Tutorial

Add Twitter Feed To Slides

We were recently at a show to handle the presentations, and the presenter encouraged the audience to tweet about the conference daily events. During the break, we were asked to show the twitter feed. Advanced planning is great – this was not it.

We used Visibletweets.com to provide a solution. Visibletweets.com is a Flash based website with no download (other than the Flash player if not installed). On the website, you are prompted to type in a hash hag, search a term, or use someone’s twitter id.

Then one tweet at a time fills the page, each animates to the next. There are 3 types of animation to choose from: Letter by Letter (which is our favorite), Rotation, and Tag Cloud.

If you use the option to run the show in the web browser full screen, the background automatically changes colors.

There are 3 options for using visibletweets.com during a presentation.
Option 1: Run the website from a backup computer (with internet access) and toggle it to the screen.
Option 2: Have a link to the website on a slide and use it to switch from presentation to web browser (going back to the presentation requires using ALT+Tab or closing the web browser – so not as seamless and elegant).
Option 3: Use Shyam’s LiveWeb add-in to display a webpage directly on your presentation slide (this is a FREE add-in that can be downloaded here).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T10:31:07-07:00July 10th, 2013|Resource/Misc, Software/Add-Ins, Tutorial|

Stop PowerPoint from Getting the Animation Jitters!

Long scrolling animations worked great back in PPT 2003. But with the new .xml format (.pptx) came a new render engine for animations and it caused these same animations to stutter and “jitter” as they played.

You can fix these with a registry edit (Note: the registry controls the computer and in general mistakes in here can be very bad).

First, download this test file and run (download here, 3.7MB). Take note of how smooth, or jittery, the text animation is.

Close PowerPoint.

To update a computers PowerPoint settings:

1. Start >> search bar “regedit”

2. Go to Hkey Current User>>Software>>Microsoft>>Office>>15.0>>PowerPoint>>Options
– Note: This is the path for PPT 2013. For PPT 2010, it will be “12.0” vs. 15.0.

3. In the right section, right-click and select NEW >> DWORD (32-BIT) VALUE

4. Name it “DisableSpriteClipping”

5. Find the new entry and right-click and select MODIFY

6. In the VALUE DATA box, enter “1” (BASE can be Hex or Dec) and click OK

Start PPT and run the test file again. Take note of how smooth, or jittery, the text animation is.

Many thanks to Steve Rindsberg of PPTools for making me aware of Microsoft’s Chris Maloney’s shared bit of coding that works wonders for anyone fearful of animation jitters!

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T10:31:29-07:00July 8th, 2013|Resource/Misc, Software/Add-Ins, Tutorial|

Get Back A File with Windows “Previous Version” Feature

Windows 7 and 8 have a built in feature to allow you to go back in time and recover files that have been deleted, become corrupt, overwritten, etc. – and it is great! Josh, a designer and IT pro on the TLC Creative Services staff recently showed me this feature – and saved the day by recovering a large project that had become corrupt. So Josh is the star of this post explaining how to use the “Previous Version” feature.

A little known feature in Windows 7 and beyond, Previous Versions is often overlooked and underutilized. Its simplicity of use, easily restoring, copying, or just viewing contents of previous versions of files changed or lost make this feature a “must have” in any power users toolkit. Luckily for us, it’s built right into the OS. Before we get into configuration and enabling previous versions (this should be enabled on the system drive by default), let’s have a look at how the feature works:

Open any folder, right click on the canvas area, folder, or file, and hit properties.

Clicking on the previous versions tab in a folder where you’ve deleted or modified some files will result in some form of the screenshot below, with previous versions of files or folders listed.

Restoring files is as easy as selecting the folder, and hitting restore.
Alternately, you can open any folder by double clicking, and copy, or even open and edit single files, as opposed to having to restore the whole directory.

You can open any previous version of a folder or file by double-clicking on it, or selecting the “Open” button.

How to setup or confirm System Protection is Enabled
You can ensure Previous Versions is enabled through the “System Protection” window. This can be accessed by right-clicking on “My Computer” and selecting “Properties.” This will bring up the window below, wherein you will see a “System Protection” option on the left-hand pane.

