A great feature is resizing (enlarging or shrinking) images and autoshapes from their center point.
This feature is available in PowerPoint and Photoshop, but using different key combinations.
PowerPoint: CTRL + SHIFT + adjust with mouse
Photoshop: CTRL + ALT + adjust with mouse
– Troy @ TLC
I have been using Photoshop since version 2 (the dark ages of computer design) and just had Lori point out a cool feature I never knew existed!
I know PowerPoint is our topic, but I work in Photoshop virtually everyday preparing images for templates and presentations. In this case I was moving back and forth between PPT images that are measured in pixels and a print layout that was measured in inches. So, I was constantly going into the preferences and changing the rulers until Lori came over and pointed out a better way.
If you RIGHT-CLICK the ruler in Photoshop, it can instantly (and easily) be changed!
– Troy @ TLC
In the old days (PPT 95 through 2003), the only difference between a presentation and a show was the extension. So if you had a presentation and wanted it to open in slideshow view, just the file extension had to be renamed. But in the new world (now 2 years old) of PPT 2007 that does not work.
1. Here is our test file – a .pptx (PPT 2007 presentation)
2. Manually change the file extension (.pptx), changing the “T” to an “S”, and Windows gives this confirmation dialog
3. The icon changes to the PowerPoint Show icon and the extension is .ppsx
4. But when you try to open the file you get this error
5. Why? Because any Office 2007 file with an “x” in the file extension is really a .zip file with lots of individual files inside it. Changing the extension does not directly change the file any longer, so the quick fix of ‘just rename it’ no longer works…
– Troy @ TLC
Okay so the ‘little’ bug in PPT 2007 is driving you crazy! The fix is on the way with SP2 for Office 2007 (really), but you need to adjust the length of your straight lines today.
Here is a PPT 07 line
To adjust length AND maintain same angle you hold down the SHIFT KEY + CLICK on end of line and it zooms out to infinity
One solution is to duplicate the line, group the 2 lines together, then adjust the length of the group
The original line stays in the same position, the length was adjusted, the angle was maintained! Now ungroup and delete the duplicate line leaving you with the adjusted line (made shorter in this example)
– Troy @ TLC
Here is my process for adding a YouTube (google, metacafe, soapbox, etc) video to a PowerPoint presentation:
1. Find the movie online and copy the URL
2. Go to www.techcrunch.com/get-youtube-movie
3. Paste in the YouTube URL
4. Follow instructions to download to your computer.
Note: the video is in .flv format, which need to be converted for use in PowerPoint
5. Go to www.media-convert.com
6. Be sure you are in the ‘Local File Conversion’ tab
7: Click the BROWSE button and find the video on your computer
8: Convert the .FLV video to a PowerPoint friendly .WMV format.
Note: there are lots of options, but I recomend
– No Video Preset
– Windows Media Video (.wmv)
9: Click OK and following instructions to convert and have file emailed you.
10: Move newly created .wmv video to same folder as presenation and use PowerPoint’s INSERT >> MOVIE FROM FILE wizard
11: Done!
– Troy @ TLC
So you have found the perfect video for you analogy – on Youtube. The question I get a lot, is how to play that video in a presentation.
There are a few issues that make this a bit complex. In this post I’ll overview the issues and in the next post show my process for making it all work.
Issue 1:
– YouTube (Google, Soapbox, Metacafe, and almost all other online video sites) is an online video, not on your computer.
Issue 2:
– If you download the video, it is an .flv (Flash Video), which a format PowerPoint does not support.
Issue 3:
– Nearly all online video sites automatically run a compression filter to make the file size smaller (they are storing ALL of these videos on their servers, so the smaller the file the more they can store and the less bandwidth needed to playback). Highly compressed videos mean lower playback quality.
– Troy @ TLC
The previous post showed how to find the security level settings in PPT 2007. Not to make things difficult, but all of the descriptions and names have changed.
In addition to the name changes, some are virtually the same and some don’t quite match up.
The HIGH and LOW settings from PPT 2003 have PPT 2007 settings that match up and accomplish the same thing:
The VERY HIGH PPT 2003 setting has been split into 2 settings in PPT 2007:
Finally the MEDIUM setting from PPT 2003 really has no equivalent in PPT 2007… And because here on ThePowerPointBlog and in PPT training programs I recommend changing the Macro Security to Medium, what do I recomend now?
I have setup all of the TLC computers and recommend (though it is not based on the same knowledge, understanding and confidence of Medium in PPT 2003) to use the 2nd setting – Disable All Macros With Notification.
– Troy @ TLC
When installing add-ins in PowerPoint, the macro security settings need to be lowered from the default setting of HIGH to MEDIUM or LOW. But how do you do this in PowerPoint 2007?
First the names have changed and second the where you find them is a bit difficult if you are not familiar with the new Ribbon layout.
1. Click the circle Office button in the upper left corner.
2. Click on POWERPOINT OPTIONS.
3. Go to TRUST CENTER in the left column.
4. Click on TRUST CENTER SETTINGS.
5. Adjust to needed setting, click OK and exit PowerPoint to save setting.
– Troy @ TLC
I develop a lot of multimedia CDROM’s and these projects always begin with PowerPoint. After gathering details from client I create a mock-up of the various navigation points within the application. Then in PowerPoint make a flow diagram of what the user experience will be. This allows client to visually see my interpretation of their information before I dive into the actual programming.
– Troy @ TLC
I email a lot of PDF proofs of presentations for client review. They are smaller in file size and not editable. If you are using PPT07 creating a PDF is done through the SAVE AS dialog, not the PRINT dialog.
If you go to START >> SAVE AS and see this option: “Adobe PDF”
Then you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat with Distiller installed, or another Adobe PDF creation option installed.
But what you really want is this option: START >> SAVE AS >> PDF
This is Microsoft’s PDF print driver and it works incredibly fast, makes perfect PDFs of slides (including semi-transparent .png’s and autoshapes) and is my preferred method.
If you do not have this option don’t worry, it is not installed by default. Just head over to Microsoft’s website, go the Download Center, do a search for “Office PDF” and you will find these 2 links:
The PDF printer is free, and the XPS format is a Microsoft equivalent to PDF (not highly used yet), so you can choose to install it or the PDF only version.
– Troy @ TLC