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 or 2019, which is part of Office 2016 or 365.

If I Purchase the Course, What Will I Receive?

The course will give to you:

• An audio recording of each of the five lessons in MP3 format. This can be played as many times as necessary to reinforce topics which have been covered.
• Brief text documentation comprising a list of keystrokes to reinforce topics covered in the lesson and also a full description of field captions for modifying pictures.
• The JAWS scripts mentioned above.
• Access to an Email list to ask questions.

Costing.

The cost of the course is £50 which is currently 62 US dollars.

Alternatively, anyone can purchase the course by sending an Email to jaws@hartgen.org, whereupon a fully accessible electronic invoice will be sent to you which can be paid through PayPal or any major credit or debit card. Orders can also be placed by telephone:

If you would like to read the views from participants of our previous courses, please Visit our Training area.

Conclusion.

While for best effect we would always recommend that your presentations are checked by a sighted person to achieve the highest quality, there is a lot that you can do to construct them effectively in order that visual input is minimal. You certainly have a lot of control when delivering the presentation to your packed audience. Learn how to take control of this visually demanding application so that your boss can say, "Yes, You've Got the Power!"