When opening System Protection, you will be met with the window below. Take note of any non-system drives, and enable protection on them if desired. You will not be able to restore previous versions of files on drives that do not have protection enabled. Choose the desired space allotment via the “Configure” button. How many previous versions are available will directly depend on how much space you have allotted.

So there you have it, a few clicks and moments of configuration to put weeks or months of automatically generated backups at your fingertips.

– Josh @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T10:33:34-07:00June 26th, 2013|Tutorial|

Widescreen Presentations – Size Matters

PowerPoint 2013 has updated itself to use widescreen presentations as its default (which I believe is good). And the PAGE SETUP has changed as well. The aspect ratio is the same (16:9). My friend, and Microsoft PowerPoint MVP, Echo Swinford has a great description of the page setup change here.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T10:44:08-07:00March 20th, 2013|Tutorial|

PowerPoint Leprechaun Animation (How To)

If you did not download the FREE 16×9 St. Patrick’s themed widescreen PowerPoint template on Friday, you missed the great Leprechaun flipping a coin animated title slide!

Here is Amber’s description and tutorial on creating the animation:

The animation is the leprechaun coming onto the slide and flipping a coin into the pot of gold. The elements used to create the effect are:
– Leprechaun with no hand on left
– Hand of leprechaun
– Gold coin
– Sparkle
– Pot of gold
– Grass and shamrocks for scenery

1. It’s always helpful to name your pictures in the selection pane before animating. (HOME tab > ARRANGE > Selection Pane). The names carry through to the animation pane, which is super helpful in knowing which picture you’re adding animation to. I’ve arranged my elements to have the grass on top, and the leprechaun in between the pot of gold and shamrocks.

2. Select the leprechaun, his hand, and the coin. Arrange them on the slide, I have him so he is peeking out right next to the pot of gold.

3. In the animation pane, apply ENTRANCE > FLY IN > FROM RIGHT > WITH PREVIOUS > .50 second duration.

4. Now that the leprechaun flies in, next we need to make his hand move in a flipping motion. The animation we are going to apply is spin, which spins from the middle of the picture. This won’t work with the bounding box the way it is currently. We need the hand to swivel from the base, not the middle of his fingers. Select the hand, and go to FORMAT > CROP. Pull the cropping edge down so the middle of the image will be the base of the hand. Now the bounding box is extended, filled with empty pixels in our PNG image.

5. With the hand selected, apply the EMPHASIS > SPIN > AFTER PREVIOUS > .25 second duration.

6. Right click on the animation in the animation pane and open the Effect Options. We want the spin to be a small angle, and come back to original position. Under amount, enter custom 19° Counterclockwise and check the Auto-reverse box. Now the hand is making a coin flip motion.

7. For the coin flip, we need to add a motion path. Select the coin, click the ADD ANIMATION button and apply CUSTOM PATH under the Motion Path section in the animation pane. WITH PREVIOUS > 1.25 sec duration > .10 second delay. Draw a loopy sort of path that goes up and end ends at the top of the pot of gold. You can always make fine adjustments by selecting the path, right click, edit points.

8. Coins spin when they flip, so we need to select the coin, hit ADD ANIMATION > EMPHASIS EFFECTS > SPIN > WITH PREVIOUS > 1.0 sec duration > .40 sec delay.

9. Right click the SPIN animation and click EFFECT OPTIONS. Under amount select TWO SPINS. Make sure this animation ends at the same time the custom motion path animation ends. We don’t want the coin to continue spinning once it lands in the pot of gold.

10. Now the leprechaun comes in and flips the coin into the bucket. The last element is the sparkle. Position the sparkle so it will be on the coin once it is in the bucket. Under animation pane apply ENTRANCE EFFECTS > ZOOM > OBJECT CENTER > AFTER PREVIOUS > .50 sec duration.

11. Your animation is complete! Here is what the animation pane should look like:

Download the PowerPoint template, which has this animation on the Title Master Layout here 1.8MB

– Troy, and Amber, @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T08:41:08-07:00March 18th, 2013|Tutorial|

Why NOT to Use “Play Video Full Screen”

PowerPoint 2013 is now available, and multimedia has gotten even better with it, which I will cover in future posts. But one video feature that has been with PowerPoint at least since PPT 2000 is “Play Full Screen.”

