TLC Christmas PowerPoint Animation 2017!
Our team here at TLC Creative Services hopes everyone has a fantastic Christmas! As with years past, our design team has had some fun with PowerPoint animation for Christmas!
Troy @ TLC
Want A Perfect PowerPoint Circle, Square, Triangle?
Sometimes just knowing a hack can save a lot of time. So this is one of those tips included in our TLC Creative PowerPoint training programs where someone always exclaims “Really!!” The tip is how to immediately add a perfect shape (same on all sides), ie. a circle, square or triangle. The solution is so simple, there is nothing complex to forget. Ready,
Click the desired shape in the shapes gallery
Click on the slide. Note: just a simple click, no click and drag, no modifier keys, nothing, just click on the slide.
Done! A perfect, equal sided, square, circle, triangle, etc. is added to the slide
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And the shortcut to the shortcut!
Hold down the CTRL key and click on desired shape in the shapes gallery
Perfect symmetrical shape is automatically added to the slide!
Troy @ TLC
PowerPoint Illustration – Thanksgiving Cornucopia!
Amber, on the TLC Creative design team, loves Adobe Illustrator and PowerPoint. We challenged her to build a full vector illustration in PowerPoint. The result is an amazing Thanksgiving cornucopia!
- 478 slides
- Everything about the cornucopia (took me 3 times to get that spelled correct!) developed inside PowerPoint
- Exported as a video with no transition and .01 second timing to create the stop motion animation effect
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and family!
Troy @ TLC
A 3-Scene PowerPoint Halloween Movie
Wanda on the TLC Creative design team created this amazing PowerPoint Halloween Movie. Just like a movie plot, it has 3 scenes. Each is a slide, and each seamlessly transitions from one to another (watch the video, there is no clear distinction of when the action transitions from one slide to another!).
If you are at the office, caution – fun Halloween themed soundtrack accompanies the animation fun!
[youtube src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/fxV-LajWQlw”]
Each slide has a very long animation pane. This is the top part of the slide 1 animation:
Troy @ TLC
PowerPoint (Setup) Mistakes We All Make
In the most recent episode of The Presentation Podcast, episode 40 “Mistakes We Have Made,” we talk about presentation design and business mistakes we have made along the way. On LinkedIn, I have a new article that gets more PowerPoint specific, “PowerPoint Mistakes We All Make.” Part 1 of a 3 part series details 15 behind-the-scenes PowerPoint application setup customizations for a faster and more efficient work environment.
Troy @ TLC
IOS PowerPoint Morph & Zoom Test File
PowerPoint’s Morph (transition/animation effect) and Zoom (new custom shows) have had an amazing adoption rate and become something we use in projects on a regular basis. The addition of support for both effects on mobile versions of PowerPoint has happened fairly recently. Amber on the TLC Creative Presentation Design Team created a fun, small file size, sample presentation setup with Morph transitions and Zoom custom shows for us to test and see how they work on our mobile devices.
Use this link to download our test file and open on your mobile device to see if Morph and Zoom are included/working on your mobile version of PowerPoint – Download test PPTX file here
After downloading, it is important to open with Microsoft PowerPoint on the device, not a PowerPoint viewer application. For iPhones (IOS), this means click-and-hold the file name to bring up a list of applications it can be opened with. Select the Microsoft PowerPoint icon.
Download > click-and-hold to select “Copy to PowerPoint” > the mobile version of PowerPoint opens > Presentation opens > click the Play icon to view as a slide show.
Here is a quick video capture showing the visual effects that should be seen on the mobile PowerPoint apps.
[KGVID]https://thepowerpointblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/unnamed-file-1.mp4[/KGVID]
Troy @ TLC
PowerPoint Icons Library!
If you are running Office 365, PowerPoint 2106, a new addition was added to the ribbon – Icons!
This is a Microsoft offering, not an add-in from a 3rd party. It is also linked to our new .svg image support. Click the Icons button and there is a large library of professional and modern icons available.
Just search through the many categories, select an icon and click INSERT to add to a slide.
Every icon is provided in the .svg format. So, all icons can be resized with no quality loss, are very small file size, and can be recolored and offer limited styling options within PowerPoint (see previous post for overview of PowerPoint SVG formatting options and limitations).
Troy @ TLC
.SVG and Windows
SVG is a fantastic vector image format for PowerPoint. But it is not completely Windows OS friendly, and I think everyone should be prepared for a few frustrations that can be there when using .svg images.
Windows Preview App:
- There is no image app that can open and view an .svg image, including Windows 10 Photos, Paint, Windows Media Player, etc.
- So if you double-click to open a .svg you will get the “I don’t know what to do with this image dialog”. Note: I currently have set SVG files to open with a web browser, as that is an app that can preview the file format.
Windows File Explorer:
- Because there is no application that can preview an .svg, an .svg icon is blank.
- Note 1: I have setup the Microsoft Edge web browser as the application to open a preview .svg images, which is why this Windows File Explorer image shows a web page icon for the .svg
- Note 2: .svg is not the only image file format that Windows does not support. .wmf, .ai, .eps, .psd, and many others all cannot display a thumbnail image.
Troy @ TLC
Creating .SVG images in Adobe Illustrator for PowerPoint
Adobe Illustrator is most likely going to be where designers are creating .svg images. But the .svg format has a number of options, not all are currently recognized or supported by PowerPoint. Here are the Save As options we use for PowerPoint .SVG images:
- In Adobe Illustrator, go to FILE > SAVE AS
- Change the file to SVG in the drop down
- In the SAVE OPTIONS dialog, use these options
- SVG Profile = SVG 1.1.
- Fonts – Type = Convert to outline
- Fonts – Subsetting = None.
- Image Location = Embed.
- Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities = unchecked
For even more details on the SVG save options, we developed this PDF 1-sheet reference to all Illustrator SVG options and PowerPoint compatibility. Download Here.
If you need an .svg image to experiment with, click here to download the apple image used for this blog series.
Troy @ TLC
Using .SVG in PowerPoint
I would classify the .svg support in PowerPoint as first generation, or v1. There is lots of additional support and features to be implemented – which I have a lot of confidence from conversations with the Microsoft Dev Team will steadily be added.
THE GOOD
- True vector format, so image can be resized from very small to very large with no quality loss.
- Ability to apply PowerPoint styling:
- Fill
- Drop Shadow
- Glow
- Outline
- Outline with no fill
- Soft Edge
- Fill
The BAD
- .svg images in PowerPoint definitely have some limitations
- There is no gradient fill or line option, only solid color
- .svg vector graphics cannot be ungrouped and there is no edit point functionality
- BUT, there is a work around to some vector shape editing! PowerPoint’s Merge Shapes tools work on .svg images. As example, here is our sample image with a PowerPoint heart shape added.
- By selecting both the .svg image and the heart shape > Merge Shapes > Union the .svg vector image is edited to a new shape
- BUT, there is a work around to some vector shape editing! PowerPoint’s Merge Shapes tools work on .svg images. As example, here is our sample image with a PowerPoint heart shape added.
.SVG is the future of vector images and graphics in PowerPoint, and if the PowerPoint Dev Team continues to add functionality and features (like edit points, gradient fills, etc.) I predict .svg will become a common file format on par with .png.
Troy @ TLC