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

Personal Gaming with an Nintendo Switch Themed PowerPoint Template

Game/Console Background:

  • The Nintendo Switch video game was released worldwide in March 2017. The console itself is a hybrid tablet that can either be docked for use as a home console or used as a portable device. The controllers are wireless with standard buttons and directional sticks along with motion sensing and tactile feedback. When released, in 2017, it was the world’s first hybrid console design. The game library for the Nintendo Switch is practically limitless!

The PowerPoint Template

  • Christie developed a fantastic Nintendo Switch themed full feature PowerPoint template with custom icon bullets, and multiple preset layout with a static version and preset animation version.

Download the Mario Kart template for FREE! Nintendo_Switch_16x9_Template

By |2022-08-20T20:02:52-07:00August 24th, 2022|Templates/Assets|

Going Modern Gaming with an Xbox PowerPoint Template

Game/Console Background:

  • Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. With five video game consoles, many games, a streaming service and an internal game dev studio, Xbox Game Studios. Xbox was first introduced in November 2001. The second console, the Xbox 360, was released in 2005, followed by the Xbox One in November 2013, and the Xbox Series X and Series S in November 2020.

The PowerPoint Template

  • With a dramatic theme slide animation and a library of copy/paste .png images, this is a great PowerPoint template.

Download the Mario Kart template for FREE! Xbox_16x9_Template

By |2022-08-20T19:50:20-07:00August 22nd, 2022|Templates/Assets|

Do You Remember Golden Axe?

Game Background:

  • Golden Axe is a side-scrolling video game released by Sega for arcades in 1989, running on the Sega System 16B arcade hardware. The game casts players as one of three warriors who must free the fantastical land of Yuria from the tyrannical rule of Death Adder, who wields the Golden Axe. The game was well received and later converted for play on many different home systems.

The PowerPoint Template:

  • A full featured PowerPoint template with preset (custom) fonts, color scheme and several animated layouts.

Download the FREE, and awesome classic arcade template, here: Golden_Axe_Arcade_16x9_Template

By |2022-08-20T19:21:53-07:00August 19th, 2022|Templates/Assets|

The Ultimate Classic: Pac-Man!

Game Background:

  • Pac-Man was created by NAMCO, a game company based in Japan. The game was released for arcades in 1980 (eg. full size standalone cabinets).
  • It was created in response to shooter games, with the intention of being a more fun & lighthearted option.
  • It’s without question, one of the greatest video games of all time.
  • Fun trivia: Originally, it’s name was Puck Man, inspired by the Japanese slang word “paku-paku,” which means to munch/chomp food.
  • The plot of the game is that Pac-Man must eat all the dots in the enclosed mazed – while running from the 4 ghosts; Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde. The large dots called “Power Pellets” cause the ghosts to turn blue and while blue they can be eaten by Pac-Man for bonus points. The fruits that appear can also be eaten for bonus points. Once all the pellets have been eaten, Pac-Man advances to the next level.
  • More trivia: the 4th ghost was named Sue in Ms. Pac-man, and Tim in Jr. Pac-man!

The PowerPoint template:

  • Karen on the TLC Creative design took on Pac-man and developed this amazing themed full-feature PowerPoint template.
  • This template features an animation where Pac-Man eats the pellets on the Title & Section Divider layouts.
  • The custom color scheme is taken from the game’s original arcade colors.

Download the template here: Pac-Man_16x9-Template

By |2022-07-29T16:05:09-07:00August 17th, 2022|Templates/Assets|

Mario Kart Template

Game Background (because we had fun researching this blog post series!):

  • The Super Mario Kart racing video game was developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Super Mario Kart was the first game in the ever-evolving Mario Kart series. It was released in Japan and North America, August 27 1992, and in then in Europe the following year in 1993. The Mario character was added four months into the game development. In the original prototype he was dressed a plain overalls – with no moustache.

The PowerPoint Template:

  • Amber on the TLC Creative design team claimed Mario and developed this super fun Mario Kart Deluxe 8 themed full feature PowerPoint template, which features 3 background image versions; Race Course, Tokyo Blur, and Rainbow Road!

Here is the animated theme graphic layout:

Download the Mario Kart template for FREE! MarioKart Themed 16×9 Template

By |2022-07-24T13:12:12-07:00August 11th, 2022|Templates/Assets|

Slidewise’s Font Management is My Favorite Feature!

Neuxpower’s Slidewise PowerPoint add-in has many fantastic tools. When initially testing it, the font audit and management functionality instantly won our team over, and quickly was installed on all computers at TLC Creative Services!

In this sample slide deck, the Slidewise Font Audit shows there are 5 fonts used in presentation.

Doing a review of the master slide confirms Arial is the only font that should be used throughout the presentation.

With this information, Slidewise makes is incredibly easy to quickly consolidate the fonts in the presentation. In a few clicks all instances of Calibri and Century Gothic are changed to Arial by using the 3-dot menu and REPLACE FONTS function.

From the REPLACE FONTS dialog, choose the REPLACE WITH font (Arial in this deck) and REPLACE FONTS button. Note: the presentation will close, process and then reopen to the same slide. This is a bit unsettling (to have your work file close), but know it is part of the process

For Century Gothic, I wanted to see where it is used to determine if it should remain or go. Click any slide in the Slidewise list and PowerPoint jumps to that slide and the text box of that font selected (which is amazing!). Clicking through the Century Gothic instances, all are slide content that should use the theme font, Arial. An easy and quick update using the Replace Fonts dialog.

Investigating the Tw Cen MT font, it is the Master Handout text boxes. First, this is a detail level that would virtually never be identified without the Slidewise Font Audit. These fonts can also be updated to the theme font, Arial.

In a very short time every font used in the presentation is consolidated to a single font – Arial.
TIP: review all slides to confirm line breaks, text fitting in shapes, and overall text formatting has not been adversely impacted!

Get more info about Slidewise here.

Troy @ TLC

By |2025-02-11T12:24:56-08:00July 29th, 2022|Software/Add-Ins|

Slidewise’s Slide Master Function

Slidewise has updated the Master Layout feature, and it can save soooo much time cleaning up a presentation (all that behind the scenes formatting clients do not see, or generally appreciate).

Here is the audit of my sample slide deck – 5 master slides in the presentation.

But the distributed template had 2 master slides, which is what I want to update the client version too.

I am going to focus on the “1_Custom Design” master slide for this example. There are 5 slides using this Master, and there is also 1 unused Master Layout.

The typical workflow (for me) would be to view the slide masters, mouse over each layout to see what slides use that master layout, close the master view, find each noted slide, and change the layout to the correct Master Slide version of the layout. Lots of manual work that can take a lot of time!

With Slidewise I can shorten the workflow to a single process. All 5 slides using the “Custom Design” master are Title and Content layouts. Click the 3-dot menu and REASSIGN SLIDES.

The Reassign Slides dialog is where all the magic happens! The slides to reassign are automatically populated. Then select which SLIDE MASTER to use, and what LAYOUT to use. Click REASSIGN SLIDES and done!

The Custom Design layout is still in the deck because it is Preserved (eg. even if there are no active slides, the Master Slide remains in the list of Master Slides available). Slidewise makes it easy to delete the unused master slide, and remove the Master Slide from the deck.

Repeat for the other Master Slides to remove; use the Slidewise Masters pane to reassign all layouts, delete master if preserved and in a fraction of the time needed for manual identify and change process, the deck has the desired 2 master slides!

Get more info about Slidewise here.

Troy @ TLC

By |2022-07-23T09:07:56-07:00July 27th, 2022|Software/Add-Ins|
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