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

Favorite Shortcuts and Apps

I have mentioned before, but one of the wonderful aspects of my projects is always working with different people and interacting with a diversity of talented people. Recently a group of us started talking about favorite applications, add-ins and shortcuts. Everyone seemed to have something that none of the others (all highly experienced graphic designers) had not heard of before.

Taking my cue from that group discussion I have put together a series on some of my favorite Windows short-cuts and applications. Some may be useful, others not so much. And if you have one that goes with one of posts – send me an email – so this series may grow and help us all.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:28:05-08:00October 1st, 2007|Personal, Resource/Misc|

Room With a View

Okay, to tie this in with the theme of the blog, PowerPoint, this occurred while traveling to review presentation content with my client.

I recently stayed in downtown Toronto which along with fantastic restaurants (I HIGHLY recommend the ribs at Baton Rouge) it has the SkyDome ball field. Over the course of three nights I enjoyed baseball games – without leaving my room. Click here to view a quick movie that explains all.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:27:39-08:00September 28th, 2007|Personal|

Stupid Options

I am setting up a new Dell laptop and making sure I like its performance before purchasing a number of them for shows. Well I just ‘discovered’ one of the worst (ie. stupidest) factory settings/features.

Turns out that Dell has a power save feature, set as the default, that disables the network port (NIC). Worse, it does not notify you of it being disabled – it’s just not there! Needless to say I discovered this gem while I was without a power supply and needed to connect the internet. Add one more to my list of factory settings to change.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:27:15-08:00September 26th, 2007|Personal|

Inflight MP3 Player

International flights are great. Larger planes and more amenities. Earlier this week I took this photo of the multimedia player that was on the seatbacks.

I was able to select from a large library of music, or could have watched one of the 30 movies. Still a long time to sit on an airplane, but tech novelties make it a bit more enjoyable. Also, note the USB port on the left.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:26:50-08:00September 24th, 2007|Personal|

Office 2003 SP3 Release

Yesterday Microsoft released the largest Office Service Pack ever (SP3). It covers security, improvements, Vista compatability and interoperability with Ofifce 2007.

Here is some of the facts Microsoft sent me:
• Over 6000 fixes.
• Over 70% focused on security.
• Includes 600+ new hotfixes (including fixes to Watson crashes).
• Includes 50 public updates/security bulletins.
• Includes SP1 and SP2.
• Total of 77 languages and 398 distinct patches.

Easiest way to download is from Microsoft Office Update.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:26:29-08:00September 19th, 2007|Software/Add-Ins|

PowerPoint 2007 for Dummies

As mentioned, I have been entrenched in two large projects that are being developed in PowerPoint 2007. There are tons of great features in the version – and there are tons of old-and-new annoyances, bugs, etc.

I could either fumble through many of the new features, or I could use some of the great resources that are available to all. Over the past few weeks I have referred to “Cutting Edge PowerPoint 2007” from the “For Dummies” series many times.

This great book is written by fellow PowerPoint MVP Geetesh Bajaj. Not really advocating this book over any other, but I am saying everyone – myself included – has some great resources available.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:26:06-08:00September 17th, 2007|Resource/Misc, Software/Add-Ins|

NXPowerlite Soon for Office 2007

Over the past few days I have been testing a beta version of the next NXPowerlite. Tommy over at Neuxpower Solutions contacted me at a perfect time, as I have been working exclusively in PPT 2007 for two large projects and have plenty of test subjects.

NXPowerlite is compression software for PowerPoint, Word and Excel files. I have been using this software for at least 3 years, so it has a proven track record with me. Version 3.5.1(beta) works with the new .xml format of Office 2007 files (ie. pptx, docx, etc.). The results have been great. One file produced an error, but they are still working out the kinks of embedded objects. The rest of my files did as promised – they got small, without visible quality loss. As example:

File 1: lots of large images and several charts created within Powerpoint. Original 20.8MB, after compression (at the ‘excellent’ level) 12MB.

File 2: LOTS of large images. Original 146MB, after compression 44MB!

When I hear the new product is available I will let you know. In the mean time, you can get the details about NXPowerlite here.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:25:39-08:00September 12th, 2007|Software/Add-Ins|

What is it; Macromedia or Adobe Flash?

Mergers and acquisitions even effect the most seemly stable companies. So the question came up that a client could not find the Macromedia Flash Player, would the Adobe Flash Player work?

Both are the same thing. The Flash format was developed by Macromedia, hence – Macromedia Flash (player). Recently Macromedia was purchased by Adobe and now the Macromedia Flash products have been rebranded Adobe Flash.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:25:10-08:00September 10th, 2007|Software/Add-Ins|

Animation Contest Showcase

Received an email from PowerPoint MVP, Tohlz (Shawn)of PPTHeaven about a PowerPoint Animation Contest held by Korea’s PowerPoint Expert Club.

Shawn has posted the 1st and 2nd place presentations on his site. These are worth the effort to download and look at – lots of great animation effects!

Click here to download and view the winning entry by Coolguy7.

(Note: image shows all of the animations on slide)

Click here to download and view the 2nd place entry by Zzagdol.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:24:27-08:00September 7th, 2007|PowerPoint|
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