Tutorial

Align Objects Within Objects

The eye perceives when things are out of balance, even if the brain cannot identify the cause of it. This is even more evident when the slides are projected on a large screen. Take these images for example:

First, let’s look at how I made these elements. Each consists of two PPT autoshapes, a rounded corner box and a text box with a semi-transparent fill.

So what’s wrong with them? The left box’s text box is a few pixels lower than the others. The right rounded corner box is a few pixels higher than the others.

To fine tune this set of objects I would first select the 3 text boxes and use the ALIGN MIDDLE tool to have them all vertically line up – to the pixel. I would then do the same thing by selecting the 3 rounded corner boxes.

The end result is something that is in balance – and your eyes know it (or at least do not focus on it).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:16:58-08:00March 26th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

PPT 2007 Charts (part 6)

No more importing an Excel chart and not having it play nice with PowerPoint. All of Offices uses a single charting engine, so a chart can be designed in Excel, Word or PowerPoint and be used (and edited) in all three with no issues.

When you go to format a “PowerPoint” chart is now opens an excel window with the data. Here is the data used to create the sample chart for this series.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:19:12-08:00March 21st, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

PPT 2007 Charts (part 5)

Individual elements can also be adjusted not only with easy, but using the new visual effects. Here I am selecting the horizontal gridlines of the chart. I can go to FORMAT >> SHAPES STYLES >> and choose any of the preset effects and colors:

Just like earlier the horizontal options are the colors from the Theme. The vertical options progress from simple/flat to rich/beveled designs.

With just a few clicks the gridlines can easily be updated to these:

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:19:47-08:00March 19th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

PPT 2007 Charts (part 4)

More two-click adjustments are found when a chart is selected and going to teh LAYOUT tab.

Each of these choices have a drop down to instantly adjust the entire chart. As example, if I want to format the chart legend I SELECT the chart >> LAYOUT tab >> LABELS section >> click LEGEND >> CHOOSE from any of these formatting options:

It is just as easy to adjust the data labels, axes, gridlines and more!

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:20:08-08:00March 17th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

PPT 2007 Charts (part 2)

One of the biggest improvements for charts comes in the ability to update them more effortlessly. No need to double-click the chart, right-click the area to format and then work through a series of dialog boxes.

With PPT 2007 just select the chart, go to >> DESIGN tab >> Chart Styles section.

By choosing one of the options the color scheme and style of visual effects are instantly updated!

In using this feature it is helpful to understand how it is designed:
1. The horizontal shows all of the color options. Colors are based on the Theme Colors (think template color scheme).
2. The vertical starts with simple visual layout at the top and progressively adds more visual effects as you go down.

Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:21:00-08:00March 12th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

PPT 2007 Charts (part 1)

The visual capabilities of the new Office 2007 are fantastic and when it comes to the mundane chart – the better graphics really help!

PPT2003:
Here I have really worked with the graphic options to create a nice, professional chart.

PPT2007
Here I have the same chart and same data, but with a few clicks I have added some graphic appeal (many of the subtle visual effects are lost in the small image here).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:21:21-08:00March 10th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

Nuclear Fission Slide

So here was my task – take this image (a very low quality .jpg)

and turn it into an animated slide to support the speaker’s analogy (“like nuclear fission, it all starts with one, and from your actions more can be created”!).

First was to recreate the nucleus balls as PPT objects. This was done by filling a circle with a gradient fill (shown in PPT2003).

With two versions of the 3D ball, yellow and blue, they were grouped into clusters.

Here is the animation storyboard:

Click the slide below to download the final slide
(note: TLC logo put in place of client logo).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:22:18-08:00March 5th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

You Need to Find The Selection Pane!

So sometimes the greatest feature is only great if you know it exists. Recently I showed a very talented designer the Selection Pane in PPT 2007 and she could not believe she did not know of it. So you are in the know, here is what the Selection Pane is and how to open it.

1. Here is my sample slide. Note there are 6 elements (visible) on the slide

2. From the HOME tab, choose the SELECT all the way down on the right

3. In the SELECT drop down choose SELECTION PANE

4. The incredible SELECTION AND VISIBILITY pane will open (next to the animation pane)

This powerful tool will let you turn on or off layers (like photoshop) and let you select a buried element! On this sample note that there are (2) visible items, which are seen in the above sample. But there are also (3) not visible items on this slide.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:23:48-08:00February 27th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

VectorMagic Vector Points

As a quick followup to the last post (which was getting fairly long), here is the final image, saved as .svg and opened in Adobe Illustrator. You can see the number of vector points created:

And if we look up close we see that there are no extraneous vector points on the text (this is good):

I converted it to a .wmf – in Illustrator go to FILE >> EXPORT >> select .WMF from the drop-down menu. The file works create in PowerPoint and can be resized as large as needed without any loss of quality!

You can download the .wmf to test in PowerPoint by clicking here.

Vector Magic.com is the site.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:24:21-08:00February 25th, 2008|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

Vector Magic website


So I recently discovered a truly amazing online tool – Vector Magic! This web 2.0 app will convert virtually any image to a true vector graphic. It is the result of research by a team at Stanford and I have been really impressed with it!

1. Go to www.vectormagic.com

2. If it is your first time, watch the quick tutorial video

3. Click the BROWSE button and find a image on your computer you want to convert to vector format

4. With the image selected click UPLOAD

5. VectorMagic analyzes the image and makes a recommended setting about the type of image selected. You can change the selection now or later (after seeing render results)

6. Next is the quality setting, which defaults to MEDIUM. Here you can change the setting now or later after seeing the render results.

7. The fewer colors the smaller the image and VectorMagic wants to make small images, so the default is to use a color palette of 12 colors.

8. The image is then analyzed for colors (this is part of the incredible programming!)

9. Based on it analysis you have color options from 1 to 12 colors – select the one that looks to work with your original artwork. Because the TLC Creative logo has lots of subtle colors I selected the full 12 color palette.

10. VectorMagic then renders your image and displays a Before and After image.

11. Again, another great feature (especially for a web-based application) are the 3 preview options. When in single image it shows the vector version and when you click it shows the raster version. There is also a Google Earth style zoom tool on the left.

12. Here is the resulting vector image of the TLC Creative logo. I would say this is on par with some very expensive plug-ins I run for Illustrator.

13. On the right side are TROUBLE SHOOTING options which allow you to change any of the earlier selections.

For my image, the results are impressive but not really usable. So I changed the color palette to use MANY COLORS, which means not be limited to 12.

14. VectorMagic rendered my image again and this time the results are really incredible!

15. I went to the Trouble Shooting section one more time and rendered the TLC Creative logo on HIGH QUALITY vs. the medium setting – WOW!

16. When you have the image you want, there are 3 save options: .eps, .svg, .png

.EPS and .SVG can be converted in a vector application such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw to a .wmf (windows meta file), which is a vector format that PowerPoint recognizes. And .png is not a vector format, but is a format that PowerPoint recognizes.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:24:51-08:00February 22nd, 2008|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|
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