PowerPoint Blog
Labels: legal, opinion, powerpoint
A lot is at stake—power, money, reputation, future plans, justice. You need to win this case. Your presentation materials surely will play an important role in helping the judge and jury experience the sights, sounds, and details of the case … or not. The choice is up to you, says one tech-savvy attorney. It all depends upon whether you are willing to push PowerPoint beyond its normal boundaries to maximize its interactive and persuasive potential.
This article by Robert Lane and Bruce A. Olson provides a better idea of using PowerPoint in court.
Read this now...
Categories: legal, opinion, powerpoint
Labels: google, powerpoint, tutorials
Google is a web search engine which indexes all sorts of information on the World Wide Web. Search results on Google typically contain results that consist of web pages, images, information and other types of files. What many users don't know is that Google allows you to restrict your search for a particular file type, such as a PowerPoint presentation! In this tutorial, I'll show you how you can search for PowerPoint presentations only using Google's Advanced Search option.
Learn more now...
Categories: google, powerpoint, tutorials
Labels: add-in, powerpoint
Out of the box, Microsoft builds little or no integration or relationships within PowerPoint to other Microsoft Office applications. To provide a quick example, PowerPoint users have nothing close to the mail merge options in Word or Outlook that can access data from an Excel or database source. And that's sort of sad, since PowerPoint is one application that can act as a glue to all sorts of content -- from text to pictures, and movies to charts! Our review product, PPT Merge does try to cover this vacuum -- does it succeed?
Read more to find out...
Categories: add-in, powerpoint
Labels: powerpoint, tutorials
Why would anyone want to password protect their PowerPoint presentations? There are many reasons, and here are some of them. A presentation with confidential content is safe if it is password protected -- nobody without access to the password can open it. Also, the password protected presentation is more safer to share -- you can provide the password to the person whom you are sharing the presentation with. In addition to providing a password-to-open option, PowerPoint provides a less restrictive password-to-modify option. So your presentation can be opened by anybody, but can't be modified - this makes your content non editable.
Learn more now...
Categories: powerpoint, tutorials
Labels: design, powerpoint, shapes
Continuing my discussion on circles (see Circles I and Circles II), this time I look at creating circles in an application outside PowerPoint.
Specifically, my office team was helping me with a review of Artlandia's new SymmetryWorks plug-in for Adobe Illustrator that lets me create organic looking patterns from all shapes. Since we are biased towards circles at this point of time, we decided to create a repeating circular pattern using SymmetryWorks. These patterns were intended as a starting point for PowerPoint backgrounds.
Look at these patterns here -- they are all uploaded to my Flickr account so feel free to click on these thumbnails to see larger previews:
Since this was a fun project, we also made a presentation-full-of-circles with the first pattern -- we uploaded this to SlideBoom so that we could embed it within this post:
So what do I do with circles next? Wait and watch -- or send me your thoughts and feedback...
Categories: design, powerpoint, shapes
Labels: design, photoshop, powerpoint, shapes
I shared a few "circle" thoughts with you in the first post in this series: Design Shapes: The Circle, Part I -- and now it's time to look at some more circles. What could be better than an entire book on circles, and my favorite is a book that's entirely filled with color pictures of any sort of circular pattern that you might have seen!
The book is called Circles and Dots: Communicating with Pattern, and it contains 250 pages worth of circular inspirations for you to feast on.
This is a book that will inspire every individual in a way that's different for each reader. Some people may get ideas about doing crafts and hobbies, others may launch their PowerPoint or Photoshop, and start creating circles -- and others might just start doodling. But each of them will have their own circle of inspiration.
So how does it inspire me? I love to see how color and texture can make so much of a difference between one circle and the other -- how light alters a circular concept in a photograph, and how many circles we have around us all the time that we are not even aware of!
Categories: design, photoshop, powerpoint, shapes
Labels: design, powerpoint, shapes
In this new Design Shape series of posts, I'll look at concepts that are not limited to PowerPoint alone, although you can expect me to relate them to PowerPoint in some way or the other because as you must have guessed it, I am in a circle that revolves around PowerPoint!
