The PowerPoint® Blog Archives - Page 56 of 230

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

What is Google Slides?

Google Slides is a web-based (aka, online) presentation design software offered by Google as part of their Google Drive service.

Presentations can be created and run as slideshows from any desktop through all major browsers, as well as mobile device support. Because it is a cloud based app, being online is a key part of use – however, Google Slides does have an offline mode when used through the Chrome browser.

Presentations can be downloaded as a PowerPoint file, PDF, or different image types (jpg, png, svg). One big feature is while being a web app, it has a Presenter View! And there is also a live audience Q&A feature.

My opinion, any presentation can look amazing with the assistance of a presentation design expert. While Google Slides does not offer the breadth of features and template/master slide options of PowerPoint, it is a viable solution. I see it used primarily as a good option if for simple content presentations without a lot of flash. I am not a fan of stock templates and themes, which may be why Google Slides does not offer an abundance (26 as of June 2020). There are animation and video options. If you have a chart heavy presentation, Google Slides is a tedious process of going outside Google Slides and working through Google Sheets for all edits, revisions and formatting.

Sharing and co-authoring are super simple with seamless integration with Google Drive. And, Google Slides is free!

Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2020-06-30T22:35:44-07:00July 10th, 2020|Software/Add-Ins|

PPT Photo Album + Brightslide Match Size

I hinted at this great design trick in the previous post. Let me walk through process in more detail. The goal is to quickly (within minutes of receiving a folder of images) build a slideshow of full frame images, that are cropped and centered, can run as a photo loop.

Step 1: Use a native PowerPoint add-in (that has been hidden in the app for literally years and years). Go to INSERT > PHOTO ALBUM drop down > NEW PHOTO ALBUM

Step 2: Select FILE/DISK > navigate to folder of images > select your images > CREATE

This will create a NEW document with a title page as page 1. Delete page 1.

Then go to the BrightSlide tab > BATCH > and resize all images.

Step 3: Select all slide > apply a slide transition of your choice (FADE is a safe and professional default option) > set slides to auto advance after 8 seconds (or speed your feel is best for your meeting)

Step 4: Go to SLIDE SHOW > SET UP SLIDE SHOW > select LOOP UNTIL ESCAPE.

Done! A looping photo slide show built in just a few minutes!

A few more details on the BrightSlide resize image feature. First, it is wonderful! Second, it was added into Brightslide within days of detailing what I thought would be a great add-in tool for many presentation designers (thank you Jamie Garroch and BrightCarbon development team!). What this add-in is doing is scaling each image to fill the slide, adding a crop so the image remains the size of the slide, and centering the image within the crop.

As a final step, which is optional, I run NXPowerlite to resave the images to their crop at an optimized 1920×1080 for an easy to manage file size (because generally I am receiving the images from a professional photographer, and while the images look great, they are huge file sizes!).

The BrightSlide add-in for PowerPoint can be downloaded for free at: https://www.brightcarbon.com/brightslide/

Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2020-06-30T22:24:20-07:00July 8th, 2020|Tutorial|

Podcast 105 announce

A new episode of The Presentation Podcast is available today! Join Troy, Sandy and Nolan as they test PowerPoint Live Presentations, talk about their experience and things to be aware of when you use it).

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify and Soundcloud – or search The Presentation Podcast for “Presentation Live is Here!” or go direct to the episode page here: https://thepresentationpodcast.com/podcast/105

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2020-07-06T10:01:59-07:00July 7th, 2020|Resource/Misc|

BrightSlide Image To Fit Slide

The BrightSlide PowerPoint add-in has so many great features it is impossible to say what the “favorite” feature it. But I will list this as one of my top 3! BrightSlide’s ‘Match Size’ tool is brilliant.

Through a series of emails with the BrightSlide lead developer I detailed the process I would go through on virtually every large presentation event to create a custom photo loop for the meeting walk-in, generally being given a folder of images with minutes until doors open! The result was an addition to the Match Size options (thank you BrightSlide!).

The scenario is, an image does not scale to fill the full slide. The fastest solution is now to select the image, go to the BrightSlide tab, and click the Match Size button. There are actually 3 options in the drop-down: Match Size, Match Width, Match Height. But the top level, Match size, button is all that is needed.

