It is the fine details that make a project perfect. On a current project with lots of interactivity, includes mouse over / roll over sounds. Of course what is a good mouse over sound is somewhat subjective. To make communication easy I quickly created this mini-application that allowed the client to preview a selection of sounds, with the selected being added to the presentation. Click here to open, or download (500k).
Troy @ TLC
The Shadow Box concept is not constrained to rectangles. I use variations of Shadow Boxes in every conceivable way, always with the goal of adding depth and visual dynamics to the slides. Here are two samples I created that use a circle and triangle.
Here I duplicated the circle, removed the outline/stroke and went into the Fill Effects exactly the same as described in the previous post. But here I am using a color for the center and I manually distorted the circle to give it the cast shadow effect.
Here I duplicated the Pyramid, removed the outline/stroke and went into the fill effects. The difference is that I set the Shading Styles to be Horizontal so the gradient went from the top of the image to nothing at the bottom. I then really distorted the autoshape (extending it far beyond the boundary of the viewable slide) and positioned to create the drop shadow effect.
Troy @ TLC
A simple shadow element can add depth and eliminate some of the flat look and feel of a slide. In the last post I added a simple shadow box to a list box and a chart, here is how to create the shadow box – using PowerPoint autoshapes.
First create a rectangle. Set the fill to black and no outline/stroke.
With the rectangle selected go to the Fill Effects.
(1) In the Fill Effects window
(2) Go to the Gradient tab
(3) Move the slider all the way to the right/lighter
(4) Adjust the From opacity to 40%
(5) The To opacity should be at 100% (set when we moved the slider in #3)
(6) In the Shading Styles select From Center
Your rectangle will now look like this:
The best thing about this rectangle is that it is a native PowerPoint autoshape. It can be adjusted as large or small as needed without any distortion or loss of quality. In addition you can go back into the Fill Effects and change the color and the inner opacity to best suite your slide!
Troy @ TLC
If you look at these two examples, there is only one difference between the “before and after” elements; the addition of a shadow box to add depth.
The wonderful thing about both of these is the shadow box element was created using native PowerPoint autoshapes. So in just a few clicks elements in your presentation can get a little extra pizzaz!
(Up next, how to create shadow boxes)
Troy @ TLC
.MP3 and .Wav are audio file formats that PowerPoint recognizes. Another very common format is .M4A (audi-only version of an .MP4), and you have heard of even if you do not think so.
.M4A is the format of Apple iTunes music files. It is for the most part a higher quality file than an .mp3 and a smaller files size. Here is what an “M4A” looks like:
Unfortunately PowerPoint does not support the .M4A format, so if you download a song from iTunes it will need to be converted to another format (.mp3 or .wav).
-Troy @ TLC
.MP3 and .Wav are audio file formats. Another is .ogg, which is much common but with many .mp3 players supporting it you are likely to encounter one when developing a presentation at some point.
Vorbis is the group behind the .ogg format and it is for the most part a higher quality file than an .mp3. The Ogg Vorbis is a fully open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free, general-purpose compressed audio format for mid to high quality audio and music. Here is what an “ogg” looks like:
Unfortunately PowerPoint does not support the .ogg format, so if someone sends one to you for a presentation you will need to convert it to another format (.mp3 or .wav) in an audio editing application.
-Troy @ TLC
So, for maximum useability it great to embed multimedia into the presentation. PowerPoint allows the .wav audio format to embedded – great! But the .wav format makes the largest file size – bummer! The good news is, with a basic audio editing application you can dramatically reduce the size of your .wav files.
Here is my sample audio file; a huge 22MB!
I opened the file in Sound Forge Studio, went to Save As, choose .wav as the format and then clicked on the ‘Customize’ button to further modify the settings. As you can see I:
– Reduced the SAMPLE RATE to 22,050 (from 44,100)
– Reduced the BIT DEPTH to 8 (from 16)
– Changed the CHANNELS to mono (from stereo)
Needless to say, this is a lower quality audio track than the original. But most presentations are viewed with computer speakers, have no stereo recording attributes and act as an enhancement to the presentation – no one will notice 🙂
Here is the same audio file saved with the above settings – a mere 2MB!
For comparison, here is what the same file looks like saved as a lower quality .MP3 (64k, 16 bit, stereo), but higher quality than our optimized .wav the .MP3 is only 1MB:
You will need to find the balance between the benefits of larger – embedded audio and smaller linked audio to know which is better for your presentation. Best of luck!
-Troy @ TLC
As we know, multimedia files are linked to the PowerPoint presentation. The exception is the .wav audio file. This file can be embedded in the presentation!
Positive: It is a part of the presentation, so there are no links to worry about.
Negative: .wav is one of the largest audio file sizes, so the presentation gets much larger.
By default PowerPoint will embed a .wav file if it is under 100k – which is a very short audio file (1-5 seconds). You can increase the size PowerPoint will embed up to 50 MB. Go to: TOOLS >> OPTIONS >> GENERAL tab >> change the 100k to 50000k.
Troy @ TLC
I hear about this problem lots and lots: “I created my presentation, sent it (via CD, email, intranet, etc) and the other person sees the presentation but does not hear the music – what happened?”
PowerPoint is limited in its ability to embed any multimedia, instead it links to an external file and plays it. So when you add an .mp3 music track to a presentation – it is not inside (embedded) with the presentation – and it MUST be distributed with the presentation for it to work. Here is the best practice:
– Copy the selected audio file to the same folder as the presentation
– Insert the audio file into the presentation
– Always send a copy of the presentation AND the audio file
Next, the exception to the rule.
Troy @ TLC
Glenn Shaw, a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP, has been up to her magic again. This time she has created a whimsical tutorial that explains and shows how Crystal Xcelius can be used to create truly dynamic charts/graphs for PowerPoint. Check out the “Visually Analyze Resource Impact” tutorial here.
Xcelius is a very powerful tool and can also be integrated into websites. For a really fun and whimsical example, check out Glenna’s Cinderella Project (as in Disney Princess).
Troy @ TLC