Tabs in PowerPoint
It’s official: PowerPoint has made its first major addition the Ribbon interface since its inception with PPT 2007. The addition provides no additional functionality, but it does greatly speed up production and design! It is the seemly simple, but wonderful, tabs for the right action pane, called “Tabbed Panes.”
As a task pane is opened, a tab for it is included along the right column. To change which tab is available, click the icons. Tabs are not closed unless you click the X icon. Tabs include: Format, Animation, Selection Pane, Comments, and Version History.
There are a few things to note with this added feature: first, you must have 2 or more task panes open to see the tabs; just one will appear just as it always has. Also, there is a nice interface to allow side-by-side view of multiple tabs you select (as example, I often have the animation and selection pane tabs open side-by-side when working on a complex animation). View the tab you want on the “left” and select “move out of tab”.
It is still possible to make any pane undock and become free floating (as example, to place on a second monitor).
However you choose to arrange your panels, here’s a tip: to navigate to a pane with keyboard, double-tap press F6 – first to focus on the active pane, and second to focus on the tab icons. Use the up/down arrow keys to select different tabs, and then press enter to bring them to front.
This is a great update that increases the usability of PowerPoint even more. However, I have a few questions in to Microsoft: What is the official name of these “tabs”? When were they added? How do we see multiple task panes side-by-side now (It is common to have the animation and selection panes open at the same time)? Can the tabs be preset to be present when PPT is launched?
Reference information: https://blog-insider.office.com/2020/02/20/improved-pane-management/
Troy @ TLC
PowerPoint Synchronize – a new and exciting presentation feature!
Microsoft has just added a new feature to PowerPoint! This feature allows you to make changes to slides while presenting – and it is amazing!! The important thing is the presentation must be accessed from OneDrive or SharePoint. If you are a Microsoft Teams user, when you add a file to the FILES section, you are set, and I am going to use Teams for my example.
In Microsoft Teams, and on the side menu bar, navigate to the “Files” button
Click Files and on the next menu, click upload and go through process of moving the presentation from your computer to OneDrive (it is seamless and easy when done through Microsoft Teams)
Here is the sample 2 slide presentation
To demonstrate, here is the file opened from Microsoft Teams.
In the SLIDE SHOW tab is a new option, KEEP SLIDES UPDATED. Keep Slides Updated, or PowerPoint Synchronize, is where teamwork comes into play. While presenting a slide show, another person can make edits from a separate computer, and those edits will be in the active slide show! Remember, for this to work the file needs to run from a OneDrive location, be shared with at least one other person, and the “Keep Slides Updated” option enabled.
Here I am presenting the first slide.
There is an error on the next slide with the chart listed as 2019, but it really is 2020 (no one experiences wrong info in their slides!). But the deck is shared with our colleague and they have got us covered.
While we talk about slide 1, my colleague updates slide 2 on their computer so when I go to slide 2 it has the correct year – all while I was in slide show and presenting!
Troy @ TLC
Podcast Episode 103 is Available Today!
A new episode of The Presentation Podcast is available today! Troy, Nolan and Sandy talk with Jackie Gartner-Schmidt in depth about how the voice works and provide tips for presenters (rappers, sport enthusiasts and more). Listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify and Soundcloud – or search The Presentation Podcast for “Presenting with Your Voice (w/ Jackie Gartner-Schmidt of Voice Now)” or go direct to the episode page here: https://thepresentationpodcast.com/podcast/103
Using Microsoft Teams – a Real World User 1-Sheet
TLC Creative has been using Microsoft Teams extensively. We are sharing this info packed 1-sheet we created. It is how to use Microsoft Teams as a real-world user. Download the PDF and send us a note on if it was helpful.
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Open in new tab Presentation Bandwidth of Screen Share vs. PowerPoint Online Present
This is on the technical, and geeky, side of presentations. In our current environment of remote presenting, we have been addressing questions and supporting remote meetings non-stop. Remote presenting has lots of technical obstacles, that are now the responsibility of each presenter to deal with (vs. showing up at a conference and knowing a professional AV team was in control of everything technical and you, as a presenter, just needed to focus on getting on stage and presenting).
I am sharing a video from Microsoft that demonstrates PowerPoint specifically. In my discussions over the past year with the Microsoft PowerPoint team I have been hearing about the advances they have accomplished in remote presenting and collaboration. Well, I am a believer and integrating PowerPoint Online presenting into several virtual meeting workflows.
The big takeaway is presenting to a remote audience, using a PowerPoint presentation uploaded to (OneDrive, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams) has amazing bandwidth savings for high quality visuals, video and animation over presenting a presentation shown as a shared screen.
Troy @ TLC
The Presentation Podcast Collaboration PowerPoint Deck
In the most recent episode of The Presentation Podcast, “Is PowerPoint Collaboration in Microsoft Teams Good?”, was much more than myself and my two co-hosts talking about the features we have seen and read about – we lived it! It was also fun watching Nolan and Sandy squirm a bit as I encouraged (forced) them into the world of a Microsoft Teams workflow 😊
For this podcast episode, we wanted our conversation to be about PowerPoint and its many collaboration features and performance that Microsoft has been talking about for the past few years. Because we (TLC Creative Services) have few clients utilizing Microsoft Teams for content editing, and Nolan & Sandy have even fewer, I decided the best way for us to talk about this was to jump in and immerse ourselves in what is soon to become a common workflow for presentation design.
Step one was setting up a Team for this project within our TLC Creative Services account. Sandy, Nolan and myself were the only people able to access the files within it (Nolan and Sandy were guests to the TLC Creative Services Teams account, able to access only this one Team).
Working on the presentation design was typical. I put together sample slide deck that we each opened with the PowerPoint desktop application. Just like client notes, our sample deck had notes for content design throughout:
There were notes inside text placeholders.
It had notes as bright colored boxes on the slide.
And there were design notes as PowerPoint Comments.
Our shared experience was great (really)! The presentation we designed was great (really)! And we all unanimously agreed that the addition of Microsoft Teams to the workflow, being the hosting service and core for the shared presentation file was a success. If you missed it, listen in on our conversation on collaborating in PowerPoint here.
Troy @ TLC
Podcast 102
A new episode of The Presentation Podcast is available today! Troy, Nolan and Sandy share their learnings of working on a co-authored presentation, hosted on Microsoft Teams.
…if I’m going to get dragged kicking and screaming into the world of (Microsoft) Teams, I’m happy to have you do it.
– Nolan Haims in an email to Troy Chollar
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify and Soundcloud – just search for The Presentation Podcast for “Being a Remote Presenter (with Ken Molay)” or go direct to the episode page here: https://thepresentationpodcast.com/podcast/102
