PowerPoint

Sketched Outlines (Part 2)

I wanted to create a Part 2 to the PowerPoint Sketched Outline tool and share a more advanced shape consideration with using the Sketched outline styling. In this case, what happens when you use the Merge Shapes tools to create a new shape – and those shapes already have the Sketched outline styling applied?

 

1. For this demo, I am inserting two 2 PowerPoint shapes

2. Apply a Sketch Styling to both shapes

3. Then combine them by using the PowerPoint MERGE SHAEPES “Union”

4. The new shape, which looks great, does have the Sketched outline permanently applied. Selecting the straight line optioncannot be selected to revert it back to smooth/straight lines.

5. The way to avoid this permanent styling is to pre-plan. Before merging the two shapes together change the outline to the smooth/straight outline.  Then re-apply the sketched outline styling to the new (merged) shape.

Troy @ TLC

By |2019-09-27T22:00:20-07:00October 7th, 2019|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

PowerPoint “Sketched” Shapes

Outline Sketched is one of the newest design features in PowerPoint O365 version (on Windows, Mac, but on Online version yet). It applies a hand drawn, or “sketched” styling to shapes. As example:

The 1st step is to create any shape or insert a ppt object (read below for details)

Select the object(s) and go to Shape Format > Shapes Styles tab > Shape Outline

In the Shape Outline drop down menu go to the new SKETCHED option that offers serveral preset “sketched” styles

Notes:
There are several ways to access the Shape Outline menu (at TLC Creative we have it on our QAT).
Also, the Sketched settings are available in the “Format Shape” pane

 

Applying a Sketched outline to the example objects does this:

  • The PowerPoint shapes remain completed editable!
  • Objects can be filled and with the ability to still apply a sketch outline.
  • Inserted .SVG graphics
    • The only way to apply this outline to an inserted .svg art is to ungroup the svg file within ppt. However, this will ultimately change the svg into an emf shape and might change the look of the svg, i.e. if the svg is inserted with a gradient style and the object is ungrouped the object might become distorted in color etc.
  • Inserted PowerPoint icons
    • The native icons are basically an internal library of .svg graphics. The sketched styling can be applied the same way it can be applied to .svg graphics described above
    • Ungroup the icon > click yes at the warning pop up, click yes > apply sketched outline styling
  • Outlines can vary in weight (thickness). Test different weights to find the one that best works with the graphic. As example, our sample PowerPoint icon looks very different with a a thin 1pt outline and a thick 20pt outline
    •  
  • Sketched outlines can have all PowerPoint styling options applied; color, shadow, or  gradients
    •  

Troy @ TLC

By |2019-09-27T22:00:41-07:00October 3rd, 2019|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

Windows Emoji Keyboard

Microsoft Windows added a very cool emoji keyboard, or at least a dialog to point and select emoji’s. To open, click the Windows Key and the period key.

Click any emoji and it will be added to virtually any app text box selected (😎🤷‍♂️👍, see I just added three emoji’s to this blog post – but being over the age of 35 I have no idea what I just said…). 

There are 3 tabs; Emoji (full color), Kaomoji (traditional ASCII emoji’s), and Symbols (well, symbol characters)

Troy @ TLC

By |2019-07-24T16:52:12-07:00July 30th, 2019|PowerPoint, Software/Add-Ins|

Photo-to-Photo Morph Effect, with No Tags

Here is a limitation of Morph, it cannot change 1 photo to another. This example demo’s that issue. Slide 2 has an image. The animation goal is to have the image on slide 2 move-grow-and morph into the image on slide 3. Without morph object tagging there is no way to accomplish this (okay, we can insert a shape, fill with image and on the second slide change the fill to the other image – but this is a lot of effort and not needed if you read the next blog post!)

Here is how the Morph effect fails and reverts to a fade transition like effect.

[KGVID]https://thepowerpointblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/unnamed-file-1.mp4[/KGVID]

Up next, the exact same slide set and how to force Morph to accomplish what we want!

Troy @ TLC

By |2019-10-28T10:12:34-07:00June 5th, 2019|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

Morph Using Object Tags vs. No Object Tags

Jake on the TLC Creative design team created this demo slide deck. The goal is to use a complex .svg vector art element and do all styling (color, size, position) directly in PowerPoint – mission accomplished. The second goal is to apply Morph transitions to create a session of seamless motion graphics:

Version 1:  No Morph, all legacy animation and fade transitions. This is also how the Morph enabled version will present on systems that do not support Morph (where Morph basically is replaced with fade transitions). For best results on this version, no movement or resizing of the molecule elements or connectors was done, just recoloring (which was accomplished direct using PowerPoint fills, outlines and gradients).

Version 2: Use Morph throughout. But just adding Morph transitions leads to some unexpected animation effects that cannot be controlled no matter how things are setup on the slide. The overall result is a sense of motion and the molecule changing, but there are several areas where the molecule is not visually connected with connector lines flying to different (wrong) molecule elements.

