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

The Presentation Podcast Episode #63 Released Today!

A new episode of The Presentation Podcast with Troy, Nolan, and Sandy is available today! Check out the latest episode, #63- Live From the 2018 Presentation Summit 

This episode is a live conversation recorded at the 2018 Presentation Summit in San Diego California. We gathered around a table and just the let conversation flow – so enjoy a fantastic everything presentation conversation among 10 presentation industry experts!

By |2018-10-01T07:34:27-07:00October 2nd, 2018|Resource/Misc|

The Presentation Podcast Episode #61 Released Today!

A new episode of The Presentation Podcast with Troy, Nolan, and Sandy is available today! Check out the latest episode, #61 – PowerPoint Shortcuts – Here’s What We Found.

Join a great conversation with Troy, Sandra and Nolan sharing “PowerPoint Shortcuts”, including keyboard shortcuts, right-click tricks, app setup, faster design, better presenting and anything else that helps us get more done quicker, better or professionally.

By |2018-09-04T13:46:52-07:00September 4th, 2018|Resource/Misc|

NXPowerLite Blog (and Troy Chollar Quote)

NXPowerlite is a great app that TLC Creative Services has made use of for several years. The  current version, Desktop 8, was the biggest release for new features. I was happily asked to contribute input and ideas as the Neuxpower team was busy strategizing the big release. On a recent Neuxpower blog they talked about the Custom Profiles and to my surprise, I was a part of the blog!

Check out the blog post here.

Troy @ TLC

By |2018-08-19T14:48:59-07:00September 3rd, 2018|Personal, Resource/Misc|

Windows 10 Start Menu Icons (Complaining)

Look at the Microsoft Office Icons – they look great. Okay, I am not commenting on the icons themselves, but the color coding, size and how easy to see and identify.

Now look at the Adobe Creative Cloud icons. All are on the Windows theme color (blue), but small, and there is no difference between Acrobat Distiller and Acrobat Reader…

Other issues are Chrome on the white background, the Hightail app icon has white pixels around it, and Firefox (to me) is the most beautiful of icons I have on my Start Menu.

Troy @ TLC

By |2019-01-31T14:33:44-08:00August 31st, 2018|Software/Add-Ins|

Windows 10 Minimize Cortana to an Icon

Cortana, like or dislike, it is the search engine for your computer. But Cortana does not need to take up so much of the task bar if you do not want it there.

To minimize Cortana to just its icon, right-click the task bar, go to CORTANA and select SHOW CORTANA ICON

Now the task bar has a nice, simple and small, Cortana icon

Click the Cortana icon and the Start Menu opens with the Cortana search bar

Troy @ TLC

By |2019-01-31T14:33:44-08:00August 29th, 2018|Software/Add-Ins|

Windows 10 Focus Assist

Focus Assist is basically a “Do Not Disturb” mode for your computer. Focus Assist allows you to avoid distracting notifications. I find it most helpful for presenters to keep notifications for email, Skype messaging and other unwanted pop-ups from displaying while presenting. Focus Assist is the new name for an earlier Windows 10 feature previously called “Quiet Hours”.

There are a few ways to access Focus Assist, my preference is through the notifications button in the lower right task bar to access the action center. When the icon is grey, Focus Assist is turned off.

The first click turns on Focus Assist in the Priority Only notifications mode.

Click again and it toggles Focus Assist to the Alarms Only notification mode.

Right-click the Focus Assist tile any time to open the Windows 10 Settings in the Focus Assist options.

The Focus Assist settings area has a lot of options and access to the customization options.

Focus assist has 3 levels, off and 2 on options:

  • Off
  • Priority only
  • Alarms only

In the priority only option, there are options to create custom lists of what is allowed and not allowed. The APPS section is the most important to a presenter. I created a list to basically not let any app interrupt me while presenting (NOTE: unfortunately Focus Assist only can control Microsoft Store apps. I am hoping that Microsoft is able to expand this list anything installed on the computer!)

One of the shortsighted features is the DUPLICATING MY DISPLAY rule. This rule turns on Focus Assist automatically when your display is duplicated, theoretically while you are presenting. But, the rule cannot be modified to work with an extended desktop configuration and presenting with Presenter View.

If you present, or just need ‘do not disturb’ times, look into the features available with Windows 10 new Focus Assist.

 

Troy @ TLC

By |2019-01-31T14:33:44-08:00August 27th, 2018|Software/Add-Ins|

Windows 10 Mobile Hot Spot

The ability to turn a Windows 10 computers into a WiFi hotspot by sharing its internet connection, either wired or wireless!, is an amazingly useful feature. It requires some advance setup, then it is always available.

Go to WINDOWS & SETTINGS

Select NETWORK & INTERNET

On the left select MOBILE HOTSPOT

TURN ON, confirm Wi-Fi (not Bluetooth) is selected, and click EDIT

In the Network Info and add a NETWORK NAME (anything you want; Troys WiFi, Secret WiFi Do Not Connect, etc.) and a PASSWORD (something unique, you may share it with others)

Now the computer is ready to share its internet connection! Click the NOTIFICATIONS icon in the lower right and select MOBILE HOTSPOT

Now on any device (Windows, Mac, phone, tablet, etc.) look for you WiFi SSD and connect!

Troy @ TLC

 

By |2019-01-31T14:33:44-08:00August 24th, 2018|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

Windows Additional Clocks

I am based on the U.S. West Coast, or Pacific time zone. But I am travelling to meetings in other states several times each month. One nice feature, which has been in Windows for many versions, is the multiple clocks.

Above the time displayed in the task bar is my local time. Mouse over the time and the pop up  shows my local time for this project in New York (or East Coast time zone). Super helpful.

 

But getting to the setup dialog to add an additional clock is more tedious than in past versions. The seemly obvious would be right-clicking on the clock and selecting ADJUST DATE/TIME, but this leads to a settings dialog that does not access the Additional Clocks settings 🙁

 

To add, or adjust, an additional clock my process is:

In the Cortana type LANGUAGE (yes, this does not make sense) and choose REGION AND LANGUAGE SETTINGS

Then select ADDITIONAL DATE, TIME & REGIONAL SETTINGS

This is the legacy Windows 7 Control Panel dialog (ughhh!), select ADD CLOCKS FOR DIFFERENT TIME ZONES

From the ADDITIONAL CLOCKS tab, turn on SHOW THIS CLOCK and select the TIME ZONE and give the clock a name (that will display in the pop up task bar clock)

Done (and that was a lot of effort getting to a buried feature)!

 

Troy @ TLC

By |2019-01-31T14:33:44-08:00August 22nd, 2018|Software/Add-Ins|

The Presentation Podcast Episode #60 Released Today!

A new episode of The Presentation Podcast is available today! Listen to episode #60 – Do You ARS? (with John Cosgrove of VoiceHive and Ben Anderson).

Audience Response System, or A-R-S, is a great process of involving an audience in a presentation. It is a way for a presenter, a meeting, or even a classroom to get real-time input from the audience, and display everyone’s answers. For our conversation about ARS we are joined by John Cosgrove of VoiceHive and Ben Andersson as meeting ARS specialist. We talk about software we use, ways we added audience interaction, and ideas for presenters to integrate audience interaction into a presentation.

By |2018-08-18T10:16:13-07:00August 21st, 2018|Resource/Misc|
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