I Don’t Want Black Letterbox Bars!
So the display monitor for your presentation is not a “standard” resolution and you want don’t want to have black letterbox bars while your presentation is shown. The best option is to adjust the page size of the presentation to a height and width that matches the display size. But what do you adjust the page size too?
If you want to avoid the higher math needed, you can use a free little application created by Austin Myers over at Plays For Certain. The “Calculate PowerPoint Slide Size” does exactly what it says. Input the pixel size of the display, click the calculate button, and it does all the math for you, providing 3 page setup options that guarantee the presentation will fill every one of those pixels.
Just click here to download (11K .zip).
– Troy @ TLC
PPT2007 Reflections
In a few weeks I am doing a webcast on PPT2007 Visual Effects put on by Eli Research’s AudioSolutionz. Basically I covering the whole range of new graphic tools and options in the 1 hour webcast – so I will be talking fast! Here is a quick screencast of just one topic that I have been making extensive use of lately – reflections:
Click the image to open the screencast (and forgive the poor audio quality). You can check out details about the webinar at this page on the AudioSolutionz website here.
– Troy @ TLC
Make a “Fake” Website
One of the common requests is to show a website on a slide, or create a mock-up of a website. With this request I first open one of my favorite applications SnagIt.
Then open a blank broswer and use snagit to create a .jpg which can be inserted into the slide. Here is one I like, which I added a drop shadow to for some extra pizzazz.
Then I can capture the needed website or add images to mockup. Here is my slide, note there are 2 images; the browser image and then website image (which I positioned and cropped to fit inside the browser). I can also add the URL with a PPT text box, which makes this clear and easy to read:
– Troy @ TLC
Discount Code for iStockPhoto
So the more I utilize iStockPhoto (my latest was purchasing some fantastic vector art to integrate into a template) the more I am putting my budget toward it vs. maintaining subscriptions to other services.
Of course things get even better when I discover a discount! Here are the details:
a. 20% off any $50+ purchase
b. Offer code: XARACOM
c. Note: only can be used 1x per account
– Troy @ TLC
Perspector 4.0 Released
Perspector is a unique PowerPoint add-in that allows you to either new 3D images, text and diagrams or modify existing 2D PPT autoshapes into 3D.
The folks at Perspector have recently released version 4.0 and added some great features. Here are a few examples:
Click here to go to the Perspector website.
– Troy @ TLC
PPT 2007 Compresses Images By Default
Turns out PowerPoint may be trying to be more helpful than you want. I want to control when, and how many times, an image is compressed. The default setting for PPT 2007 is to compress images every time the file is saved. Here is my example slide, which has just one large image:
With the image selected (1) go to the FORMAT tab, then (2) click the COMPRESS PICTURES option
This brings up the basic dialog box, but we want to go into the OPTIONS
Finally, UNCHECK the automatically compress images option so you can control which images, if any need to be compressed by PowerPoint.
– Troy @ TLC
Text Message from Email
So my pre-teen daughter has become the text message princess. Lori uses text messaging with her best friend and to get a hold of me while I am on on showsite. But what surprised me lately was that many are unfamiliar with how to send a text message to a cell phone from their email – it’s easy!
Just make the subject line:
Alltel
PhoneNumber(with_area_code)@message.alltel.com
AT&T
PhoneNumber@mobile.att.net
Nextel
PhoneNumber@messaging.nextel.com
Sprint
PhoneNumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-mobile
PhoneNumber@tmomail.net
Verizon
PhoneNumber@vtext.com
Note 1: if more than 160 characters it will be received in multiple text messages.
Note 2: if the receipient does not have text messaging as a feature of their cell plan they will be charged.
– Troy @ TLC