Select the image, click Match Size and the image is not distorted or stretched, but it is cropped to fill the slide. AND it is centered within the crop! Position within the crop can be adjusted by selecting the image and the crop tool to adjust what is the live/visible image.

If resizing all photos in a slide deck, such receiving a folder of images, importing them into a slide deck using PowerPoint Photo Album feature, then use BrightSlides BATCH tool to apply the resize and crop to every image in the deck instantly!

Using the Batch tool brings up this dialogue, where you want to select yes.

The end result is nearly instantly created beautiful full bleed images that fit the slidet!

The BrightSlide add-in for PowerPoint can be downloaded for free at: https://www.brightcarbon.com/brightslide/

Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2020-06-18T13:17:32-07:00July 6th, 2020|Software/Add-Ins, Tutorial|

Poll Everywhere’s LiveSlides is being Retired

Poll Everywhere is an audience response system (ARS) that we have used at TLC Creative for many years. LiveSlides is from the same company and it’s core mission was to “embed any website seamlessly in PowerPoint and Keynote slides,” which does very well.

I think it was mostly used for adding YouTube videos, social media feeds (which was a great option), interactive maps, and polling. It offers an impressive list of integrations where it can get content from all of these sites into PowerPoint slides:

Alas, Poll Everywhere has announced LiveSlides is being retired.

But for those of us that are Poll Everywhere users, it is not a bad announcement! The macOS version of Poll Everywhere already includes all of the LiveSlides features. The Windows version has some of the integrations and I am hopeful it will be built out to include them all as well.

More info at the Poll Everywhere website.

Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2020-06-18T14:44:53-07:00July 3rd, 2020|Resource/Misc|

PowerPoint Live: Personalized Subtitles for Every Viewer

As talked about in the previous post, PowerPoint has two different options for displaying live transcription. One from PowerPoint, which displays a single selected language on the presentation screen, and another as part of the Presentation Live feature which adds the transcription to the viewers device, leaving the presenters slides clear of additional content. This will likely never fully replace live spoken translators, but for remote meetings and audience joining in from virtually anywhere, it’s a fantastic alternative.

[KGVID]https://thepowerpointblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/unnamed-file.mp4[/KGVID]

One amazing feature I only referenced in the earlier posts, is that every audience member has the ability to switch the transcription to the language of their choice. It is a very intuitive interface, just click the language button in the lower left (on a mobile device in portrait orientation) and choose from the list of 60+ languages.

[KGVID]https://thepowerpointblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/PresentationLive-3.mp4[/KGVID]

One nice feature, that is a bit more hidden, is that if the audience member speaks the same language as the presenter, they may not want to have the transcription scrolling up as it repeats what the presenter is saying. Click the same language button and in the upper right is a toggle to turn the live transcription on or off.

Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2020-06-30T22:44:32-07:00July 1st, 2020|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|

PowerPoint Subtitles (Different than Presentation Live Translation)

We are super excited about all the features included with Microsoft’s new release of PowerPoint Live Presentations; remote audience seeing your slides and hearing the presenter on their mobile device, seeing earlier slides, and – most impressive of all – live transcription of the presenter’s speech in the language choice of each viewer.

But the last item, live transcription, can be confusing. Presentation Live’s transcription is different than the existing PowerPoint Subtitles (which is also a live transcription feature).

I believe both services are powered by the same engine (which does a very good job, and is improving with expanded use). Here is the way I am describing each, and how they differ:

PowerPoint Subtitles – These display on the presenter’s slide in one selected language.

PowerPoint Live’s Live Transcription – These display on the screen of anyone logged in and viewing the presentation. They do not display on the presenter’s screen, because everyone can choose what language is displayed on their own screen.

Both features need access to the presenter’s microphone, and both have the ability to instantly translate into 60+ languages .

See the previous few posts for examples of Presentation Live’s live transcription. For the balance of this post, I am going to overview the PowerPoint Subtitles feature.

