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

3D Holiday Card Layout – Created in PowerPoint!

The previous blog post sharing the TLC Creative 2023 Christmas Card had a nice 3D layout to the card. That layout was entirely created in PowerPoint!

Step 1 was adding images of the outside and inside print layouts. Then cropping the image to just one side.

Next is to use PowerPoints’ 3D perspective options. Apply to the image.

Duplicate the image and adjust the crop to display the other half.

Update the 3D perspective to the opposite perspective.

Now move the two perspective images to align.

Group both images and add a PowerPoint drop shadow.

Done! Repeat for the interior layout using the desired 3D perspective (see my 3D perspective applied to the inside and outside layouts on the previous post).

Troy @ TLC

 

By |2024-01-31T11:45:34-08:00February 1st, 2024|Tutorial|

TLC Creative’s 2023 Holiday Card

It is the unofficial rule holiday decorations are okay until the end of January – right? Well, that is the rule I am going with as we near the end of January. I am sharing the TLC Creative Services 2023 Christmas card that was sent out to many of our friends and companies we get to work with.

And a quick look at the house all lit up for the holidays.

Troy @ TLC

By |2025-10-27T13:17:59-07:00January 30th, 2024|Personal|

The Noun Project SVGs

The Noun Project has a direct integration with PowerPoint and as a presentation designer is invaluable. If unfamiliar the Noun Project has “the most diverse collection of free icons and stock photos with over 5 million art-quality icons and free photos.”

  • side note: I have had a paid Noun Project plan for many years, and did know they offered images/photos! There are separate plans for icons and photos. Offering looks good, but not something we use at TLC Creative. 

Three great callouts:

  1. It is an add-in that makes it entirely accessible directly in PowerPoint.
  2. Icons can be downloaded as raster .png (transparent background!) or vector .svg (yay, scalable, color change and edit directly in PowerPoint!).
  3. It is budget friendly at ~$40 year for unlimited use.

TO GET STARTED

  • Under the insert tab select “Get Add-ins” and search for “Noun Project”
  • Once added the add-in is installed, use the ICONS button on PowerPoint’s INSERT tab. Review current pricing and plans on the Noun Project website.
  • Click the ICONS button and the Noun Project interface opens as a Pane in PowerPoint on the right side. The first time you open the Noun Project pane, click LOG IN TO NOUN PROJECT and add your account credentials.
  • note: if you have not paid for the service, the option to create a free login by clicking on the login will then allow icons searches, but they are “locked”. 
  • After logging into your Noun Project account, search for any icon.
  • Select the icon to see larger, choose a color, and insert.
  • If you have selected to import .svg vector icons (and you should!), the ability to change the fill color – outline and other formatting options are the same as formatting a PowerPoint rectangle.
  • Additionally, inserted Noun Project icons can be ungrouped – which will display this message (click YES).
  • Ungroup a 2nd time and the icon will be broken into individual pieces.
  • Advanced shape design can also be done by right-clicking, selecting EDIT POINTS, and modifying the shape (aka “Illustrator-lite”)

Troy @ TLC

By |2024-01-23T19:59:22-08:00January 25th, 2024|PowerPoint, Software/Add-Ins, Tutorial|

Error Message when Opening a PowerPoint File from MS Teams

Working a set of our TLC Creative show computers I had this frustrating error when attempting to open the MS Teams based presentation:

I confirmed MS Teams was logged in with my credentials. Confirmed I can access the Team, folder and file. I also confirmed I was able to open the PowerPoint file in the Teams viewer and web-based browser version of PowerPoint. But I did not confirm PowerPoint/MS Office was logged in with my account – the user seen in the upper right of PowerPoint.

Each time I went through the process of logging myself as the profile for Office to use, the above error taunted me (argh!!). The solution, which I have confirmed works on yet another computer having the same Microsoft seizure, is to SIGN OUT of all profiles. Then sign in with your credentials. I have no idea why Office errors out when trying to login your profiles sometimes, but it does. And I now have a solution that works (but sorry to everyone else that needs to also use that computer and must go through the login profile process vs. just clicking to change profiles…).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2024-01-23T19:29:08-08:00January 23rd, 2024|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc, Software/Add-Ins|

Look Over There! (3)

The concept of the subject looking toward the content is not limited to people. Vehicles, roads, and animals all apply.

We can, all within PowerPoint, easily go from this:

To this:

Just some presentation design ideas for thought

Troy @ TLC

By |2024-01-09T17:39:02-08:00January 18th, 2024|PowerPoint|

Look Over There! (2)

The previous post had these two (problem) slides.

The first image is an easy fix. The photo has no text, car steering wheel, or wedding band visible – all things that clearly show an image is in the wrong orientation. Using the FLIP HORIZONTAL in PowerPoint, updates the slide, and creates the reassuring visual of the subject looking at the slide content.

The second image is more difficult. The words on the white board prevent the image from being flipped. So we can be creative with the layout and “flip” the content to make the image work. We moved the bullet list to the left and the photo to the right, creating the reassuring visual of the subject looking at the slide content.

Troy @ TLC

By |2024-01-09T17:32:13-08:00January 11th, 2024|PowerPoint|

Look Over There! (1)

What is wrong with these slides?

Maybe not “wrong” – but not aligning with design best practices. If you noted that the people in photos are looking away from the content!

Troy @ TLC

By |2024-01-09T17:23:38-08:00January 9th, 2024|PowerPoint|

First Podcast Episode of 2024!

As we start 2024, The Presentation Podcast is looking back at 2023, specifically favorite presentation project, non-PowerPoint project, podcast episode – tech tip – guest, and more! Join Troy, Sandy and Nolan for this great podcast episode! Listen here.

By |2024-01-02T09:42:00-08:00January 2nd, 2024|Resource/Misc|
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