Talking about circles, that's also the shape that I talk about in this post. There are many reasons why I like circles:
Of course, there's so much more that I can tell about them -- but for now, let's just leave them here as far their virtues are concerned.
I searched a few visuals depicting circles, and here's what I found on Shutterstock, a well known stock photo site:
Picture Courtesy: Shutterstock
So will the visuals of circular concepts shown above work in PowerPoint? Will you have to adapt or edit them? And would you do those edits in PowerPoint, or another program? That's a lot of questions, even if I am prone to thinking aloud! But that's also a direction for future posts in this series -- watch this space!
Categories: design, powerpoint, shapes
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare, templates
At last count, I found that there were at least 3 PowerPoint presentation contests happening online.
Picture Courtesy: Shutterstock
On the top of my list is Microsoft's own PowerPoint Template Contest called Create a Spark. The rules are simple enough:
The second contest from SlideBoom is called the SlideBoom Presentation Contest 2009. They have fewer rules, but that's not always an advantage:
The third contest is from SlideShare, and is called the Tell A Story Contest. They seem to be offering the best prizes! The rules are:
So if you have created a cool presentation that you can share, there are at least three places that they can be uploaded to -- wish you all the best!
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare, templates
Labels: interviews, opinion, powerpoint 
Brent Dykes has used PowerPoint for more than 10 years in various marketing and consulting roles. His presentations have been seen by executives at Fortune 500 companies and various marketing conferences. In 2008, he started the PowerPoint Ninja blog. Brent has an MBA from BYU and is Director, Consulting at Omniture.
In this conversation, Brent discusses his PowerPoint involvement and his blog.
Geetesh: Tell us more about your involvement with PowerPoint.
Brent: I’ve been working with PowerPoint for more than 10 years in a variety of contexts: sales and marketing, business school, business start-ups, consulting, and management.
My first significant exposure to PowerPoint came when I interned at Microsoft for a couple of semesters in the late 1990s in Vancouver, BC. As a sales and marketing intern, I gained access to Microsoft’s vast marketing slide repository so that I could build presentations for various speaking engagements. Seeing what other very skilled users had created with PowerPoint really opened my eyes to what could be done with this presentation software.
After graduating from Simon Fraser University with a BBA in Marketing in 1999, I joined a successful web design agency, Blast Radius (WPP), as a marketing analyst. A core responsibility of my role was to create reusable marketing presentations for our sales and executive teams. I also worked on several sales pitches for Fortune 500 companies.
In 2002, I went back to school for my MBA from Brigham Young University. As an MBA student, I was able to leverage my PowerPoint skills on a weekly basis in my various class projects. I was also able to participate in a couple of business plan competitions where my presentation skills helped my team to place as a semi-finalist in the 2004 BYU competition and second in the 2004 Utah Entrepreneur Challenge. It was great to get exposure to VC pitches.
For the past five years, I’ve been working for Omniture as a web analytics consultant, manager, and director. In that time I have worked extensively with PowerPoint in building various client presentations for Fortune 500 companies, which focused on data analysis and strategy. I’ve also been fortunate to present at several marketing conferences including a 2008 keynote presentation in Japan. For better or for worse, PowerPoint continues to be a big part of my life.
Geetesh: How did PowerPointNinja evolve? What sorts of thoughts do you post?
Brent: Throughout my career I’ve had several co-workers, managers, and clients praise me on my PowerPoint skills. In 2004, I finally decided to purchase a web domain that related to my PowerPoint expertise. I chose “PowerPoint Ninja” because ninjas are skilled, mysterious, and just plain cool.
After a few years of sitting on the domain and telling people that I would eventually create a PowerPoint presentation website, I decided it needed to happen in 2008. Eventually, I’d like to publish a PowerPoint Ninja handbook.
In terms of the types of thoughts I post on my site, I believe I bring a very practical or pragmatic perspective to PowerPoint design and business presentations. As someone who is using PowerPoint in a corporate environment, I can relate with many of the limitations and challenges that business users run into because I’m battling those same issues.
