When we use PowerPoint as an authoring environment, we end up making our courses look like presentations, as the default slide designs and layouts we have at our disposal are very few. Moreover these layouts are specifically designed for presentations and not for creating eLearning content. But not anymore!

With the all new Adobe Presenter 8, you have the freedom to choose a perfect layout that exactly matches your eLearning content type. You can seamlessly use these layouts with scenes, characters, images, and animations to bring your eLearning courses to life. These layouts are specially designed to be used for eLearning courses and adapt neatly with the design theme you have used to create your Adobe Presenter course.

Exciting, isn’t it? Let’s see how you can use these layouts to develop your Adobe Presenter courses.

One of the ways to use these layouts is to start with the layout file and then apply design themes and continue developing the course from there. Follow these steps to do so:

1. In Microsoft PowerPoint, click File > New.
2. Under Available Templates and Themes section, select New from existing.
3. In the New from Existing Presentation dialog, navigate to the PowerPoint Templates folder: [Path for Windows 7:C:UsersPublicDocumentsAdobePresenter AssetsPowerPoint Templates] [Path for Windows XP: C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersDocumentsAdobePresenter AssetsPowerPoint Templates]
4. Select one of the six templates and click Open.
5. A new presentation with more than hundred layouts is created.
6. You can now apply a different theme to the presentation and the layouts will change the color scheme of objects on the slides as per the applied theme.
7. Start building the course by populating the required layout screens and delete the rest.

Another way is to create your Adobe Presenter course and then add the required slide layouts to it. Follow these steps to do so:

1. Start creating a course using Adobe Presenter.
2. To add a specific layout from the eLearning Templates files. Open the template file from this location: [Path for Windows 7: C:UsersPublicDocumentsAdobePresenter AssetsPowerPoint Templates] [Path for Windows XP: C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersDocumentsAdobePresenter AssetsPowerPoint Templates]
3. Copy the desired layout slide.
4. Paste it in your course PPT. The presentation theme will be automatically applied to the layout slide you added to your course.
5. Populate the layout slide with text, audio, scenes, characters, and click-based animations to bring these layouts to life!

So, no more excuses anymore! 🙂