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

Present to Succeed Conference Next Week!

Next week, April 7-8, 2022 is the Present to Succeed conference! Listed as the “biggest online presentation skills conference.” It has a great line up of presenters and a great price – plus all sessions are available for on-demand replay (to registered attendees) for 30 days with the Standard access price, and lifetime for the higher access options.

2022 will be my second time being a part of the presenting team! This year my talk is in the “Presentation Tools” category and titled “9 Powerful Business Presenter PowerPoint Template Tips”.

Get details and register at the conference website.

TIP: the conference agenda is listed in CET time zone – Central European Time. For me, in California, that means the live sessions are 12:00am – 9:00am (making me happy about the on-demand replay!)

Troy @ TLC

By |2022-03-19T10:24:36-07:00April 1st, 2022|Resource/Misc|

3D Sphere – Using PowerPoint Gradients!

With creative use of PowerPoint shapes and gradients 3D objects can be created directly in PowerPoint! Note: these are 2D shapes with a 3D appearance, not true 3D models.

For the final blog post in this PowerPoint gradients series, is a step-by-step process for creating this 3D sphere.

Download the step-by-step slides here.

Troy @ TLC

By |2022-03-28T21:00:33-07:00March 31st, 2022|PowerPoint|

Microsoft MVP Summit

I am honored to have the invite from Microsoft to attend the 2022 Microsoft MVP Summit that is happening this week! It is a virtual 3-day conference, so lots of really great time with the PowerPoint team Program Managers, Devs and the other MVPs for PowerPoint (of course in person hanging out together in Seattle/Bellevue would be better!). As I note every year, almost every conversation is under NDA, so not much I can report here – but I am always encouraged by the compassion and drive the PowerPoint team has for constantly improving the app!

(also, the MVP event artwork is from Microsoft – not something I created)

Troy @ TLC

By |2022-03-28T21:05:40-07:00March 29th, 2022|Personal|

Metallic Gradients

Metallic surfaces are created with gradients. Here are gold-silver-bronze-copper metallic gradients, all created within PowerPoint.

As example, the gold gradient is 6 color stops with asymmetrical spacing.

Download all 4 metallic gradients here.

Troy @ TLC

By |2022-03-07T11:08:51-08:00March 24th, 2022|PowerPoint|

Stylized Bevel Text Bar

Combining long gradients and hard transition gradients within a single shape was used in creating this beveled bar. In addition, because this is a PowerPoint shape, it can become a combination graphic element, and text box.

The bevel effect is created with a set of tight/hard stops on the far left and right. The bevel bar is created with 8 color stops.

Download a slide with the Beveled Callout Bar here.

Troy @ TLC

By |2022-03-07T11:36:55-08:00March 22nd, 2022|PowerPoint|

Create “Hard Transition” Gradients

By using the color stop positions gradients can be designed to be very short transitions, or “hard transitions”, to create new styling options.

As example, this full slide PowerPoint rectangle is created with 10 color stops* going from very dark blue to blue with long/smooth transition and a white hotspot (vertical line) created by positioning the color stops very close to the white creating “hard transitions.”

* TIP: the maximum number of color stops PowerPoint supports is 10.

Download a slide with this gradient fill shape, here.

Troy @ TLC

By |2022-03-07T10:53:09-08:00March 18th, 2022|PowerPoint|

PowerPoint Rainbow Gradient

Gradients from one color to another have nice smooth transitions. As example this 6 color rainbow:

On the design, the gradient fill is composed of 6 equally spaced color stops using the rainbow color spectrum.

Download the Linear Gradient Rainbow PowerPoint shape here.

Troy @ TLC

By |2022-03-07T10:46:27-08:00March 16th, 2022|PowerPoint|

New episode on The Presentation Podcast!

Presentation design work is often developing a PowerPoint template as a standalone project or developing a PowerPoint template that is then used for the presentation design phase. On this episode, Troy & Lori, the co-founders of TLC Creative Services, Inc. chat about PowerPoint template design projects they have each recently completed.

LISTEN HERE.

By |2022-03-14T13:10:18-07:00March 15th, 2022|Resource/Misc|
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