I work with PowerPoint on a daily basis and I am very honored to be a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP. We have a talented team of presentation designers at TLC Creative Services and ThePowerPointBlog is our area to highlight PowerPoint tips, tricks, examples and tutorials. Enjoy! Troy Chollar

MS Teams – Open in App

The biggest tip I can offer when using Microsoft Teams is to know about, and use, the “Open in App” feature. This assumes working on a computer with desktop Office apps. The default action is to click on the file name, as example PowerPointSamplePresentation.pptx, and it opens directly in Teams using the Teams version of PowerPoint (which is pretty much PowerPoint for web).

BEFORE clicking on the file name, (1) click the 3-dot menu, or right-click the file name, (2) click OPEN on the popup menu, and (3) click OPEN IN APP. This will change the behavior of opening the presentation directly in the Teams version of PowerPoint and instead, open the presentation in the full desktop app (with all features and toolbars – say yes to the QAT!).

IF you have clicked the file name and the presentation did open in Teams, click the “Open in Desktop App” in the toolbar. This will launch the desktop app and open the file there. Note, the presentation is still connected to teams. Any edits are saved to the Teams file, and others can collaborate on the file.

TIP: the default action of launching a file in Teams can be changed! Click the three dots (or right click) the file name, click “Open”, then click “Change default”

In the pop-up dialog, select “Desktop app” and SAVE.

Now clicking on file will open the file automatically in the desktop app! If you want to open the file directly in Teams, use the 3-dot menu.

Troy @ TLC

By |2021-11-15T11:06:00-07:00December 3rd, 2021|PowerPoint|

Let’s Talk Microsoft Teams This Month

The TLC Creative Services team has over the past 2 years gone from using Microsoft Teams as a novelty, to a more forced use when Microsoft killed off Skype for Business, and now it has become integrated into our daily workflow (and we like it). Like anyone that uses an app a lot, you cringe when you see others not using that app to its fullest. So, here are 10 Microsoft Teams tips to make your use of it hopefully better 🙂

Troy @ TLC

By |2021-11-15T10:51:56-07:00December 1st, 2021|Resource/Misc|

Rotating the Feathers

From the previous “Turkey” post, here is the secret to the feather animation.

Morph moves everything based on the object center.  To accomplish the tail feathers fanning out and looking natural, each tail feather needed to have a ‘ghost’ feather added to create a center point that is at the end of the visible feather.

In the above image, the orange feather (really two shapes grouped to make the feather design) is what is seen in the illustration. I duplicated the lighter color orange, which is the larger feather element. Then flipped it and positioned to be a mirror image. Then group all 3 elements. The end of the orange feather is now the center point of the object. The final step is selecting what is grey in the above image and changing it to no fill (eg. transparent).

Play this video to see the center point in use. Note, this animation is the SPIN effect, which also uses the object center. The black dot shows the center point we want the animation to rotate from.

  • The left feather is the one above, with the mirror image feather in the group still grey so it can be seen.
  • The middle feather is the same as the left, but the grey feather is set to no fill (eg. transparent)
  • The right feather is the original feather, which is spinning, but not in accomplishing the visual needed as it is spinning based on its center point (the red dot)

Troy @ TLC

By |2021-11-11T08:15:52-07:00November 29th, 2021|PowerPoint|

Happy Thanksgiving!! Having Fun with PowerPoint and Morph Today

Happy Thanksgiving (to everyone in the United States)!!

Using morph as the sole animation, I created this fun animation in under 10 minutes. If using motion paths and other “traditional” animation options this would have taken greater than an hour. So, this is really a composite of slide animations; Morph with a very fast .10 second transition duration and all slides set to auto advance instantly.

The only negative to this style of animation is slide count. This 12 second animation is 32 slides.

Troy @ TLC

By |2021-11-11T08:05:04-07:00November 25th, 2021|PowerPoint|

The Office Toolbar – New – Collapse and Expand Options

Here is my standard PowerPoint toolbar configuration. Tabs + Ribbon (toolbar) + QAT

With the Office Visual Refresh, the view options. Click the icon in lower right of the TOOLBAR to show the display options. And my standard toolbar configuration above is the ALWAYS SHOW RIBBON option.

