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

Simultaneously View & Edit Presentations

For final edits on a presentation I take advantage of dual monitors, with PowerPoint on one screen and the slideshow on the other. As I adjust elements I can see the updates immediately.

If you do not have a dual monitor setup, you can do something similar by running the presentation in a smaller window by holding down the CTRL key while clicking the SLIDE SHOW icon in the lower left. You can move back-and-forth between the slideshow and edits while seeing the updates immediately.
CTRL + Click to start show in window

Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T11:17:41-07:00January 20th, 2006|Tutorial|

Add Captions/Subtitles To Movies – Easily!

With Today’s realease of Camtasia 3.1 a number of great tools and output options have been added. One of the very cool features is an intuitive and powerful captioning feature. PowerPoint MVP Glenna Shaw has created a set of examples that show the results. The movie file is from one of my clients (SWOT Expert). I supplied the movie and text file of the narration. Glenna created English Captions and with the help of PowerPoint MVPs Ute Simon and Enric Manas translation, she created German and Spanish subtitles.

The process is so streamlined in Camtasia that Glenna told me all three versions were created in less than 1.5 hours!

Check out the samples here:
English Captions
Spanish Subtitles
German Subtitles

Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T11:17:21-07:00January 18th, 2006|Software/Add-Ins|

Turn Off PopUp Toolbar If Not Used

During church service I noted a very distracting onscreen prescence. Perhaps you have seen it too. During a slide show do you see this in the lower left corner:
Onscreen Navigation PopUp Toolbar

If you do not know what it is or how to use it, I recommend turning it off. The PopUp Toolbar is designed for onscreen interactivity (advance, go back, notate, end, etc.) and is especially useful for tablet PC operation. But the vast majority of people (myself included) have no use for this tool. It is easy to turn off (more…)

By |2016-09-16T11:16:59-07:00January 16th, 2006|Tutorial|

Files That Will Not Go Away

Ever try to delete a file (any type of file) and instead get a message like this:

Delete File Error Message

I had one that just would not go away. Very frustrating. After a bit of searching the web it was easy to see I was not the only one with troublesome files. I solved the problem (eg. deleted the file) with a free little application called unlocker.

Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T11:16:23-07:00January 14th, 2006|Resource/Misc|

2006 Detroit Auto Show Kia Presentation

Today the presentation I have been working on for the past several weeks went off great! The Detroit Auto Show hosts “press days” before it opens to the public. On these days all of the auto manufacturers wow the press with keynote speeches, incredible staging and unveiling of new cars and of course great PowerPoint presentations! This year I am working with Kia as they recap their steady growth and unveil the new “Soul” concept sport utility vehicle.

Just two posts ago I mentioned OfficeFX for it motion backgrounds, transitions and text antialiasing. I used it extensively on this presentation.

Troy @ TLC

Here are a few photos of my work at the ’06 Auto Show: (more…)

By |2016-09-16T11:15:38-07:00January 9th, 2006|PowerPoint|

NXPowerlite 2.1

NXPowerLite has released version 2.1 of their PowerPoint optimizing program. I have spoken with the guys at NXPowerLite for the past few years and earlier this year I tested version 2.0. On that version I noted that almost my entire wishlist had been incorporated! Most notable is support for .png with transparency images. Now v2.1 overcomes CMYK problems and a few other fixes.

I highly recomend it as a solution for oversized presentation files. Get it here.

Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T11:15:18-07:00January 8th, 2006|Software/Add-Ins|

From Good to WOW with OfficeFX

I just finished adding a new project overview to the TLC Creative website. It includes a movie of a walk-in looping presentation I developed for an event, which highlighted the event sponsors. Online is a write-up and movie that shows how it was transformed from good to WOW!

Basically, after developing a custom PowerPoint presentation, I used OfficeFX‘s ability to render realtime 3D moving backgrounds and transitions to add that extra something special! To see the write-up and movie click here.

Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T11:15:01-07:00January 7th, 2006|Portfolio, Software/Add-Ins|

Good Company, Bad Idea

Mac’s are great. When we started our design firm years ago, we invested nearly everything we billed out on new Mac systems and design software (it is almost unfair how economical things are today for new designers!). But we have had to move with Corporate America to a Windows OS world, so there are just a few Mac’s around the office these days.

But even good companies do some bad/stupid things. Today I get a message that I have an old version of Quicktime and it requires me to download and install the new version. No problem, I comply. But a mandatory install of an unwanted iTunes to use Quicktime! The must-install-additional-software-and-tolerate-the-running-advertisements as it installs just irks me.

Oh, and after all is installed, you can go into add/remove programs and uninstall iTunes. 🙂

Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T11:14:42-07:00January 6th, 2006|Personal|

Camtasia 3.1

Just received word that Camtasia Studio 3.1 will be released on January 18! I have been beta testing this new version for the past month and it has some fantastic options and results (many can be seen on the movie samples found throughout the TLC Creative website).

Here are a few of the options that I think make this a standout upgrade:
1. Ability to output Flash 8/.flv movie format
2. Ability to create left column containing video of speaker with interactive table of contents and PowerPoint presentation unhindered on right side
3. Incredible captioning tools

Click here to see a side-by-side presentation (speaker is Dave Ulrich, used with permission)

Troy @ TLC

— And TechSmith sent out wonderful Christmas cards with a fantastic poster of “2006 Reasons To Be Thankful.” Amazingly I made the list (lower right brown section)! Get it here.

By |2016-09-16T11:14:20-07:00January 5th, 2006|Software/Add-Ins|
Copyright TLC Creative Services, Inc | All Rights Reserved
Go to Top