So Long Fax Machine!
I have an unusual announcement to make. It’s quite novel, really. And yet I can’t imagine anyone scrambling for a sticky note so they can jot this down, but here it goes:
TLC Creative Services will no longer support fax communications.
If anyone (and I mean ANYONE) feels they will be impacted by our decision to discontinue our fax number, please reach out to me (Lori)!
Actually, there is one person who has faxed us consistently over the years. There is a company selling refurbished supply vans. We get the same fax twice a year. It’s a black and white fax featuring clip art images of vans and lots and lots of text. Hmmm…I might have some insight as to why they’re having a hard time selling those vans!
I do, however, remember a time when we utterly relied on a fax machine, mostly for design proof approvals. Back in the (cough, cough, two-thousands, cough…) we relied on couriers to send proofs back and forth to clients for approvals. Federal Express was the go-to, but we also used local couriers…a lot. Yes, we had fax machines then, but a black and white thermograph piece of paper didn’t give an accurate proof. Did you know there was a very short period in the technology timeline when there were color fax machines?! And yes, TLC Creative had one. However, the dawn of the color fax machine, though expensive to use at the time, cut down on those courier expenses dramatically. And now, almost all proofs are sent digitally via email, efax, or some sort of download link. Ah how far we’ve come!
While we haven’t had a physical fax machine connected for many (many) years, we still bid adieu to the fax. Your technology was much appreciated and will (not) be missed.
-Lori 🙂
TPP e210 – Visual Leadership with Todd Cherches
New episode release at The PowerPoint Blog!
This episode, the conversation is about visual design and the application of visual thinking and communication in management and leadership. It involves using visual aids, metaphors, and storytelling to convey a vision and engage an audience effectively. As Todd Churches explains, leadership is about having a vision of a better future and communicating that vision so others can see it too!
Listen here.
Happy Thanksgiving 2024!
The TLC Creative team hopes for a everyone that celebrates the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday to have a wonderful time with family, friends and a full meal! Christie on the TLC Creative presentation design team created this great holiday animation video – in PowerPoint of course! It is only 2 slides; slide 1 is the entrance animation, and slide 2 is the continuous motion animation.
Slide 1 is created with a PowerPoint radial gradient background and combination of PowerPoint shapes and vector graphics (eg. the text), and entrance animation effect applied to all elements.
Close inspection there are a number of objects on this slide, but no visible content in them. Cleverly, these images have been set with 100% transparency so they are there, but not seen. This sets up the slide 2 Morph Transition, watch it again to see the pumpkins and Fall leaves entrance animation!
Slide 2 uses the same radial gradient background, the clever 100% transparent images now 0% transparent/opaque, and a set of ongoing Emphasis animations.
Download the presentation here (250KB).
Happy Thanksgiving from the TLC Creative Services team1
PowerPoint Pixels to Inches – Automatically!
Want to set your PowerPoint slide size based on pixels? While PowerPoint doesn’t make this option obvious, it’s surprisingly easy to do. The little-known secret, regardless of the measurement system set on your computer, you can actually enter pixel dimensions for your slide size just by typing in a number followed by a “px” for a “pixel” size. The pixel measurements will not stay visible because PowerPoint automatically converts to inches (on our U.S. centric computers, or millimeters for those rest-of-world users on the metric system).
Everyone struggles with the “Microsoft Math.” As example, the default slide size is 13.33in. x 7.5in, which is a 16:9 ratio. If measured in pixels @96dpi, this default size would be 1280px x 720px, which works for most presentation applications.
But the “Microsoft Math” when creating a 1920px x1080px, the standard for High Def 16×9, gets a bit confusing. Go to the Slide Size under Design > Customize. Enter the size in pixels and tab or enter and PowerPoint converts the pixels size into inches (or centimeters). The “Microsoft Math” for this conversation example is accurate, but does not match PowerPoint’s default page sizing – confusing. PowerPoint’s default page size for a 16×9 slide is 13.333″ x 7.5″. The PowerPoint conversion of 1920 x 1080 px converts to a slide size of 20″ x 11.25″. Both work, but it would make sense that PowerPoint would convert to its default page size…
Another example could be an Instagram post. The optimal size for a square Insta image is a square 1080 x 1080 px. Enter pixels in the Slide Size options and PowerPoint automatically will convert to 11.25″ x 11.25″. Which means PowerPoint’s native image export will create images at the needed 1080 x 1080 px.