I post tips and tricks on how to use PowerPoint features and how to design effective business presentations. I try to focus on all three phases of PowerPoint presentations: planning, design, and delivery. If you’ve already read some of my articles you’ll also know that I like to have fun with my posts.
Categories: interviews, opinion, powerpoint
Labels: design, opinion, powerpoint
A prospective customer has invited you to showcase your company's products and services, and the stakes are high. This contract could be huge. Your marketing department and executives have been fretting over the necessary PowerPoint slides for weeks. Every word has to be perfect. Every slide must be in exactly the right order. Your mission is to lay down a faultlessly planned and executed sales strategy that persuades this customer to buy exclusively from you ... but you are worried! 
This article by Robert Lane and Andre Vlcek explains how you can sell better using PowerPoint.
Read this now...
Categories: design, opinion, powerpoint
Labels: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
Many times, users just remove an animation and apply another one instead. The need to change an animation may arise for several reasons: You realize that another animation type would work better in a given slide, or you want to make all animations across the entire presentation consistent, or you want to use a more subtle or exciting animation. Whatever your need may be, you need to remove an animation, and then add another one -- PowerPoint's Change animation option makes this a one-click step.
Learn more now...
Categories: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
Labels: powerpoint, slideshare
SlideShare announced the very interesting Tell A Story in 30 Slides contest that invites participants to submit a story about themselves, their travels, or something they love. Just tell it with words and pictures and in 30 slides.
Everyone who enters the contest gets a free Fuze Meeting account ($270 value). Learn more about how to enter contest here...
Jonathan Boutelle of SlideShare adds: "We launched a new contest yesterday that will be of interest to your readers. The theme is "tell a story", and the top prize is $5000. The judges include Om Malik, Pete Cashmere (Mashable), Ann Handley, Don Tapscott, and Tony Hsieh (Zappos). There's already some really nice entries up, and I think the theme is going to elicit some very interesting work this time (PowerPoint as narrative device).
Categories: powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: powerpoint, training
Need to learn how to create outstanding presentations, from start to finish? Ellen Finkelstein is offering a 3-day, intensive workshop that covers content, design, and delivery.
You’ll get personal attention in a small group. If you live in the U.S. or Canada, I suggest that you check it out here...
Categories: powerpoint, training
Labels: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
As part of the animation tutorials series, I have showed you how you can add an animation to any slide object in PowerPoint. However, there's more to animating text than just adding an animation since PowerPoint provides specialized options for animating paragraphs and bulleted text. In this tutorial we will learn how you can use these special options to animate text sequentially by words, by letters, and by paragraph levels.
Learn more now...
Categories: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
Labels: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
In PowerPoint you can animate any slide object, but some objects have extra animation options. These objects include charts and bulleted text, and in this tutorial we will work with chart animation in PowerPoint. Since animation is largely unchanged in PowerPoint versions 2002 through 2007, we'll cover all those versions in this tutorial.
Learn more here...
Categories: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
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: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideboom
SlideBoom, a presentation sharing site from the makers of iSpring announced the SlideBoom World Presentation Contest. This contest, open to everyone requires participants to submit any PowerPoint presentation (or another compatible file format) on the SlideBoom site. All participants need to be members of the site, and basic membership is free.
Applicants can submit their works from 18 May to 21 June inclusive. Winners will be announced on 30 June 2009.
The contest winners will be judged by a panel of 5 presentation professionals including yours truly.
More info can be found on the contest site...
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideboom
Labels: animation, interviews, powerpoint 
Max Wijgergangs is the owner of a Dutch PowerPoint presentation company, Studio-Max. Max admits that he bought his first computer only in 2001, until which time he knew practically nothing about computers and PowerPoint. But he made up for that lost time soon by rapidly discovering all kind of possibilities working with Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe graphics software. This remained a big passion, but it was still a hobby until 4 years later, when he decided to quit his regular job. He launched Studio-Max with a goal to provide the Dutch market with professionally designed PowerPoint presentations. Since then, his energy focused on taking PowerPoint presentations to a higher level that has allowed Studio-Max to become a known name.
