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 |2021-05-17T12:59:58-07:00June 22nd, 2020|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|

Isometric Design and 3D Models

The term “isometric” seems like it can be used interchangeably with “3D,” but they are slightly different forms of adding dimension to an object.

Here is a demo we created (using PowerPoint of course), that goes through some of similarities and differences between a 3D model and an isometric illustration.

[videopack id=”14365″]https://thepowerpointblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/3D-Cube-and-Isometric-Design_v2.mp4[/videopack]

Isometric design appears dimensional, but it’s “fake” 3D, as it’s not based on a true 3D model like the cube in the video (callout to Jake who created the 3D model for this post). The lines of shapes are angled at 33°, but you cannot show any other view of the isometric illustration without drawing a version. The 3D model, on the other hand, is easy to manipulate and move around in PowerPoint.

Along with not being able to show different sides of the isometric illustration, you can’t show the bottom either. This is consistent among pretty much all isometric designs. However, this, along with the consistent 33° angle, allows all isometric drawings to align and connect seamlessly if you’re building a larger illustration.

By |2021-05-17T13:38:38-07:00June 19th, 2020|Resource/Misc|

Podcast Episode 104: Remote Presenting Update

A new episode of The Presentation Podcast is available today! Join Troy, Sandy and Nolan as they have a lively conversation about the many remote presenting projects and presentations they have been involved with over the past few weeks.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify and Soundcloud – or search The Presentation Podcast for “How are the Remote Presentation Meetings Going?” or go direct to the episode page here: https://thepresentationpodcast.com/podcast/104

 

By |2020-06-15T19:29:02-07:00June 16th, 2020|Resource/Misc|

Our Isometric Bar Chart Process

For our Creative Challenge #5, the design team utilized Isometric Illustration for the collaborative bar chart. If you’re unfamiliar, isometric illustration is a type of 3D drawing perspective that is based on using 30-degree angles. By using the same scale for every axis, the image remains proportional and non-distorted. Isometric design also creates a uniform footprint for elements so they are interchangeable with other elements and provide a consistent layout perspective across elements, and slides. For this project, the isometric layout guaranteed that each designers art for their assigned country would appear consistent and uniform with all of the other elements. The bar chart bars also were based on the same isometric 30-degree angle perspective.

In the previous blog posts on our COVID Design Challenge #5, you saw that one of the main goals was to collaborate through Microsoft Teams. This included dividing up the bar chart by country: each designer was assigned one country to create isometric artwork for.  Here is an example of design process of one building, and country “tile”. Kelli on our design team was assigned Iceland – pretty fun, until she realized there aren’t a lot of isometric designs out there for Icelandic landmarks! So, she made her own! Here is a walk through of her design process:

Kelli identified this building, the Hallgrímskirkja Church in Iceland, as a notable and recognizable landmark:

Hallgrímskirkja church : Reykjavik : Travel Guide : Nordic Visitor

(Image courtesy of Nordic Visitor Iceland)

Beautiful – and very complex! Kelli broke down her design process for turning this Icelandic landmark into an Isometric illustration.

  1. Original vector artwork she created
  2. Sheared the artwork at a -30° angle
  3. Reversed the center part to create the main tower
  4. Sheared and adjusted the top of the tower to make it dimensional
  5. Built out the curved “wings” of the building
  6. Added the back part of the building

The Hallgrímskirkja Church was integrated into her version of the Iceland landscape and set atop one of the bars in the chart assigned to her. 

By |2020-06-04T08:46:11-07:00June 12th, 2020|Portfolio, Resource/Misc|

What is the TLC Creative Design Challenge #5?

With a whole month of COVID Challenges under the team’s belt, it seemed time to work on something more timely! Building off the previous design challenge (where our design team worked from files hosted in a Microsoft Teams team), we decided to explore the collaborative features of Microsoft Teams even more. The TLC Design Team was sent this prompt (via a designated channel in Teams!) to start the week:

Welcome to Challenge 5! In the Files tab, you’ll see a single slide with a chart comparing the number of COVID-19 tests performed to date with the number of confirmed cases being reported. Each of you will pick one country and design those two bars of the chart. The goal is to focus on two things: design (do something amazingly creative with your piece of the chart) and communication (work together as a team to determine how you’re going to go about sharing the work). 

Key takeaways: the final design will be just 1 slide that all 6 designers worked on, and it will all be done with Microsoft Teams’ collaborative environment.

This is what our designer team was given to work with (in Microsoft Teams, of course):

Check back in a couple days for the incredible results!

By |2020-06-08T14:11:24-07:00June 8th, 2020|Resource/Misc|

Tabs in PowerPoint

It’s official: PowerPoint has made its first major addition the Ribbon interface since its inception with PPT 2007. The addition provides no additional functionality, but it does greatly speed up production and design! It is the seemly simple, but wonderful, tabs for the right action pane, called “Tabbed Panes.”    

