Customizing your county brochure or PowerPoint presentation

UI Extension Community Data Tools

http://www.uidaho.edu/extension/community-data-tools/toolbox

The county brochure and PowerPoint (PPt) presentation templates can be tailored to fit your own

needs.

How to choose which indicators to use

Think about the story you want to tell as you work with your county brochure and PPt

presentation. To choose which indicators to include in your brochure or presentation, ask the

following questions:

Which indicators are of most interest to the audience or best fit the topic you have chosen

to discuss?

Which indicators have shown the most change over time?

Which indicators stand out when compared to the state, the nation, or to neighboring

counties?

Which indicators surprise you?

If you want to add indicators to your brochure or presentation that are not found on the Indicators

Idaho website, feel free to add them (remember to add the correct citation). Additional data can

be found by exploring the same data sources used for the indicators on the Indicators

Idaho website, by looking at other online data sources, or by contacting local data sources.

Possibilities for online and local data sources can be found in "Online data sources" and "Local data

sources."

Do not forget to update your data

One difficulty of using data is that it is always changing as new data are released or older data are

revised. Keep checking the Indicators Idaho website for new data and incorporate them into your

county brochure or PPt presentation to keep them current. If you use other data sources, be sure

to check for new data before giving a presentation or printing copies of the brochure.

Resources for editing your county brochure

The work of gathering and presenting the information for your county has already been done for

you. Look closely to see if you are satisfied with the current brochure. If so, you are ready to print

and distribute additional copies. If you want to add or change information, you can edit the

brochure using Microsoft Publisher. Be sure to save the new brochure as a separate document so

you can go back to the original if necessary.

To replace a chart in the brochure with a different or updated one that you see online, right-click

on the online chart and choose "Save picture as." Save the chart to your computer's Desktop or

other location, go to the brochure and right-click on the chart you would like to replace. Choose

"Change picture | From file" and then select the chart you just saved. This will replace the chart

at the exact same size as the original chart so you do not have to resize to make it fit.

UI Extension Community Data Tools

http://www.uidaho.edu/extension/community-data-tools/toolbox

How to fill in the presentation template

The PPt presentation is meant to serve as a basic template, which you can use to design a

presentation. As is, the template is much too large to be used in its entirety. Your job will be to

pick and choose those indicators that best tell the story of your county. For some counties, picking

indicators will be an easy task. For others, it will take some work.

For each indicator, go to the Indicators Idaho website, select your state and county, and select

the appropriate indicator. Then, you can copy and paste the correct text and charts to fit the

blanks in the template. To copy text, highlight the text you'd like to use, copy it, and then paste

it in your presentation in the correct spot. To copy a chart, place your mouse's cursor over it and

right-click. Then, select "Copy." Go to your presentation document, click where you'd like to place

the chart, and then Paste the chart. You can then move the chart if needed.

The presentation includes much more text than most people would want to use in a presentation.

Slides for the final presentation should be as simple and straightforward as possible. Much of the

extraneous text in the presentation template can be moved to the Notes section of the

presentation. This lets you have each indicator's background information handy as you give your

presentation.

Resources for working with PowerPoint

The University of Idaho Distance & Extended Education Help provides an online PPt Tutorial. It has

information and short videos on how to insert images, create templates, and more. If you need

help working with PPt, view this tutorial at:

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/deehelp/archived/tutorials/powerpoint/tutorial_presentations

.htm.