PowerPoint Blog
Labels: microsoft_office, office_online, powerpoint
Julie Terberg who is a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP has been busy doing this cool video with Microsoft Office Online as part of their new Office Intervention series. In this particular video, Julie shows a law student how she can effectively use PowerPoint effectively to create a compelling presentation.
Yes, the finished video looks amazing -- so I embedded it here on this blog post!
Categories: microsoft_office, office_online, powerpoint
Labels: add-in, microsoft_office, nxpowerlite, powerpoint
NXPowerLite 4 is the new version of a well known file optimizing product that reduces the size of Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and JPEG images. The files remain in their original format, with almost no loss of quality. Also NXPowerLite works integrated within Lotus Notes, Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express or Windows Mail. In this case, NXPowerLite will automatically optimize email attachments as they are sent and the file recipients don't need NXPowerLite to open or edit the attachments.
Read the review here...
Categories: add-in, microsoft_office, nxpowerlite, powerpoint
Labels: microsoft_office, online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
SlideShare, an online presentation sharing site now ups the ante by supporting more file formats including:
And all sorts of PDFs and PowerPoint presentations can still be upoaded -- a few months ago, SlideShare added support for Apple Keynote presentations as well.
All such documents can be easily embedded in WordPress and other blog platforms, as well as on LinkedIn networks.
Categories: microsoft_office, online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: books, microsoft_office, powerpoint_2007
This exclusive book extract from VSTO 3.0 for Office 2007 Programming is presented here with permission from Packt Publishing.
The book, authored by Vivek Thangaswamy will help you get started with using VSTO in several Microsoft Office 2007 applications including InfoPath, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, etc. The excerpt on this site looks at customizing the Ribbon interface in PowerPoint 2007.
Read the excerpts here...
Categories: books, microsoft_office, powerpoint_2007
Labels: access, microsoft_office, powerpoint, programming, vba
First of all, this is not a tutorial -- rather it is a walkthrough that shows proof of concept of integrating a Microsoft Access database within a PowerPoint slide. What's more -- the sample presentation that has been provided let's you use any Access database as the source for your presentation slides!
You can download the sample presentation and database files. You will need to have both Microsoft Access and PowerPoint installed on the same system for this to work -- also it works best if versions of both the products are identical, as in PowerPoint 2003 and Access 2003 -- or PowerPoint 2007 and Access 2007.
Learn more with Naresh Nichani...
Categories: access, microsoft_office, powerpoint, programming, vba
Labels: graphics, interviews, microsoft_office, powerpoint, smartdraw
Paul Stannard is CEO of SmartDraw.com, creators of the popular SmartDraw program. In this Indezine exclusive conversation, Paul discusses the new features in the just-released SmartDraw 2009.5
Geetesh: Tell us more about SmartDraw 2009.5's new features, and why there are important to Microsoft Office users.
Paul: SmartDraw 2009.5 adds many new features but the three most significant increase SmartDraw's already considerable integration with Microsoft Office:
Geetesh: Your implementation of PowerPoint specific features is complete enough so that content created in SmartDraw need not be re-colored or re-animated in PowerPoint. What motivated you to create something so complete?
Paul: It's been said that "a picture is worth a thousand words" and we know that communicating visually with visuals in your slide is six time as effective for retention and comprehension than bullets. So, many SmartDraw owners use it to enhance their PowerPoint presentations.
Because this is such a popular and worthwhile application of SmartDraw we decided to provide a complete solution to PowerPoint users with the following capabilities:
The SmartDraw storyboard template makes this much easier to do than working inside PowerPoint. You get a complete picture of your whole presentation. You can drag and drop slides and bullets to change the content and order effortlessly. You can also link to other SmartDraw files that contain visuals you want to include on a slide and see a thumbnail of it in your storyboard.
Finally when you are satisfied with the storyboard of your presentation, you can pick the PowerPoint template you want to use and one click will build the entire slide deck, inserting the visuals from other SmartDraw files you specified, including their sequencing. This command sews all of our PowerPoint integration together for a complete solution.