When you start a presentation with subtitles turned on, this info dialog greets you (same cartoon character styling as the Presentation Live QR Welcome screen)

Before the slide show starts, most of the subtitle settings can be accessed directly in the ribbon. After the slide show starts, clicking CHECK SETTINGS from the info dialog gives you another chance to set details for how the subtitles will display. As example, from the ribbon and check settings dialog, where the subtitle text will display can be set.

Click MORE SETTINGS (WINDOWS) and the Windows Closed Captions settings options opens (assuming you are running PowerPoint for Windows). This is a great clue that many of the new services are not exclusive to Office, but a collaboration among several Microsoft development teams.

And here is the sample presentation in slide show using the default “Below Slide” position. Note: I am not a fan of how this was implemented. The slide maintains the correct aspect ratio, is sized down to make room for 3 lines of subtitle text and leaves the unused area on the left and right as part of a thick black border. I understand my ideas for making this more eloquent require a lot of coding, but I cannot justify this simple approach as an onscreen display for a professional meeting.

If I was to use PowerPoint subtitles in a professional meeting, I would have a template that integrates a clear area in the lower section and use the BOTTOM (OVERLAID) position. The slides would remain full screen, the sub-titles would have a branded area to display on, and the presenters would need to adhere to the clear area in their slide design.

The important point is, PowerPoint Subtitles and Presentation Live transcription are different features, display the translation in different locations, and can actually be used at the same time (I will leave it to you to experiment with that idea 🙂 ).

Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2020-06-29T12:20:56-07:00June 29th, 2020|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|

PowerPoint Live Gotcha’s

PowerPoint Live is an amazing addition to presenting with PowerPoint. I am excited for the potential of this feature in use, especially with the sudden surge of online and remote meetings and conferences. As side note, just this week at TLC creative, a client conversation was about how to handle multiple languages for their meeting. At past, onsite events, there was translation booths at the back of the ballroom with translators providing live translation. But in the new virtual meeting world, this is a different process. I tossed out the idea that Microsoft’s new Presentation Live feature may be an option. Reading a transcription is not as powerful as translation, but PowerPoint Live is now a very easy-to-offer solution for a virtual meeting. No decision on this meeting yet, but this new feature has already made it into project conversations for me.

As great as PowerPoint Live is, there are many “gotchas” we have already discovered.

Setup and Logistics

You need to use an updated browser. Not only will Presentation Live not work, if you are the presenter, the option may not even be available. The official list of supported browsers is Microsoft Edge version 80+, Google Chrome version 72+, Mozilla Firefox version 68+, or Opera version 60+ on Windows or Mac. Currently Safari is not supported for presenters, but works fine for audience members.

The presenter must have a Microsoft 365 account, but the audience does not need a subscription, or need to be signed in to a Microsoft account to participate. But it’s not that easy.

There are two “share” options, my organization and anyone. The default setting for sharing a presentation is “Only People in my Organization.” This means anyone connecting to see the presentation will need to sign into their Microsoft 365 account to prove they are in the presenter’s organization. So much for the note about the audience does not even need a Microsoft account, now they need a Microsoft 365 account, with the same domain.

To enable anyone, with or without a Microsoft account to watch the presentation, the presenter must change the audience option to “Anyone” (every time they start a presentation).

Running the Presentation

Presentations must run from PowerPoint Online. And PowerPoint Online has two options for the toolbar: Expanded Ribbon, which is more similar to the desktop app, and the Simplified Ribbon, which is a very streamlined set of options. The PRESENT LIVE button is in the SLIDE SHOW tab (which makes sense) on the Simplified Ribbon!

In the Expanded Ribbon, it’s more hidden. Go to the VIEW tab to find it.

When the presentation starts, you’ll see this Welcome Screen that allows audience members to join your presentation by just pointing their phone or tablet at the QR code (the process is easy and works flawlessly – even if I am not a fan of the cartoon like styling that does not align to my clients corporate style guide).

The slide show pop up tool bar has a new icon and options. Show the Welcome Screen again any time. Go to the Live Menu and select SHOW WELCOME SCREEN AGAIN.

You can also copy the URL link and send as a quick email or chat.

