PowerPoint

What is the MVP Summit?

A few asked about the event at Microsoft. It is a fantastic privelege to spend a few days on the Microsoft’s Redmond campus for the MVP summit. There were over 1,500 Microsoft MVPs attending. There are 34 PowerPoint MVPs globally and 13 of us were able to accept an invitation from Microsoft to meet and talk about the future versions of PowerPoint.

Here is the press release:

1,300 of the world’s top leaders from the technical community will spend four days at the Microsoft Corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington this week for the 2010 Most Valuable Professionals (MVP) Global Summit.

Microsoft’s MVP Award Program is in its 17th year, with MVPs representing 96 countries, speaking 37 different languages and spanning 94 Microsoft technology areas.

The Summit gives Microsoft’s product groups an extraordinary opportunity to listen to their MVPs during more than 700 sessions throughout the week.

Summit brings together some of the top leaders within global technical communities,” said Toby Richards, general manager, Community and Online Support for Microsoft. “I always look forward to this week and am extremely excited to engage with technology’s best and brightest and discuss what’s on their minds.”

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T08:58:29-07:00March 1st, 2010|PowerPoint|

Working on Maui

Winter season is here, so the corporate meetings head to warmer climates. In the past 30 days I have been in Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Hawaii and Arizona. To pick a favorite skiing with my girls in Colorado was #1, but working in Maui with the Oakley (ie. sunglasses) group was a lot of fun!

That is Paul Chrisope (show producer and video playback) and Gary Meeker (audio, VOG and music mix-master).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:06:04-07:00January 23rd, 2010|Personal, PowerPoint|

PowerPoint has been used for only 3 Billion Minutes…

At CES this weekend Neowin.net shared some statistics it obtained about Office 2010 beta and Office 2007 use (saying data was created from a Dec ’09 beta survey and from Office’s anonymous reporting).

o 41 billion minutes in Outlook
o 31 billion minutes in Word
o 18 billion minutes in Excel
o 3 billion minutes in PowerPoint
o In October 2009, US online PC users spent more time in PowerPoint than in Halo 2 on the PC

Not sure how to quantify the numbers, but they are interesting and amusing. There are some more listed here.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:07:46-07:00January 11th, 2010|PowerPoint|

RIP Office 2003

Over the weekend Microsoft officially pulled the plug on sales (and downloads) of Office 2003.

The lawsuit against Microsoft about the use of some XML code in Word has ended distribution of it. Bcause Word cannot be distributed and the Office suite has Word – cannot be distributed (only Word is the program in question). Here is a good summary article about the lawsuit.

Like a good movie trailer for a bad movie, the title is more appealing than the full show. Office 2003 is not really gone, just the current version. An alternate version with the questionable code removed will be in circulation, which should be identical to even the most knowledgeable Word users.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:08:17-07:00January 10th, 2010|PowerPoint|

PPT 2007 vs. Imported PPT 2003 Tables (part 2)

Working from this slide the goal is to give both an identical look/style (file can be downloaded from previous post).

The template has a few options for tables preset that the imported tables to not automatically have turned on. Until these are manually activated the Table Styles Options will produce different visuals for the charts.

As example, for the sample file the ‘Header’ and ‘Banded Rows’ is active for all new tables by default. But the inserted PPT 2003 tables do not have these options active.

Select the (PPT 2003) table, activate these options and the 2 tables can easily be updated to look identical for a consistent presentation.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:13:03-07:00December 24th, 2009|PowerPoint|

#13 New and Improved Gradient Tool

Gradients in PPT 2007 made so many great things possible (eg. not having to go out to Photoshop). But the User Interface was not very user friendly (okay it scares most people in my training classes). Now PPT 2010 gives the gradient fill tool a GREAT User Interface!

Everything works the same, uses the same dialog boxes, accessed the same, etc.

Everything new is found in the Gradient Stops dialog. Here is my sample gradient with 4 stops:

The drop-down menu approach of PPT 2007 is replaced with a visual bar that shows each stop and is a live preview of the gradient. To change attributes of any stop, just click on the stop “arrow” – easy!

The Stop Position slider is gone as it is now integrated into the gradient bar. The Transparency slider remains and works the same. What is new is the Brightness slider. Here is my sample gradient with Stop 3’s Brightness at 100% – white:

Here is the same gradient with Stop 3’s Brightness at -100% – black:

0% is the true color with various tints created as the Brightness slider is used. I am not certain how much I will use this feature, but it’s there.

The real improvement is the Gradient Bar with its integrated Stops and live preview, something I will be using a lot!

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:17:40-07:00November 30th, 2009|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

#12 – Sections

For organizing content, multiple-topic or multiple-speaker presentations the new SECTIONS feature is fantastic! Basically it is an improved way of organizing slides when viewed in the slide sorter (also seen in the thumbnail pane).

Here is my sample presentation – 28 slides.

On the home tab the Sections menu a section can easily be added.

Here is the presentation divided into 3 sections.

I collapsed the first two sections so only the last section (slides 20-28) is visible.

Same setup, but I collapsed the third section and expanded the second.

Sections can easily be renamed (eg. topic, speaker, etc.)

The sections also are seen and usable in the thumbnails. This is the same view as above, with the 1st and 2nd sections collapsed and the 3rd section visible.

Note: collapsed sections still view in slide show. The sections are only for organization and do not affect what is seen during a slide show.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:18:01-07:00November 28th, 2009|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

#11 – Remove Background Tool

I spend a lot of time in Photoshop preping images for presentations. But I may be able to spend a bit more time in PowerPoint thanks to this new tool. Tucker, one of the Microsoft developers described the way this really great new tool works is the “magic coding”. That’s a good enough description for me as it actually works better than Photoshop’s ‘magic wand’ tool.

1. Insert an image you want to remove the background on – typically I would open the file in PhotoShop, drop out the background, save the image as a .png with transparency, and then insert into PowerPoint. Here the image looks great, but I want the template background to show through, which is not white.

2. With image selected go to the format(tab) >> Background Removal Tool

3. The tool takes it guess at what is not wanted (purple mask)

4. Modify the selection with the + and – tools

5. Here is the image with all of the include image(+) and remove image(-) markers.

6. End up with a great image that allows the background to show!

The effect is not permanent, the background can be further modified at any time. The background remeval can be reset back to the original image too.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:18:43-07:00November 24th, 2009|PowerPoint, Tutorial|
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