Categories: graphics, interviews, microsoft_office, powerpoint, smartdraw
Labels: graphics, microsoft_office, powerpoint, smartdraw
SmartDraw has been long a mainstay of those who want to create professional looking graphics fast and easy. And although PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office applications include many info-graphic options, they continue to lack several business graphic options such as mindmaps, storyboards, flowcharts, etc. SmartDraw has traditionally filled in these gaps, but now it has started offering more than just the gaps.
We look at the new SmartDraw 2009.5, especially the new Microsoft Office oriented interoperability features in this review.
Read the review here...
Categories: graphics, microsoft_office, powerpoint, smartdraw
Labels: microsoft_office
Continuing with my Office Moves Browser-wards post, more details have started emerging.
Sci-Tech Today reports that "the apps will be made available at the end of next year, when the new Office 14 is released. A technology preview is being planned for the end of this year."
The National Business Review has many screenshots including one that shows the PowerPoint version of the web incarnation -- their report adds: "Pushing the boundaries still further, Microsoft says Office 14 Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote files will also be able to be viewed, and edited, on a smart phone's web browser -- and again, you won't necessarily have to own a Windows Mobile handset."
vnunet adds that " "Customers tell us they want to be able to share information and collaborate with others seamlessly across the PC, phones and the web," said Takeshi Numoto, general manager for the Office client. Speaking at the company's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles, Numoto demonstrated how the web applications allow two people to open and edit the same document stored in Office Live Workspace, with any changes synchronised between the two copies almost instantly."
Categories: microsoft_office
Labels: microsoft_office
In a single most important indication of things to come, Microsoft pulled the curtains to announce that Microsoft Office programs such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote would be available as light-weight, browser-based apps, much like Google Apps. However, unlike Google Apps, Microsoft Office Web applications won't be available entirely free. Expect to see both paid and advertiser supported versions. Significantly, Microsoft has also announced that these online programs would run beyond Microsoft's own Internet Explorer in other browsers including Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari. These answers and announcements were part of the PDC (Professional Developers Conference), being held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from October 27th to 30th, 2008.
PC Magazine adds that "users will be able to sign up for an Office Live beta at some point in the future at the Office Live Workspace site, Microsoft said Tuesday. A technical preview of the software/service will be released later this year."
CNET has more info: "In an interview, Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop said that the browser-based editing capabilities are being developed in conjunction with the next version of Office, known as Office 14. Microsoft won't say when that version will arrive, but Elop said that a technology preview of the browser-based products will come later this year and that a beta version will be released in 2009."
InfoWorld folks wonder about the timing when they ask: "Why is Microsoft announcing this now when it could have brought out browser-based versions of its apps long ago? "We've been figuring out the right thing to build for quite some time," said Kapner. "The company had to feel good about its [services] strategy across the company. We had to make sure our Office strategy fit with the larger strategy.""
Categories: microsoft_office
Labels: microsoft_office
A number of online sites have started making noises about Office 14, the successor to Office 2007 on the Microsoft Windows platform. This news comes as Microsoft gears up to hold its PDC (Professional Developers Conference) next week at the Los Angeles Convention Center from October 27th to 30th, 2008.
ZDNet reports that "Office 14, as the product is code-named, will be discussed at next week's event, with attendees likely to get a glimpse of some of its features, according to sources. Unlike Windows 7, however, attendees should not expect to leave Los Angeles with a copy of their own. Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has talked recently about the idea that the next version of Office will be able to run in various modes, including over the internet".
PC Pro adds that "Microsoft, as with most of its major releases, has been tight-lipped about what to expect from the new Office, though back in February Bill Gates hinted that it would feature a greater online presence".
SC Magazine puts the online focus clearly on cloud computing: "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer commented last week on a number of developments at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference at the end of this month, which has led to some euphoria". They also add that "It's all very well, allowing your copy of Microsoft Office 2010 to store your files in the Cloud, but what about the provisions of the Data Protection Act, which effectively prohibit the storage of employee and/or customer data on the other side of the world without the express consent of the people concerned?"
Watch this space for more news on Office 14 -- I'm waiting to see what they say about the new PowerPoint!