As a task pane is opened, a tab for it is included along the right column. To change which tab is available, click the icons. Tabs are not closed unless you click the X icon. Tabs include: Format, Animation, Selection Pane, Comments, and Version History.

There are a few things to note with this added feature: first, you must have 2 or more task panes open to see the tabs; just one will appear just as it always has. Also, there is a nice interface to allow side-by-side view of multiple tabs you select (as example, I often have the animation and selection pane tabs open side-by-side when working on a complex animation). View the tab you want on the “left” and select “move out of tab”.

It is still possible to make any pane undock and become free floating (as example, to place on a second monitor).

However you choose to arrange your panels, here’s a tip: to navigate to a pane with keyboard, double-tap press F6 – first to focus on the active pane, and second to focus on the tab icons. Use the up/down arrow keys to select different tabs, and then press enter to bring them to front.

This is a great update that increases the usability of PowerPoint even more. However, I have a few questions in to Microsoft: What is the official name of these “tabs”? When were they added? How do we see multiple task panes side-by-side now (It is common to have the animation and selection panes open at the same time)? Can the tabs be preset to be present when PPT is launched?

Reference information: https://blog-insider.office.com/2020/02/20/improved-pane-management/

Troy @ TLC

By |2020-06-01T15:25:35-07:00June 5th, 2020|Resource/Misc|

Podcast Episode 103 is Available Today!

A new episode of The Presentation Podcast is available today! Troy, Nolan and Sandy talk with Jackie Gartner-Schmidt in depth about how the voice works and provide tips for presenters (rappers, sport enthusiasts and more). Listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify and Soundcloud – or search The Presentation Podcast for “Presenting with Your Voice (w/ Jackie Gartner-Schmidt of Voice Now)” or go direct to the episode page here: https://thepresentationpodcast.com/podcast/103

 

By |2020-05-30T22:36:43-07:00June 2nd, 2020|Resource/Misc|

Presentation Bandwidth of Screen Share vs. PowerPoint Online Present

This is on the technical, and geeky, side of presentations. In our current environment of remote presenting, we have been addressing questions and supporting remote meetings non-stop. Remote presenting has lots of technical obstacles, that are now the responsibility of each presenter to deal with (vs. showing up at a conference and knowing a professional AV team was in control of everything technical and you, as a presenter, just needed to focus on getting on stage and presenting).

I am sharing a video from Microsoft that demonstrates PowerPoint specifically. In my discussions over the past year with the Microsoft PowerPoint team I have been hearing about the advances they have accomplished in remote presenting and collaboration. Well, I am a believer and integrating PowerPoint Online presenting into several virtual meeting workflows.

The big takeaway is presenting to a remote audience, using a PowerPoint presentation uploaded to (OneDrive, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams) has amazing bandwidth savings for high quality visuals, video and animation over presenting a presentation shown as a shared screen.

Troy @ TLC

By |2025-05-12T10:20:03-07:00May 26th, 2020|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|

The Presentation Podcast Collaboration PowerPoint Deck

In the most recent episode of The Presentation Podcast, “Is PowerPoint Collaboration in Microsoft Teams Good?”, was much more than myself and my two co-hosts talking about the features we have seen and read about – we lived it! It was also fun watching Nolan and Sandy squirm a bit as I encouraged (forced) them into the world of a Microsoft Teams workflow 😊

For this podcast episode, we wanted our conversation to be about PowerPoint and its many collaboration features and performance that Microsoft has been talking about for the past few years. Because we (TLC Creative Services) have few clients utilizing Microsoft Teams for content editing, and Nolan & Sandy have even fewer, I decided the best way for us to talk about this was to jump in and immerse ourselves in what is soon to become a common workflow for presentation design.

Step one was setting up a Team for this project within our TLC Creative Services account. Sandy, Nolan and myself were the only people able to access the files within it (Nolan and Sandy were guests to the TLC Creative Services Teams account, able to access only this one Team).

Working on the presentation design was typical. I put together sample slide deck that we each opened with the PowerPoint desktop application. Just like client notes, our sample deck had notes for content design throughout:

There were notes inside text placeholders.

It had notes as bright colored boxes on the slide.

And there were design notes as PowerPoint Comments.

Our shared experience was great (really)! The presentation we designed was great (really)! And we all unanimously agreed that the addition of Microsoft Teams to the workflow, being the hosting service and core for the shared presentation file was a success. If you missed it, listen in on our conversation on collaborating in PowerPoint here. 

Troy @ TLC

By |2020-05-18T22:24:47-07:00May 20th, 2020|Resource/Misc|
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