Max and his team love to play with the animation possibilities in PowerPoint. In this conversation, Max discusses this and more.
Geetesh: How can animation enhance a regular PowerPoint presentation to something above the ordinary.
Max: Many Dutch clients and companies don't know the full possibilities of PowerPoint, and they are in most cases pleasantly surprised when they see some of our works. "Wow, is this really done by only PowerPoint?' is what we hear a lot from these people. This reaction probably stem from the way we use graphics and animation. When animations are used in the right way, they can really enchance any PowerPoint slide. The secret is to combine different basic animations on pre-calculated timeframes (we use Excel formulas for this!).
When combined with well designed, corporate looking content (Photoshop/Illustrator artwork), this will result in stunning and professional looking animated slides that will blow people away.
We have an in-house PowerPoint professional, Lam Quang Huy working with us at Studio-Max. He is an animation specialist, and he really knows how to take PowerPoint animations to the next level.
There are many secrets hidden in the PowerPoint animation schemes, and we continue to discover new tricks on a regular basis! A lay-person could well imagine that these animations were created using Adobe Flash!
Geetesh: Is there anything called too-much-animation? Tell us more about the dividing line.
Max: Yes there is, I see that almost every day when companies send me their in-house presentations. Content is animated too fast or too slow, pictures are spinning and turning around the screen to vertigo levels, and so on. Too much animation of that sort can distract the audience from the message. Of course, an overkill of animations can also be annoying.
The dividing line in animations can be a distinct difference -- between slides created by a PowerPoint professional or an amateur. Most presentations made in this part of the world demand animations on each slide. It's always a challenge to find the balance between restful and highly dynamic, yet sophisticated animations.
Audiences must not be overwhelmed by all kind of animations but it's also important not to bore them with standard animation stuff they have seen a zillion time before. Being original and creative, that will help a lot!
Categories: animation, interviews, 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: authorstream, online_presentations, opinion, powerpoint, slideboom, slideshare
You can easily boost your business and your SEO / SEM efforts with the help of an old friend: PowerPoint. All you need to do is pick a topic that you want to relate your business to, prepare a presentation on that topic and then publish it on presentation plattforms like SlideShare, Slide.com, etc. You can then bookmark your online content and enrich it with keywords and descriptions to further promote your content and boost your SEO / SEM efforts.
Jörg Hahn tells you more in this Indezine exclusive article...
Categories: authorstream, online_presentations, opinion, powerpoint, slideboom, slideshare
Labels: elearning, online_presentations, powerpoint
Adobe is a name well known to anyone who works with graphics and media content -- and they bundle several of their award winning programs in suites that contain a set of applications geared towards a specific use. Adobe already has such suites for the Creative and Production categories -- and their newest Suite offering is squarely aimed for the burgeoning eLearning market. The main products in the Adobe eLearning Suite are Captivate, Acrobat, and Presenter. These work directly with Microsoft PowerPoint whereas other products in the Adobe eLearning Suite such as Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, Soundbooth, etc aid in making the Suite sweeter and more integrated.
In this review, we'll take a closer look at the Adobe eLearning Suite.
Categories: elearning, online_presentations, powerpoint
Labels: photos, powerpoint
Engaging or boring? What effect do your presentation slides have on your audiences? Can images help? That's the topic of this webinar organized by ReadyImages. Julie Terberg of Terberg Design hosts this online seminar that will help increase the effectiveness of your visual communications. Julie will provide guidance on the proper selection and use of images, and she’ll offer real-world design tips for using PowerPoint.
Attendees will gain next-level design skills and the opportunity to receive 100 complimentary images from ReadyImages.
You can sign up here...
Categories: powerpoint, photos
Labels: add-in, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Adobe Presenter 7 is a PowerPoint add-in that allows you to create high-impact Adobe Flash presentations and eLearning courses from PowerPoint. In addition, you can also create high fidelity PDFs using this add-in. You can add narration, edit audio, add multimedia capture video, animations, interactivity, quizzes, surveys, and software simulations to eLearning courses created using Adobe Presenter -- all inside PowerPoint. Output can be customized as presentations published to Flash, PDF or Adobe Connect Server.