Categories: microsoft_office
Labels: interviews, microsoft_office, office_online, powerpoint
This has to be among the most interesting interviews I have done with anyone -- mainly because I was not interviewing just one person! This team of six comprises some of the most amazing folks I have interacted with -- together they take care of all the content that you will find on the PowerPoint section of the Office Online site at Microsoft.com.
Kudos to Mary Sobczyk for patiently coordinating with me on this -- and Shellie Tucker, Eric Schmidt, Joy Miller, Jen Zamora, and Eric Jensen -- you'll find them all pictured below.
In this exclusive Indezine interview, they discuss how they work as a team, and what factors influence the creation of new content for the PowerPoint part of the Office Online site.
Read the interview here...
Categories: interviews, microsoft_office, office_online, powerpoint
Labels: google, microsoft_office
Google Docs is now providing offline access to editing files on an experimental basis -- as of now this only works with Docs, rather than Spreadsheets and Presentations, but it is definitely a start in a direction that may have far reaching results in the way we all use computing.
ChannelWeb provides opinions from many users about this new feature that works on Google Gears, an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide offline functionality.
Even with Docs, this option has not been made available to all Google accounts, so if you don't see this functionality yet, you might have to wait a little while longer. I'm waiting to see how Google implements this technology into the Presentations component of Google Docs. And while many sites and bloggers seem to indicate that this might be a big blow to Microsoft Office, I think there's so much more to wait and watch before making a blanket statement of that magnitude.
Categories: google, microsoft_office
Labels: microsoft_office, odf
A standards committee will next week begin the next stage of the process that could see Microsoft’s new Open XML formats formally adopted as a global standard – or not. A vote by standards bodies from 87 countries last September went against the immediate adoption of Open XML as an ISO standard. This gave an immediate boost to the Open Document Format (ODF), which is already an ISO standard, but it did not rule out the Microsoft formats.
Read more on Personal Computer World...
Microsoft Corp. on Thursday responded to continued regulatory scrutiny by reiterating promises to make information about its products more easily available to software programmers, while vowing not to sue those who use such information for noncommercial purposes. The move underscores an ongoing shift for the tech behemoth, as it has sought recently to present its technology as increasingly open to outside developers and compatible with competing products. It also comes only days before delegates from an international standards body are scheduled to convene in Geneva to discuss Microsoft's Open XML file format, which has been derided by critics as insufficiently accessible.
Read more on MarketWatch...
Categories: microsoft_office, odf
Labels: graphics, interviews, microsoft_office 
David Salaguinto (pictured to the left) is a writer on the Office User Assistance team at Microsoft who uses comics he creates to have fun, and to connect with readers -- see his Office Online Web Comic blog. In this conversation, David discusses how he got started, and where he gets inspiration from.
Geetesh: Tell us more about your work at Office Online. And how did you get started with the web comics blog?
David: Mostly, I write about Visio for the people who use it, although I do occasionally write about other Microsoft Office programs if a team needs my help. Every month, we look at the feedback we receive from customers, and we try to address it. Sometimes it means we write new articles or update existing ones. Sometimes it means we produce a video demo or online training. Sometimes it means we try new things. They don’t always work, but we like to think we learn from our failures.
One of the things we wanted to try was a comic. A colleague of mine found a fascinating article about comics being used in unusual places. What if we did a comic for Office Online? I thought it sounded like a fun idea, so I jumped at the chance to create a comic using Visio. For my first comic, I did a rather simple one about printing:
I personally thought it was kind of corny, but my coworkers seemed to like it, so I made more. Pretty soon, I was posting them online. You can read more about how I got started in this column I wrote for Office Online.
Geetesh: I love all the content you put up on the Office Online Web Comic blog -- what inspires you for all the ideas based on Microsoft Office applications.
