The super-useful PowerPoint Viewer application does have one flaw – it does not have the ability to take advantage of a computers graphics card power with the “Use Hardware Acceleration” feature. So if you have a presentation that is going to be distributed and viewed with the PowerPoint Viewer I would recomend turning off the Hardware Acceleration and viewing the slideshow to get a better idea of what others will see.
– Troy @ TLC
If your computer has dedicated graphics memory – yes.
If the computer has a shared memory graphics processor – no.
To check what you have, go to:
(1) START >> CONTROL PANEL >> DISPLAY >> SETTINGS tab
(2) Select “Monitor 1”
(3) Click the ADVANCED button
(4) Go to the ADAPTOR tab. Here you can see the manufacturer, model and amount of memory of the graphics card.
TIP: if the computer uses an Intel graphics processor, it is shared memory. ATI and NVidia manufacture both shared memory and dedicated memory cards.
– Troy @ TLC
If you notice some of your animations are not playing smooth, check to assure you are using all of your graphic processor’s power. Go to SLIDE SHOW >> SETUP SHOW >> check the USE COMPUTER HARDWARE ACCELERATION.
Now run the presentation and things should be running much smoother.
– Troy @ TLC
With creative use of PPTXtreme’s SoftShadow add-in instanst “Soft-Glows” can be created. If you have not checked out this very useful add-in go here.
(1) Select text, autoshape or image. Here are my setting for adding a white drop-shadow.
(2) Select the object again and apply a second softshadow. Note the negative (-5 and -5) X and Y positions, so the 2nd softshadow is positioned in the upper left. Here are my settings for this second softshadow.
(3) The result is a photoshop quality glow.
– Troy @ TLC
If a slide has a lot of text, one design concept I often use is to bold the key words or phrase. The audience will read the bold text, and get the core message much quicker than just an overload of text.
– Troy @ TLC
I personally do not use the Presenter View, but I do run many presentations in a similiar format – with slideshow on the secondary monitor/projector and PowerPoint in edit mode on the primary monitor.
Just like Presenter View, animations can be problematic. Each slide redraws in the edit mode and while it is updates processing power for animations is reduced. But there are some steps to take to minimize the animation lag.
There is a lot of processing power used with each slide transition if you have:
– Slide preview at 100%
– Both left and right action panes open
– PowerPoint running full frame
I have found better results when PowerPoint runs like this:
– Close the right action pane
– Reduce size of thumbnails in left action pane, or close all together
– Make slide preview 25% (active slide in center)
– Reduce the actual application window to run in a small vertical area
– Troy @ TLC
If you opt to use PowerPoints Presenter View and the presentation contains lots of animation, test your output.
Because the presenter view redraws the slide display it can interfer with animation playback, making it visibly stutter or look choppy.
No easy cure, just something to be aware of.
– Troy @ TLC
With the computer set for Extended Desktop mode (see October 1 post), next is to setup PowerPoint to make use of the second monitor.
In PowerPoint go to: SLIDE SHOW >> SETUP SHOW
In the Multiple Monitors section click the drop down menu and select “Monitor 2 Default Monitor.”
Now the slide show will be on the second monitor (usually a projector) and your monitor will remain in Slide Design Mode.
– Troy @ TLC
If you want to use PowerPoint’s Presenter View, or display the presentation through a projector while having slide design view or slide sorter view on your monitor, the computer must support Extended Desktop.
To see if your computer supports extended desktop go to: START >> CONTROL PANEL >> DISPLAYS >> SETTINGS tab. If you have two monitor icons, you should be good to go.
Click on monitor 2 and then activate the “extend my windows desktop onto this monitor.”
– Troy @ TLC
Using native PowerPoint elements and animations, add a dynamic entrance to photos.
1. Insert a photo, or other graphic, to a slide.
2. Add a Line Color (aka stroke) to the photo. Use a color that coordinates with the image or background and is thick enough to be visible (sample here is 2 1/4pt.).
3. Now add a rectangle autoshape. Size it to be slightly larger than the photo and set the Fill to none. Add the same Line Color and weight as applied to the photo.
4. Animate the photo: EXPAND, FAST, WITH PREVIOUS
5. Animate the frame: COMPRESS, FAST, WITH PREVIOUS
Done! I have also uploaded a sample presentation of this animated slide. Click here to download.
Troy @ TLC