The audience has the option to send “Reactions”in real time while you are presenting (small emojis that float up on the presenter’s screen).

These only show up on the presenter’s screen. The audience viewing on their own devices do not see them. Of course, if the presenter is at a large meeting with the presentation on the screens, or if they are screen sharing their monitor, then everyone can see what you see, which includes the floating emojis. TIP: If you find the emoji reactions distracting or just don’t like seeing them, they can be turned off in the Live Menu (note that audience members can still send them; you just won’t see them).

Also important to note is the difference between pausing the presentation broadcast and ending the presentation session. You can pause the presentation any time you click away from PowerPoint. Pausing stops any animation and stops the live transcription. The presenter see this yellow band below the Ribbon:

The audience will see the last slide before the presentation was paused (so make it a good one!) and a notification that the presentation is paused.

ENDING a presentation clears the screen for anyone watching and the URL/QR code is no longer valid. The presenter needs to click the END SESSION button to truly end the presentation (vs. pause it). TIP: A presentation can be paused for 30 minutes, and then its broadcast auto-expires. There is also a countdown in the yellow notification bar.

The Audience Perspective

Viewing a presentation on a cell phone can be portrait (vertical) or landscape (rotated to horizontal) orientation. We found in landscape view, the transcription text seems finicky and does not always display on the screen.

One of the very exciting features is the ability for the audience to go back to a previous slide on their device, any time. Equally important is they cannot get ahead of the presenter and see upcoming slides. If the presenter goes back a few slides, everyone goes back a few slides. That slide is the ‘current slide’ no one can advance past, even if slides past it were shown earlier. When someone goes back to see an earlier slide, a CURRENT SLIDE button is active as a one click way to quickly get in sync with the presenter.

Warning: you may accidentally scare someone! Presentation Live tries to be helpful, but I feel showing the audience how many slides are in the deck may be a scare for some. As example, you have a sales deck of 400 slides, but the presentation is only using 20 of them. The audience sees the total number at 400 (and they fear a ‘death by PowerPoint’ meeting is happening)!

Also be aware, everyone will know where you are (sort of). Again, maybe this is a little too helpful. Presentation Live displays what your local time is (or is this the local time of the person viewing? – something I need to test). To me, this makes it easy for the audience to calculate how long you have been on each slide…

TIP: a mobile device screen is small. Good news, viewers can zoom in on the slides! Pinch to zoom is supported.

Let everyone know they can turn off the transcription feature – they are in control of that. It is in the language selection dialog, on the audience interface, and they can turn off transcription.

Evaluations and feedback. Yes, every audience member is shown a Microsoft feedback form (no we cannot change its content – or styling – or turn it off). Don’t worry, Microsoft is not keeping your presentation evaluations. Presenters receive an email after the presentation with the feedback (see previous posts for an example). The Microsoft Forms are not kept on Microsoft servers for long, I believe under 10 days.

Final Thoughts

Last, and perhaps the biggest question to those new to PowerPoint Live (oh wait, it’s brand new – that’s all of us!), is; what is ‘present live’? What is presentation live? What is PowerPoint Live Presentations? I feel Microsoft does an overall poor job in naming products (how many different services are called the same name; Skype, OneDrive, Office 365, Windows…). Maybe someone noticed this trend and decided to go in the opposite direction? Now we have 1 feature with three different names… For the record, the official name of the live presentation feature is PowerPoint Live Presentations, but it goes by the shorthand of PowerPoint Live. And ‘present live’ is the action you take to begin your live presentation.

Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2020-06-25T21:57:31-07:00June 26th, 2020|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|

How to Present with Presentation Live

PowerPoint’s Live Presentations are bound to be a game changer for virtual and remote meetings. As promised, today is about the process of setting up a Live Presentation.

Currently the presentation must be open in PowerPoint online (I am hopeful that the ability to open a OneDrive/Teams hosted presentation in desktop PowerPoint will be an option soon). TIP: to move a file to OneDrive and open in PowerPoint online, here is a very quick how-to: Open the presentation, go to File > Share > Share with People, and enter your Office email if PowerPoint is not logged in to your profile. Go to office.com/launch/powerpoint, find your presentation, and open in PowerPoint online.

