If you are going to be investing a lot of your time into learning it, take a class. Power Point 1-day Class Your time is your largest asset, you should invest 1 day to learn it inside and out and on a more personal level. You can master it by fighting through it by yourself, or jump the learning curve a bit. It looks like there is one in Seattle and Everett in March.

I just sent a couple of my staff to an Excel one, and they came back very confident in it. The class really helped to speed up the time from information stage, to complete output.