Version 3: Same Morph transitions, but taking time to add Object Tags (naming each art element in the Selection Pane) allows the designer to control Morph and force it so we know how exactly each object on the previous slide will animate and land on the following slide (see below image for Selection Pane comparison). YAY for the new Object Tagging feature to Morph!

[KGVID]https://thepowerpointblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/unnamed-file-7.mp4[/KGVID]

Left = version 1 & 2 selection pane with PowerPoint automated naming (which changes from slide to slide). Right = version 3 selection pane with each object named in the selection pane using the “Object Tagging” double exclamation “!!” (object names stay the same from slide to slide).

Troy @ TLC

By |2019-10-28T15:36:49-07:00June 3rd, 2019|PowerPoint|

Morph Object Tagging Is Here!

There is so much great motion effects that the Morph transition can create – and with PowerPoint’s recent update to include the “Morph Object Tagging” feature, I decided a blog post series of some new Morph tutorials and examples was needed. Check back over the next few weeks for lots of fantastic PowerPoint Morph content!

To get things started, here is a demo file one of the TLC Creative Design Team created. The only animation (aside from slide 1) is adding a Morph transition to each slide.

[KGVID width=”596″ height=”334″]https://thepowerpointblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/unnamed-file-8.mp4[/KGVID]

Only 6 slides and 0 animations

Troy @ TLC

By |2019-10-28T15:37:34-07:00June 1st, 2019|PowerPoint|

Making The Memorial Day 2019 Video in PowerPoint

To create the Memorial Day 2019 video was first about finding the art assets.

  • The US Flag was a vector art file downloaded from our Adobe Stock subscription. It was opened in Adobe Illustrator and saved as two art files; the flag with transparent “white” bands saved as an .svg, and the gradient white bands fills saved as an opaque .png.
  • The white bands gradient was saved as a .png so PowerPoint image transparency could be applied.

  • Next was searching our VideoBlocks.com account for the 4 videos.
  • Each was downloaded as .MP4 video files and in PowerPoint each was sized, cropped and duration trimmed.

Setting the animation on the slide was simple, but did require a few rounds of revision.

1 For an additional layer of motion, the U.S. flag has a very slow, horizontal only, scaling. This slow animation was used as the duration for the overall video.

2. The first video begins playback immediately.

3. The second video fades in, on top of the first video that is still playing (goal is no static pauses) and starts playback at the same time.

4. Like videos 2-3-4, the third video is set to fade in and start playing just before the end of the previous video.

5. The duration of the fourth video was set to match the U.S. flag emphasis animation.

6. All 4 videos fade out just before the U.S. flag animation completes, leaving a static U.S. flag with white bands, where the white is actually the slide background color.

Done! All layout, video compositing, animation timing and export completed in PowerPoint (note: video from PowerPoint exported at 1280×720, 30 FPS with audio channel. The exported video then brought into Adobe Media Encoder to render a blog friendly under 12MB version).

[KGVID]https://thepowerpointblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/unnamed-file-1.mp4[/KGVID]

Troy @ TLC

By |2019-11-12T14:43:04-08:00May 30th, 2019|Portfolio, PowerPoint, Tutorial|

Scrambled PowerPoint Templates Happen

Received a client file earlier this month and had to troubleshoot some of the scrambled template setup to effectively work with the presentation. Note: this is the end of 2018 and the Master Slide name let’s me know this template was originally developed in 2011, 7 years ago, and still in use!

A humorous change to the template – at least I am assuming this was not as designed, is the layouts labelled “LEFT IMAGE” and “RIGHT IMAGE” now somehow have the image placeholders on the opposite side. So the SMALL TITLE, LEFT IMAGE has the image placeholder either deleted, or on the right… 

A real PowerPoint template is a very powerful tool in helping a corporate team develop slides quickly, and stay within corporate brand standards. This template is an example, and reminder, that a good template – and in looking at the behind the scenes settings I can see this was developed as a mostly full featured template – can become a bad template over time/use. This is also a reminder that PowerPoint’s flexibility of allowing anyone to make template level updates, is also a detriment to file longevity as small changes, many unintentional, compound into a template that was once robust and now problematic to work with.

I highly recommend annual refreshes of corporate templates. This can be for feature, visual updates (ie. color scheme, font, logo, etc.), or even if there is no changes to the template, it assures a full feature, as-designed template is in circulation.

Troy @ TLC

By |2018-12-12T09:27:41-08:00December 13th, 2018|PowerPoint|

Name the Master Slide

Every Master Slide has a name. The name is helpful in identifying the content/the purpose/the identity of the Master Layouts.

Often (far too often), when reviewing provided PowerPoint slide decks is the Microsoft default Master Slide name is there.

Updating the Master Slide name is very easy:

1. Under the VIEW tab select “Slide Master”

2. Click RENAME and change the name to something more descriptive

3. After changing the name, Click RENAME

4. The Master Slide layouts have now been updated

Troy @ TLC

By |2018-11-11T13:04:09-08:00November 30th, 2018|PowerPoint, Tutorial|
Copyright TLC Creative Services, Inc | All Rights Reserved
Go to Top