When a video is inserted, one of the options is to make the video scale to fill the screen (VIDEO TOOLS >> PLAYBACK tab >> VIDEO OPTIONS section >> PLAY FULL SCREEN).

I do not recommend using this feature for a number of reasons:
– The video “pops” to full screen, which is not in line with today’s presentations full of smooth animations.
– Low resolution videos will look even lower resolution when stretched to full screen.
– If there is content on top of the video (z order is possible in PPT 2010 and above), the content is covered by the video.
– The video scales to the maximum height or width and use black bars on the top or sides (letterbox or pillar box) if video is not same aspect ratio as the screen aspect ratio (not a bad thing, but may not be desired).
– If the presentation is distributed, it is a very confusing option and may result in unexpected issues (ie. person adds text below the video, but when played it is covered).
– I have experienced this feature cause playback/animation issues.
– Last, I do not see it accomplish anything that cannot be done while developing slides or through animation.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T08:44:30-07:00February 25th, 2013|Tutorial|

Downloading YouTube Videos For A Presentation

PowerPoint has a feature to run videos direct from YouTube. The feature works well, but it requires an internet connection, enough bandwidth, having the presentation computer online, and a number of other potential issues.

To minmize potential issues, running all videos direct from the computer and as embedded elements is a good best practice. YouTube Downloader HD is a free tool to download videos from YouTube and save to your computer. It enables you to download high quality, high definition, and full HD videos from YouTube. The software is available with an installer or as a standalone exe file.

Downloading is easy. Go to the video you wish to download on YouTube. Copy the address of the video.

Open the YouTube Downloader HD software, and paste the video’s address into the Video URL field. In the Download dropdown menu, select the type and quality of the video.

Then select the best format and size for the presentation. TLC Creative Services opts for .mp4 and the largest size (1080p or 720p).

Then click download.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T08:49:25-07:00January 16th, 2013|Tutorial|

Tineye – Find Images Online (3)

TinEye has a web browser plug-in, so you can right click any image on a page and search the database directly. The free plug-in is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera. To use, pick any online image.

1. For this image, we want to find a higher resolution version. Right-click the image and select “Search Image on TinEye.”

2. TinEye found 121 results, and using the Biggest Image sorter, there is a 800x635px version available*.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T08:53:28-07:00December 21st, 2012|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

Tineye – Find Images Online (2)

TinEye, the reverse image search site can also be used for some detective work.

Let’s use TinEye to check if an image is being used by another website without permission. Here is a beautiful photo by my friend and incredibly talented photographer, Rikk Flohr, from his webpage.

1. To do a quick web search for non-permitted use of this photo, I loaded it into TinEye using the drag and drop feature.

2. TinEye’s search only found 1 result, which is actually Rikk’s Flickr account.

3. Of course, no search engine covers the entire internet. TinEye is constantly crawling webpages and updating the image database. And this image search proves it is possible other instances of an image exists online. The test image was found on Rikk’s Flickr account, but missed it on his actual webpage. I assume TinEye hasn’t yet crawled Rikk’s site or it is possible the site is already protected in which case TinEye can’t get the image information.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T08:53:47-07:00December 19th, 2012|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

Tineye – Find Images Online (1)

TinEye is a reverse image search engine. It can be a great resource for presentation design.

TinEye lets you upload, or link to an online image, and see where it came from, find higher resolution versions, how/where it’s being used and if there are modified versions. It is the first image search engine to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks. When you upload an image to be searched, TinEye creates a unique digital signature for it, and then compares this signature to every other image in their index to find matches. In our tests, TinEye did not generally find similar images, but exact matches – including those that have been cropped, edited, or resized.

The free service allows 50 searches per day, up to 150 searches a week. There is a paid version of TinEye which allows for more searches.

TinEye is easy to use. Here is our sample image and the goal is to find a high res version.

1. On the TinEye webpage, click “Browse” to upload the image. The sample image is fairly small at 350×520 pixels.

2. TinEye search of its database for this image found 80 matches.

3. The default search result is set to Best Match.

4. Changing the sort by Biggest Image, I find a link to the same image that is 1600×1200 pixels!

Note: Most images found online are protected by copyright. If you would like to use any image found through TinEye for commercial purposes, you should confirm it is available under Creative Commons, or contact the image owner for permission.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T08:54:05-07:00December 17th, 2012|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|
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