And the pixel conversion works with shapes too! Same concept. In the Format Shape panel, again just change the size in the Height and/or Width box to the desired pixel and hit enter. Automatic conversion.
TIP: To change the height of a 4” square to 720px, enter the new measurement in pixels and PowerPoint will automatically convert to 7.5” tall.
So now you know about a hidden conversion in PowerPoint. You don’t have to do the conversion math on your own, you can let PowerPoint work out the math!
The TLC Creative Team
Thanksgiving 2024 PowerPoint Template
With the U.S. Thanksgiving next week, we at TLC Creative hope everyone has a wonderful time with family. Mike on the TLC Creative presentation design team developed this Thanksgiving themed PowerPoint template, which is free to download and use.
- 16×9 aspect ratio
- Microsoft standard fonts
- PowerPoint standard layouts + a no-text theme layout
- Preset color scheme, text and picture placeholders, font scheme, etc.
Download HERE
Troy @ TLC
The Reluctant Designer’s Field Guide to PowerPoint – A Conversation with Stephy Hogan
In this podcast episode, Troy, Nolan, Sandy, and guest Stephy Hogan delve into the intricacies of where familiar Adobe tools are in PowerPoint. Stephy’s new book, “The Reluctant Designer’s Field Guide to PowerPoint” is now available, and is an amazing resource for both Adobe designers working in PowerPoint, and PowerPoint designers moving to Adobe Creative Suite apps. This episode is a treasure trove of insights and tips, listen now!
Join the conversation through your favorite podcast app, or at the episode 210 webpage that includes the shownotes, links to resources, and photos!
Snagit Panoramic Capture – Even Easier!
Techsmith’s Snagit app is a must-have at TLC Creative. Literally everyone from the design team, to IT manager, to Project Coordinator and Accounting department – everyone has Snagit installed on their computer and uses it daily (note: TLC Creative maintains an Enterprise license for Snagit. It is a great value – and no sponsorship to endorse it!).
One of the go to features is Snagit’s ability to capture documents or webpages that are longer, or wider, than your screen. Start an image capture, scroll as long as needed, and Snagit creates a super long, or super wide, image! For many years the access has been a series of click; expand the task bar, right-click the Snagit icon, go to Presets, and select SCROLLING CAPTURE. (TIP: on my computer setup I added a custom hotkey in the Snagit app and created a button on my Stream Deck to launch that hotkey, making it nearly instantaneous to start a Snagit Panoramic Capture)
TIP: long images, like webpages or apps, are great to use on PowerPoint slides and animate under an image of a computer screen or mobile phone!
TIP: capture extra wide Excel documents using this feature!
Well, Snagit at some point in the past year eliminated the need for something like my Stream Deck hotkey by adding Panoramic Capture as a button directly on its capture bar!
Christie on the TLC Creative design team takes us through how to get this new shortcut. And demonstrates how to use it.
In order to use this new feature, Snagit must be updated to Version 2024.2.4, or higher.
Updated Capture Dialogue Box:
- Capture an image with Snagit by using the PRINT SCREEN button on your keyboard
- A new dialogue box will appear with several capture options
- 1. Image, 2. Video, and the new 3. Panoramic ratio, then info about the pixel size of the capture, reset and close options.
- What we are excited about is the “new” Panoramic Capture button on the Snagit dialog.
TIP: the pixel width and height, and position, of the capture can still be adjusted before the capture type is selected.
- Click the PANORAMIC CAPTURE button and choose to scroll down vertically or horizontally to the right.
- When all of the content is added to the small Snagit capture thumbnail, click DONE.
- Depending on how big the capture is, a progression bar with cute clipart and phrase tells you how things are going for the image to process.
- When processing is complete the Snagit editor opens showing the image.
- Modify the image here (crop, add callouts, merge with other images, etc. – Snagit is powerful and full of useful editing tools).
- Here is my example vertical panoramic capture of the TLC Creative website – as one long image. The capture process took around 25 seconds to create this image – and no needing to manually stitch separate captures together!