Clicking the FULL-SCREEN MODE option removes everything in the toolbar; tabs, toolbar, QAT. Note: click the very top of the screen, or PowerPoint app window, and the full toolbar temporarily is added over the slide edit view (then click the right icon to show the display options menu).

 

SHOW TABS ONLY is basically the same view we had previously when the toolbar was collapsed.

And now the SHOW/HIDE QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR is an option in all 3 of the toolbar display options.  By hiding the QAT, here is my standard toolbar setup without the QAT available (something I would never do!)

Troy @ TLC

 

 

 

 

 

 

By |2021-11-15T09:46:30-07:00November 22nd, 2021|PowerPoint|

Collapse/Expand PowerPoint’s Toolbar – the Legacy Buttons

This blog post is more for our long term memory as the Office Visual Refresh has changed way the toolbar visibility has changed. So when you look at the toolbar (after the Visual Refresh has installed) and think, “this looks different” – well it does and this is what it previously looked like. Two buttons; collapse and a pin to keep it expanded.

Troy @ TLC

By |2021-11-15T09:26:27-07:00November 18th, 2021|PowerPoint|

Lori Chollar on The Presentation Podcast!

Lori Chollar of TLC Creative Services takes control of The Presentation Podcast with Sandra Johnson for an amazing conversation about the presentation industry from the women’s perspective. Join Lori Chollar, Sandra Johnson, Jude Barak, Wendy Gates-Corbett and Yulia Barnakova for a conversation they recorded at the Presentation Summit!

Listen to the podcast here.

By |2021-11-16T07:35:58-07:00November 16th, 2021|Resource/Misc|

New PowerPoint Animation!? Basic Zoom Effect Options

So, I do not know the answer to this, but I believe this is something new in the PowerPoint animation options!

Maybe the better question to start with is, does anyone recall if the IN SLIGHTLY and OUT SLIGHTLY effect options to the BASIC ZOOM animation have been there?

I do not recall these options being available and have long used a combination animation of a Zoom + Fade to create the effect (Tip: use the Brightslide PPT add-in “My Animations” to create a quick to apply library of custom animations!). I also reached out to Steve Rindsberg and sent him the above screen capture. He looked in a few legacy installs of PowerPoint and commented that the In Slightly and Out Slightly effect options were not there. So… is this an exciting new addition, or something I just cannot remember was there?

Troy @ TLC

By |2021-11-13T10:56:45-07:00November 15th, 2021|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|

Windows 11 Date Calculator!

I am getting familiar with Windows 11 and discovered this gem. I am assuming it is new with Windows 11, but maybe it has been there for awhile and I have been missing out!

Here is the Windows calculator (I seem to use it multiple times each day).

Clicking the upper left menu shows the list of various types of calculators. I discovered the DATE RANGE calculator function, and I am thrilled!

Select DATE CALCULATION. Pick a starting date and an end date from calendar pickers. The bottom row instantly displays the number of days in the range selected. No more counting days in the Outlook calendar!!

Troy @ TLC

By |2021-11-04T06:47:40-07:00November 11th, 2021|Resource/Misc, Software/Add-Ins|

Convert Keynote file to PowerPoint File Online, Free and Fast!

Do I know Apple Keynote for Presentation design? Absolutely!

Is Apple Keynote your main presentation design app? No, not for a long time.

Can I give you a Keynote file? Absolutely, but all of our Mac computers are at the studio and everyone is working remote, so I will convert the file to PowerPoint.

Now, the big question is, how do you convert an Apple Keynote file to PowerPoint if you do not have a Mac computer available? The answer is easy – and free – and fast – and very accurate conversion! I use cloudconvert, an online file convert app. The website lists they support “nearly all audio, video, document, ebook, archive, image, spreadsheet, and presentation formats.” And I have used this resource for many file types – and just last week, for converting another Keynote presentation to PowerPoint format so I could integrate a presenters slides into the master show presentation (which is being run in PowerPoint).

Go to cloudconvert.com

In the CONVERT menu select PRESENTATION and KEY (Keynote)

In the TO menu select PPTX (PowerPoint)

Click SELECT FILE

Click CONVERT

When done processing, download the .pptx version of the presentation to work with (knowing the conversion process does not provide a full feature PowerPoint template file, no matter how good or bad the Keynote file is setup).

Troy @ TLC

By |2021-11-04T06:48:15-07:00November 9th, 2021|Resource/Misc, Software/Add-Ins|
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