Tutorial

Make Your Desktop Presentation Worthy

This is one of the nifty features of Windows (XP) that no one seems to know about. Before a presentation, I use the “show/hide desktop icons” feature to hide every single item on my desktop. That way if I need to exit a presentation for any reason, the only thing projected is a my desktop wallpaper. After the presentation, I restore all in just one click.

1. Right-click desktop
2. Go to Arrange Icons By
3. Select Show Desktop Icons
4. Let the screen refresh (may take a few moments) and you are left with a completely clutter free view!

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:31:04-08:00October 12th, 2007|Tutorial|

Rotate Pictures in Windows Explorer

If you have bunch of images to insert into a presentation, but some are rotated (ie. taken in vertical layout with a digital camera) they can easily be rotated BEFORE inserting into the presentation.

1. Open Windows Explorer
2. Set View to thumbnail or filmstrip
3. Select image(s) to rotate
4. Right-click and choose the rotation (clockwise or counter clockwise) needed

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:29:23-08:00October 5th, 2007|Tutorial|

Put PPT 2003 buttons and menus back in PPT 2007

Okay, the time has finally arrived. I am doing a major project in PowerPoint 2007! It is not that I have a problem with PPT 2007, I just have not had a client request. So up until now I have actually used PPT 2007 more when it was in Beta that after its release. Well, like many I am finding it somewhat tedious to learn where everything is in the new interface. I am also working under some tight timelines, so I do not have the luxury of learning at a leisurely pace. So for me a short term solution has been to add back some of the familiar PPT 2003 tool buttons.

This is a limited interface – it does not give you all of your customized layout from PPT 2003 (I wish!), but it does give a familiar look and feel to things. This is a free add-in that can be downloaded from here.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:23:35-08:00September 3rd, 2007|Software/Add-Ins, Tutorial|

Organize and Enhance Movies in Presentation (3)

To add a professional touch to the aesthetics I create a feathered edge rectangle in Photoshop and save it as a .png with a transparent background.

I make sure it is sized just slightly larger than the movie image/placeholder and then send it BEHIND them. This provides a great aesthetic to the slide by adding some depth to the movie and making it float a bit off the background.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:23:15-08:00August 31st, 2007|Portfolio, Tutorial|

Organize and Enhance Movies in Presentation (2)

How does the person reviewing a printout of the slides know which movie is to be played, or even if it is a movie? When a movie is inserted on a slide it adds an image of the first frame of the movie. Sometimes this provides enough information to identify it. Other times it is something abstract or even black.

For all of my projects I take advantage of the fact that a movie will always play on top of all other content. I create a rectangle autoshape that is the same size as the movie image and place it ON TOP of the movie. I then add descriptive text.

Now anyone reviewing the slides in PowerPoint or from a printout knows exactly what is going to happen on this slide. Another benefit of this is that is does hide that first frame image of the movie that PowerPoint created – we’ve all seen the awkward image of the person with their mouth open – eyes closed – and out of focus, it’s a good thing to hide it!


Again, the movie is UNDER the autoshape, but during show mode it will “pop” to the front and hide the autoshape.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:22:56-08:00August 29th, 2007|Tutorial|

Organize and Enhance Movies in Presentation (1)

Do you think of the aesthetics of the slide when adding a movie? Are you satisfied with the fact that the slide is now “high-tech” because it has a movie? Well, that must be the thinking of lots of presentations I receive, as there is often no thought of the overall slide layout and aesthetics.

(1) If there is no other content on the slide, center it.

(2) Respect the template background elements and position the movie within these boundaries (ie. don’t have it overlap the title bar or other framing elements of the background design).

Sounds simple but I see dozens of presentations where movie placement is an after thought.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:22:33-08:00August 27th, 2007|Tutorial|

Designer Look for Tables

Tables contain lots of data – but often they do not blend with a presentations overall color scheme or design cues. Here is one example from a recent project that incorporated both the color scheme and design elements.

Color Scheme:
I filled the header bar with same color used for the bullets, bold text, and slide title area. The body of the table is filled with the presentation secondary color that was used throughout on several elements.

Design Cues:
The upper-left and lower-right feature rounded corners. Circles and rounded corners where a major design element throughout the presentation.


Up Next: How the rounded corners where created.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:09:13-08:00June 26th, 2007|Portfolio, Tutorial|

PPT Overlays To Graphics (4)

The final element was to create a placeholder for the financial information. I added another custom fill autoshape, this time a rectangle. After sized it was ‘sent to back’ and the appropriate text was added.

If you would like to download this slide, click here.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:07:33-08:00June 18th, 2007|Portfolio, Tutorial|

PPT Overlays To Graphics (3)

Because the globe is an animated .gif, not a Flash or movie file we are able to overlay elements (Flash and all movie formats always play on top of all PowerPoint content). The green semi-transparent circle overlay is the first layer. The next layer was each division logo – in this case I have added the TLC Creative logo.

The Problem here is that the logo is a bit flat and the black text is lost. Again, the solution was using a PPT autoshape. This time I created a glow, which was simply a white circle with a custom fill from center. Here is one done in blue (so it can be seen on this white background).

The result is a nice highlight spot that not only makes the logo text legible, but adds a 3D element to the overall globe.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:06:35-08:00June 16th, 2007|Tutorial|

PPT Overlays To Graphics (2)

Because the globe is a circle, the solution to making it tie in with the template color scheme was to use a semi-transparent autoshape. I added a circle, sized it to the globe, then gave it a subtle 2-color fill.

This altered the “blue” globe to a “green” globe – without affecting the animated .gif

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T16:05:20-08:00June 10th, 2007|Tutorial|
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