A new episode of The Presentation Podcast with Troy, Nolan, and Sandy is available today! Check out the latest episode, #44 – Year-End Thoughts.
The 24th episode of The Presentation Podcast is the final conversation of 2017! Troy, Nolan and Sandy end the year with a great conversation about the big things that influenced their design, studios, and presentation software use this past year.
Spotify has been slowly, and selectively, adding podcasts to its library. We are very excited, because our very own podcast, The Presentation Podcast is now available on Spotify! Check us out on Spotify here.
Lori and I were featured in a great PowerPoint Productivity Tips list (Lori tip #16, Troy tip #18) a few months ago, which is something definitely worth reading (see blog post with link to full article here). Recently, Paul at Acuity Training in the UK sent me a link to an Adobe Experts Productivity Tips article they posted, and it has some great power user tips and hacks, definitely worth bookmarking. Full article here.
Troy @ TLC
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
A new episode of The Presentation Podcast with Troy, Nolan, and Sandy is available today! Check out the latest episode, #43 – “O365 Features We Use.”
Office 365 is Microsoft’s subscription based software and service that goes beyond the Office apps by encompassing SharePoint, Teams, Groups, Unified Communications with Skype and much more. Troy, Sandy and Nolan talk about they each use Office 365 for their studios and the ‘secrets’ to making the most of it.
This has nothing to do with PowerPoint or presentations, but it is an amazing tip for those that use Spotify and have noticed it is missing a sleep timer option (which I have!).
Scenario 1: You are deep into developing an amazing PowerPoint presentation and have some great inspiration music playing. You have a meeting to attend, so having the music stop would be a great reminder to save your work and leave (and much less jarring than an alarm going off).
Scenario 2: You are in noisy hotel and having music to mask the noise would be great, as long as you have a sleep timer to turn the music off in a few hours.
Unfortunately, the Spotify app does not have a sleep timer function. Luckily, this great hack leverages the built-in iOS timer to control Spotify.
[KGVID width=”272″]https://thepowerpointblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/unnamed-file-2.mp4[/KGVID]
Action Steps, on iPhone or iPad
*Note: This feature also works with Apple Music, Spotify, and all other audio enabled apps.
Happy listening!
A new episode of The Presentation Podcast with Troy, Nolan, and Sandy is available today! Check out the latest episode, #42 – A Conversation With Tom Howell & Mike Parkinson.
Enjoy listening to an amazing conversation with Tom Howell of Synapsis Creative, Mike Parkinson of Billion Dollar Graphics, Nolan Haims of Nolan Haims Creative and Troy Chollar of TLC Creative Services. Recorded at the 2017 Presentation Summit, our conversation covers a range of topics from design projects to studio policies to whether our university degree applies to our career, and so much more!
A new episode of The Presentation Podcast with Troy, Nolan, and Sandy is available today! Check out the latest episode, #41 -“Presenter Notes.”
Presenter Notes: what are they, are they needed, what is the best way to create them, where is the best place to create them? So many questions for such a useful presentation tool. Yes, there are less helpful ways of creating, formatting and using Presenter Notes. No, there is no perfect way to create, format or use Presenter Notes. Troy, Nolan and Sandy share their notes about using Presenter Notes.
The Logitech Spotlight remote is more than the standard presentation remote. It has a sleek, minimalist design, and has an app that offers a lot of other useful tools to the presenter.
The remote comes with a charging cable and the quick charge feature works in 1 minute, giving the remote enough power for 3 hours of use. A full charge takes as little as 60 minutes, and can last up to 3 months. Installing the software is a breeze and I got it up and running in less than 5 minutes.
After install, the app will guide you through how to use the remote, but it’s pretty intuitive on its own. The standard back and forth buttons can be configured to do much more, like fast forward, blank out the screen, scroll, adjust the volume, or a even custom keystroke.
We set up the remote to control the computer volume when holding down the next button. Like a smartphone, it uses the up/down motion to change the volume level – which could be great during a presentation that has embedded video or music.
The top button on the remote is where almost all of the software features are triggered.
During a presentation, click and hold the top button, then move the remote to “point” where a very nifty Zoom bubble is on the screen. This allows a presenter to zoom in and highlight anything on the slide. The app also offers customization for the zoom, like making the highlight area bigger or smaller, adding a color circle, or even adjusting the fade out around the circle.
Among the other software tools is a timer function that the presenter can set and the remote will vibrate at certain markers, like when only 5 minutes remain on the clock. There are several other fun tools and features and definitely a remote any presenter should consider as part of their setup.
It is just over $100 and more details on the Logitech site here.
Troy @ TLC
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