The PowerPoint® Blog

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

The INSERT Key

When was the last time you purposefully used the Insert key on your keyboard??

Have you ever purposefully used it…

This key can also be disabled, and the easiest way is through Microsoft Word.

In Word 2003:
TOOLS >> CUSTOMIZE >> OPTIONS >> CATEGORIES (on left) >> OVERTYPE >> CURRENT KEYS area >> select INSERT and REMOVE

In Word 2007:
Office Button >> Options >> Advanced >> Editing Options >> Use Overtype Mode (it looks like this is not turned off as the default –yeah!)

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:26:00-07:00October 20th, 2008|Tutorial|

I Create A Lot Images – But Not As Many As It Use To

I had a conversation recently with someone that referenced a post I did back in June (It Takes A Lot Of Images). I showed this capture of my prepared images for 1 presentation:

There is a lot there, especially considering it was all for a 90 minute meeting. But my point is that if we go back to PPT 2000 the number of images would easily be twice as many. Back to PPT XP/2003 it would have at a minimum a 3rd more.

PPT XP/2003 with the semi-transparency features eliminated a large number of accent graphics that needed to be prepared in Photoshop and imported. Now with PPT 2007 I now do a lot of the image preparation (custom bevels, strokes, reflections, shadows, etc.) right in PowerPoint. So with each new version I accomplish more working directly in PPT, minimize the production time and have more material for tutorials and tips for ThePowerPointblog!

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:26:31-07:00October 15th, 2008|Portfolio, Resource/Misc|

Why Not Use PPT 2007 Reflection?

As a quick follow up to last week’s animation sample (and response to a number of emails), here is why I used Photoshop to create the reflection vs. using PPT2007’s new reflection feature.

First, I am a HUGE supporter of Microsoft’s investment adding better visual effects tools. Further, the reflection effect in PPT 2007 is great!

But it has a few limitations…

1. Animation – when you view the entrance animation, note that the reflection comes in just a bit behind the actual lens image. This visually adds depth and another level of animation. There is no way to animate on visual effects PPT creates.

2. It’s all about the angle – PPT 2007’s reflection tool really works best on elements that are flat, or horizontal. As example:


This is the Photoshop reflection inserted as a separate image. Note the reflection starts butted up to image, and can be easily adjusted. It also was manually adjusted to have a bit less of an angle to better match the original graphic (see sample below for more visual example).


This is the PPT2007 refection effect. In this case even with it on the closest setting, there is still a gap. The angle is also based on the rectangle of the placeholder, so the reflection angle is more distorted.

Okay, so this was a really close call if it would be worth going to the extra effort in Photoshop to create separate images. But here is a more pronounced example – and what if I need the reflection on the side of the image…

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:27:03-07:00October 13th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

Entrance Animation (Lens – Part 3)

The animation for this entrance is very straight forward. There are 3 elements:

And there are just 3 animations, each an entrance animation.

1. Lens = Ascend, Fast

2. Reflection = Wipe – From Top, With Previous (but mannually adjusted to begin 9/10th of a second after the lens (set to 0.9), and Fast

3. Lens Flair = Fade, With Previous, Medium

That’s it. All of the effort was really done outside PPT, in Photoshop. Once the elements where one the slide it was pretty easy to apply the few needed animations.

Click here to download a presentation (saved as a .ppt) to see this animated entrance in more detail.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:27:23-07:00October 10th, 2008|Tutorial|

Entrance Animation (Lens – Part 2)

The first step is preparing the .jpg image. Because the template is not a white background, the white background around the lens needs to be removed.

Option 1 is to use PowerPoint’s “Set Transparent Color Tool”

This tool will ‘work’ because the background to be removed is a solid color, not used in the actual graphic. While this is a quick solution, it has a difficult time providing the quality I like.

You can see the small bits of the background that where left behind.

My solution has been to prepare images in Photoshop. With the lens image I dropped out the background by outlining the image with a ****, deleting the background and then saving the image in .png format with transparency. This image was then imported into PowerPoint.

The next step, also in Photoshop, was to duplicate the image, vertically flip it, reduce the opacity to 15%, and feather out/delete 2/3 of it to create a reflection.

The image was saved out as a .png image and imported into PowerPoint and positioned below the lens image.

The final step, again done in Photoshop, was to create a dynamic lens flair image to add a dynamic and rich feel to the overall image.

Note: this is a transparent image, but shown here on black so it can be viewed easier.

Up next – animating it all!

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:27:57-07:00October 8th, 2008|Tutorial|

Entrance Animation (Lens – Part 1)

I have a multipost sample outlining how an animated entrance was created. For today, you can use this link to view a screen capture of the actual animation (really need to figure out how to embed video into the blog…).

To view click here.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:28:25-07:00October 6th, 2008|Tutorial|

Using PPT 2007 Webcast (Nov 18)

Just some advance notice (got some feedback on giving late notice for my last webcast), that on Tuesday, November 18 I will be doing a 1 hour webinar on developing presentations with PPT 2007.

This is an intermediate level overview of working with the new Ribbon interface, taking advantage of the new graphic features for images-text-charts. All while creating a real-world presentation.

For more details click here.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:28:48-07:00October 3rd, 2008|Resource/Misc|

Office 2003 Microsoft Support

OOPS – I HAD A TYPO, WHICH IS CORRECTED NOW (2014, not 2007)
I know there are a lot of people out there still using PPT 2003. This was very evident when talking with people at PPTLive last week. And just as way of record, all of my computers have both PPT 2003 and PPT 2007 installed.

So for all of us PPT 2003 users, here is some important news and dates Microsoft announced last week:

1. Support for PowerPoint 2003 will end October 14, 2008 unless you have upgraded to SP3 (so this means you will need SP3 to install any updates after the middle of this month). SP3 for Office 2003 can be downloaded for free from Microsoft’s site.

2. Support for PowerPoint 2003 is slated to end in April 2014 (so this means no further service packs or updates will be developed and distributed after this date).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:29:23-07:00October 1st, 2008|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|

.Wav .MP3 .SWF What Can Be Embedded?

This is a topic that comes up a lot, with my clients and on the PPT newsgroup.

Basically, only the .wav audio format can be embedded into a PowerPoint presentation. This means the audio file goes with the presentation and nothing but the presentation needs to be distributed. All other audio formats need to be sent along with the presentation for them to work – they are linked.

There is one exception, but it has a number of other issues, and this .swf files. A .swf is a legacy Flash file and it can be embedded into a presentation. As a side note, a .swf is really a .mp3 embedded in a .swf file format.

To give a visual behind this I created a simple 3 slide presentation.

– Slide 1 = embedded .wav
– Slide 2 = linked .mp3
– slide 3 = embedded .swf

You can download it here – 1MB

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:30:33-07:00September 26th, 2008|Tutorial|
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