David: I get a lot of my ideas from my coworkers. Sometimes, someone will send me an idea for a comic, but more often than not, I’ll read something in an e-mail or overhear something in a meeting that strikes me as a possible source of humor. It turns out that jokes aren’t that hard to write. Finding irony and surprise in everyday things—like Microsoft Office—now, that’s hard. For example, I was reading something written by a coworker about how a PowerPoint deck can have multiple slide masters. I immediately thought of the saying, “No man can serve two masters,” which lead me to this comic about PowerPoint and Marketing:
That’s where the ideas come from. As for the punch lines, well…I don’t actually know. They seem to come out of nowhere, but only after throwing out dozens of bad ones. You’d cringe in horror if you saw some of the bad punch lines I came up with for the preceding comic.
Geetesh: Tell us about some favorite posts you have put up, and why they are your favorites?
David: I think my favorite comics are the ones with the little pink girl in them. I have two young daughters myself, and I love the way they talk and how they look at the world. For example, I‘ve noticed that a lot of kids have started using PowerPoint in their school projects, which lead me to this comic:
For this comic, I spent a lot of time crafting the words so they would ring true and sound believable. I also wanted to capture the excitement in the child and the caring in the father. In so far as the comic succeeds, I think it succeeds because of that (and not just because of the jibe at marketing—although that certainly helps). As you can probably tell, I have a lot of fun creating these comics—probably even more than you have reading them.
Categories: interviews, graphics, , microsoft_office
Labels: interviews, microsoft_office, powerpoint
Katherine Murray is the author of more than 50 books on technology and writes articles for various Microsoft sites. She also writes and edits the Microsoft Mindshare newsletter and contributes articles to CNET's TechRepublic. In addition to books and articles, Katherine publishes BlogOffice, a blog sharing tips and ideas related to various versions of Microsoft Office.
Read the interview here...
Categories: interviews, microsoft_office, powerpoint
Labels: google, microsoft_office, powerpoint
Will online applications ever replace the ones we use on our desktop? Will Google's slew of online programs shake the Microsoft juggernaut of Office programs? There are no clear answers yet -- but the battle lines are getting drawn more distinctly now as Google prepares to launch it's presentation program in direct confrontation to PowerPoint.
However, there's a larger question there waiting to be asked: will users be able to play these presentations offline, and project them? That's going to be a more important issue for presentations than for documents and spreadsheets since presentations are projected or broadcasted to hundreds and thousands of users.
I'll look for those answers and share them with you. Meanwhile, there's more information on Google's so called PowerPoint killer.
The Inquirer reported that "it’s been known for a long while that Google will at some point take on PowerPoint with a web-based presentations package. The breaking news is that the coming-out party for the software is any day now. Called Presently, the slideshow program is likely to be based in part on code Google bought through the acquisitions of Zenter and Tonic Systems earlier this year".
Categories: google, microsoft_office, powerpoint
Labels: microsoft_office, powerpoint_2007
Microsoft has announced on Wednesday, a $60 web-based version of the company's Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 software that will be exclusively available to college students. Microsoft dubbed their latest promotion as the "The Ultimate Steal" and will run until April 30, 2008. The promotion already started in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and will be available to France, Italy, and Spain starting September 20, 2007.
More on the Associated Content site...
Categories: microsoft_office, powerpoint_2007
Labels: google, microsoft_office
Microsoft and Google are expected to ramp up their competition in the emerging hosted office productivity market at the Office 2.0 conference in San Francisco. Google is expected to unveil a wiki component to its Google Apps service, as well as a hosted PowerPoint competitor, while Microsoft is expected to deliver a bundle of software and services apps under its Windows Live brand.
More on the CBR Online site...
Categories: google, microsoft_office
Labels: keynote, microsoft_office, office_mac
Apple announced iWork '08, a new version of its productivity suite.
This includes a new version of Keynote, their presentation software. New features in Keynote include Instant Alpha, a process that removes the background from placed images without having to use masking tools in image-editors like Adobe Photoshop. Another new feature is Smart Builds, an option that makes it easy to add animations. Keynote also adds new transition types, and text effects enhancements. All these options except Instant Alpha are already available in PowerPoint -- and Microsoft's upcoming version of Office 2008 for the Mac can only add more catch-up to do on both the Apple and Microsoft fronts.
As if that was not enough, Apple adds Numbers, a spreadsheet program to iWork '08, thus making it a more even contender to Microsoft Office for the Mac.
Pages, the page layout program adds more word processing options.