In PowerPoint online, use the SIMPLIFIED RIBBON (more on this in the next post). Go to the SLIDE SHOW tab. Then go to PRESENT LIVE drop down menu. Choose between either Only people in your organization for added security and private meetings, or Anyone for a larger audience that may not be signed in to your organization.

Click Present Live and you’re live! A PowerPoint live screen will overlay the presentation. This is the QR code attendees can scan, or the URL to add to a browser. The “___ have joined” is a nice addition and provides a nice analytic. Stay on this page for as long as needed to ensure everyone gets in. Click anywhere on the slide and the welcome screen is removed and displays slide 1 of the presentation.

TIP: display the welcome screen and QR code any time during the presentation. In the pop up Slideshow Toolbar in the lower left, click the “Live” button and choose “Show Welcome Screen again.” Or use the copy the link to email or message it to anyone.

People viewing the presentation do not need a Microsoft 365 subscription. If viewing on a mobile device, they need at least iOS version 11, or Android version 8. Presenters must run from an updated version of Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Opera. TIP: Safari will not run a Presentation Live presentation, but it can be viewed on Safari. And PowerPoint Live, for both presenting and viewing, works on both Windows and Mac.

Come back to the next post, which is a list of potential “gotchas” to be aware of with Presentation Live.

Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2020-06-24T10:10:08-07:00June 24th, 2020|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|

PowerPoint Presentation Live is LIVE!

A feature I’ve been excited for since the Microsoft team first teased it to the MVPs last year is finally here. Microsoft has been taunting us with the new Live Presentations feature, and it’s ready for you to try out – just in time for all the virtual meetings and conferences going on!

So what is it? PowerPoint Live Presentations is a new way to share a PowerPoint presentation. The presenter can now put the presentation right on their audiences’ devices. And it adds some new presentation capabilities for the audience. Anyone invited can watch the presentation you are presenting live on their mobile device or computer screen, they can go back to see any previously-presented slides (but not get ahead of you), give live feedback, and most amazing, see live transcription of your presentation – in virtual any language! And each person viewing can choose the language of their choice for the transcription!!

On the next post I am going to walk through the process of starting a presentation as a Live Presentation. But the basics are:

Presenters must have a Microsoft 365 subscription
The presentation must present from PowerPoint online (note: truly run PowerPoint only, not a OneDrive presentation opened in the desktop app or Teams)
Any viewing does not need a Microsoft 365 subscription (yay!)
The viewer just needs the QR code or URL (see the next post for how to and a demo)

The viewing/audience experience:

During the presentation, the slides display and update in real time
It is slides and voice, no webcam
Everyone watching can independently view previous slides (but can’t go past the slide you’re currently on)
Everyone watching can choose 1 of 60+ languages to have your talk automatically, and in very close to real time, transcription
The audience can “react” to each slide with a set of emojis such as “thumbs up,” “laughing,” or “puzzled” that appear briefly on the presenter’s screen (I am not certain I see this feature liked in professional corporate presentations, but it is going to be a hit with those younger than me!)

After the presentation ends:

The audience screen pops up a short survey with categories such as Slide Design and Speaker Skills
The presenter receives an email with a summary of the feedback; how many reactions, which slide received the most reactions, and the audience evaluation (anonymous and compiled)

The live transcription, available in 60+ languages, is a technology marvel. I have the opportunity to be a part of several corporate meetings each year that have live audio translation. While the Presentation Live transcription is not going to replace that, it is amazing and will make presentations far more accessible to multiple language audiences. The Presentation Live transcription is text only, not audio. It is fast, I would say pretty good, and in our internal tests, the bilingual members of our TLC creative team said that the other languages are pretty spot on.

[videopack id=”14381″ width=”464″]https://thepowerpointblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/PresentationLive-3.mp4[/videopack]

We’re pretty exited about the capabilities and possibilities of PowerPoint Live Presentations. Stay tuned as we spend the next few posts going more in depth on the Presentation Live features!

Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2021-05-17T12:59:58-07:00June 22nd, 2020|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|