powerpoint

PowerPoint For Peace

We often forget as individuals we can do a lot to make this world a better place and spend time waiting for the change to happen. Here is an initiative to prove it to ourselves that we can do as much as anyone to promote peace.

Glenna Shaw and Geetesh Bajaj, both PowerPoint MVPs have started a unique initiative “PowerPoint for Peace”, a Global Community Project. The project just last week and is building a universal presentation that recognizes the contributions and commitments of people from around the World to improve the planet and the lives of our fellow inhabitants.

authorSTREAM.com is being used as a platform and participating is very easy. Just create a single slide that depicts a contribution that helps make the World a better place to live in (must contain your name/group/company and be uploaded using the authorSTREAM link).

See it and participate here.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:46:59-08:00August 4th, 2008|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|

More Edit Room In PPT2007

If you find the Ribbon taking up to much space, space that would be better used viewing your slides as you edit, there is a great option. Here is the standard Ribbon view.

Right-click to the right of the tabs along the top and there is a “Minimize Ribbon” option.

The result is the ribbon disappears and frees up a lot of editing area.

When you click on any of tabs the ribbon appears. Click away and it disappears again!

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:52:48-08:00June 30th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

Always Open A Recent Document (PPT 2007)

Most people have a handful of presentations that they access routinely. PowerPoint has had the ‘Recent Documents’ feature to make it easier to reopen those presentations – and it is a helpful tool many times. But PowerPoint 2007 has made that feature even more powerful and usable.

Here is the PPT 2007 Start Menu and mine shows 1 Recent Document (okay the list was full, but I cleared it for this tutorial).

The important addition to PPT 2007 is the small thumbtack icon on the right. It is the same icon that has existed since PPT XP on the Master Slides to preserve masters. The one on the Recent Documents does the exact same thing – it preserves that presentation to always be in the Recent Documents list!

By clicking the thumbtack it goes from grey to green – and now you can always open that presentation with ease! (note: works as long as the presentation stays in its original location)

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:53:08-08:00June 27th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

It Takes A Lot Of Images To Convey A Message

I am preparing material for a PowerPoint/Design course and this is screen capture of my images folder from a recent project. My message is that a presentation is more than bullet points and an image can be more effective. I practice that message and this is shows the number of images prepared in Photoshop for a recent presentaiton.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:57:59-08:00June 6th, 2008|Portfolio, PowerPoint|

MS Fluent User Interactive Demo

Not up to speed on the new Ribbon interface… Have 10 minutes to kill… Check out this nifty interactive Flash demo on why the Ribbon was designed and interactive tutorials for each of the Office apps.

Click here to open. If you want to skip ahead, PowerPoint is Chapter 6.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:58:19-08:00June 4th, 2008|Software/Add-Ins|

PPT Graphics for Video

PPT 2007 has some great visual effects. For a recent project I was developing the PowerPoint presentations for speaker support. I was asked by the video production company that was creating videos for the same meeting if I could create a number of graphics that would have a coordinated look with the presentations. Among the graphics I developed these two piecharts (client data removed):

Each was saved out of PowerPoint as a .png which preserved the transparency and allowed the video editor to place the graphic over the motion background. They also animated from 1 piechart to the other showing growth. Pretty cool stuff!

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:59:13-08:00June 2nd, 2008|Portfolio, Tutorial|

Master Slide “Slates” (2)

One of the nice elements of PPT 2007 ribbon is the way it previews master slide options. Here is a recent presentation with 4 master slides:

This really shows the slates mentioned in the previous post. For this presentation I only have one background for the speaker content (#1 – Purple) and 3 slates. Of note: I color code the speaker slates so I know what type of information it contains before reading it (especially when viewing slides in slide sorter view). Here the breakdown of each:
1. Content background and the 5 layout options developed for it
2. Video slate: hidden slide that tells me what video is to run at that point of the presentation
3. Speaker slate: hidden slide that tells me which speaker will be on stage (this presentation has numerous presenters)
4. Misc. slate: hidden slide that is used to tell me everything else, from web demo to break

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:00:44-08:00May 28th, 2008|Tutorial|

Master Slide “Slates”

Everyone is familiar with a movie scene slate:

It is used during filming to allow the editors to identify everything. It is not intended for the audience to see, just the behind the scenes people. Well I use similiar idea when developing presenattions. These are hidden slides that are not designed for the audience.

These are used for speakers, videos, or anything special such as sound effects, stage direction, etc.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:01:24-08:00May 26th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|

Good PPT Article All Should Read

Last week a great article on PowerPoint presentations came out on bMighty by Nilofer Merchant (most likely posted many other places as well).

The article is “Strategy Matters: Eight Great PowerPoint Myths” which you can read here. It has a good message – don’t use animation for animation, don’t use too much content on a slide, and the presentation is to support the speaker who is to convey the message to the audience (not read the slides or let the presentation tell the story).

My only caution is that the author is not overly objective about the proper use of animation (myth #5) and draws the line on its use by throwing it out… maybe she has seen to many bad presentations.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:01:45-08:00May 23rd, 2008|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|

Preserve Master Slides

Multiple master slides are fantastic! But every now and then you have a presentation with multiple masters and go to use one that you know is a part of the file and it’s not to be found – ahhh! Well you can prevent this from happening by first assuring that all master slides are set to be preserved – which is another way of saying ‘do not delete, even if not used’.

Here is my sample presentation with 3 master slides:

Notice that master slides 1 and 3 have a little thumbtack icon:

This indicates the master slide is preserved and will not be deleted unless you specifically remove it (that is good!). There are 2 easy ways you can preserve a master slide and add the thumbtack icon to it.

1. Use the ‘Preserve Master’button on the master slide toolbar:

2. Right click the master slide and from the pop up menu choose ‘Preserve Master’.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T13:02:37-08:00May 19th, 2008|PowerPoint, Tutorial|
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