What's next? Is there an iWork for Windows coming up?
Meanwhile, read more about iWork '08 for Mac here...
Categories: keynote, microsoft_office, office_mac
Labels: microsoft_office, powerpoint
Microsoft has released a new version of Microsoft Works. Microsoft Works v9, the red-headed stepchild of Microsoft Office, is a free, ad supported office package offering word processing, spreadsheet and slideshow (PowerPoint) functionality.
Microsoft Works 9 may also someday be available as a Microsoft-hosted low-end productivity service, possibly through the company’s Live services, which would put it head-to-head with Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Zoho. But for the moment, Works 9 will be limited to the desktop.
More on the Wired Blog Network...
Categories: microsoft_office, powerpoint
Labels: microsoft_office, powerpoint
Your presentations always influence others to take some kind of action. The action might be to listen carefully and learn new information or it might be to drift off toward Dreamworld. The way in which your presentation delivers information has everything to do with how well it will be received. Here are some quick ideas for livening up your presentations to keep the after-lunch crowd awake in their seats.
Katherine Murray tells you more on TechRepublic.com
Categories: microsoft_office, powerpoint
Labels: microsoft_office, odf
Under the name Sun ODF Plug-in for Microsoft Office, Sun has released its import/export filter for the OpenDocument format (ODF), which the ISO has recognized as a standard, for versions 2000, XP, and 2003 of Microsoft's Office suite; the plug-in can be downloaded via our software repository. The extension allows users of MS Office to read and create text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in the free OpenOffice suite and its commercial version called StarOffice.
More on Heise Online...
Categories: microsoft_office, odf
Labels: google, microsoft_office
Microsoft's hugely profitable Office software is about to get a more rounded competitor from nemesis Google.
The search giant, via a series of acquisitions and some internal development, looks like it will soon have the technology to challenge Office's dominance with its own suite of applications that run over the internet.
More on the Guardian site...
Categories: google, microsoft_office
Labels: add-in, microsoft_office, powerpoint_2007
RibbonCustomizer, the add-in product for Microsoft Office 2007 that allows you to customize the tabs within the Ribbon has now been updated to version 1.1 -- the new update is free for all users. See screenshots later on this page.
New features include:
More info on the RibbonCustomizer site...
Categories: add-in, microsoft_office, powerpoint_2007
Labels: add-in, microsoft_office, powerpoint_2007
The biggest feature in Microsoft's new Office 2007 suite is most certainly the interface. Gone are the menus and the toolbars -- now all the commands are available in the various tabs of the Ribbon. The Ribbon is much more intuitive -- but for seasoned users who have been working with Microsoft Office applications for more than a decade, it does involve a serious amount of unlearning.
An interesting add-in for Office applications like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel now brings back the menus and toolbars -- all inside a new Ribbon tab called "Menus"! The add-in is called Classic Menu Manager.
Read on to learn more...
Categories: add-in, powerpoint_2007, microsoft_office
Labels: add-in, microsoft_office
Most of us would not want to delete anything -- so how can we do something so that the same files take less space?
PackITSuite is the product from I-Logik which helps reduce the size of stored file data without deleting or archiving them.
Let us explore further...
Categories: add-in, microsoft_office
Labels: microsoft_office, powerpoint_2007
Microsoft Corp. last week released the final part of a free tool kit designed to help corporate users convert their existing Office files to Office 2007's new Open XML file format. The new technology, called the Office Migration Planning Manager, combs through networked PCs to discover and report back on how many and what kind of Office files exist on the systems. The OMPM's availability was quietly announced Friday on the blog of Brian Jones, an Office program manager at Microsoft.
More on the PC World site...
Categories: microsoft_office, powerpoint_2007
Labels: add-in, microsoft_office, powerpoint_2007
If you use MathType with Word or PowerPoint, and then upgrade to Office 2007, you will find that you no longer have the icons or buttons to insert a MathType equation in Word 2007 or PowerPoint 2007.
You'll find instructions on bringing them back in Word 2007 on this link -- it works the same way for Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007.
Categories: microsoft_office, powerpoint_2007, add-in
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