Read the Indezine review here...
Categories: add-in, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
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: add-in, crystalgraphics, powerpoint
Imagine a presentation with moving rather than static backgrounds. Will it add even more value? It all depends on many factors -- whether the movement is subtle enough, or just a haphazard jumble of disparate elements and colors. What you use is certainly a decision left to you, but in this review we are going to show you how these moving backgrounds can be added to PowerPoint presentations with a third party add-in called PowerPlugs: Video Backgrounds from CrystalGraphics.
Read the review here...
Categories: add-in, crystalgraphics, powerpoint
Labels: photos, powerpoint
If you use many images in your PowerPoint slides, you will find this webinar interesting. Copyright Clearance Center is hosting a webinar on copyright and the licensing of images next Wednesday, the 29th of April, 2009. The webinar will include a demo of ReadyImages.
You can sign up here...
Categories: powerpoint, photos
Labels: powerpoint, templates
A PowerPoint presentation is a great platform -- it lets you create a framework for the content you are presenting. However, since most PowerPoint presentations look so similar and static, there's been a move to use animated, yet subtle backgrounds for slides. Now I am not a very big fan of adding animated backgrounds, yet I do believe that if you use the right animated loop, you can achieve a different, contemporary look. Again, everything works best in moderation.
The product I am reviewing is looping video backgrounds from PowerFinish. These video backgrounds can be directly used in your presentations, or can be used through third party video engines that we explore later in this review.
Read the review here...
Categories: powerpoint, templates
Labels: powerpoint
Vnunet reported concerns about a flaw in Microsoft PowerPoint that may be exploited by malware writers.
The post adds that:
"This PowerPoint exploit is in the wild right now," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "It comes in the form of a presentation showing naked Japanese girls bathing in rockpools, or as an IQ test, to lure the user in. We're hoping Microsoft will patch this soon."
Categories: powerpoint
Labels: design, opinion, powerpoint
This article by Robert Lane and Andre Vlcek explains why including pictures in presentations is a simple and powerful way of expanding your expressive potential as a speaker. Pictures communicate at levels beyond the descriptive possibilities of words and bathe the brain in much desired visual stimulation. At the same time, not all pictures are created equally.
Choosing the right images, and using them in the right ways, can greatly impact your effectiveness.
Read this now...
Categories: design, opinion, powerpoint
Labels: authorstream, online_presentations, powerpoint
authorSTREAM, a leading slide sharing site launched their Premium services that offers many options over and above the free services. The free services are still available, and are unnchanged with the launch of the new Premium services.
Premium services are available in two flavors:
Jagdeep Singh Pannu of authorSTREAM sent me this link that explains the differences between all their services
Comparison of Free, Pro and Plus Premium Memberships
And here's an embedded presentation that explains more.
Categories: authorstream, online_presentations, powerpoint
Labels: positioning, powerpoint, tutorials
Before starting this tutorial, make sure you have a group of slide objects. Thereafter, follow these steps to ungroup objects in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003.
Read more here...
Categories: positioning, powerpoint, tutorials
Labels: memorabilia, powerpoint
Spring cleaning my computer hard disk is something that cannot get over in just one season -- the time factor aside, I need to decide what to do with all the stuff I save. A case in point is this small walkthrough of PowerPoint 3 that I made years ago using TechSmith's Camtasia Studio 2. It was a retrospective thing when I made it, it's even more of a retrospective now! So I uploaded this to the Community Clips section of Microsoft's Office Online, and embedded it on this page in Indezine's Memorabilia section.
Note: Now I need to do something similar for PowerPoint 1 using the old Powerbook Mac that allows me use that program -- now that's even more retro!
OK -- this way to the PowerPoint 3 retro...
Categories: memorabilia, powerpoint
Labels: freepath, playlists, powerpoint
We all live in a world where media assaults at every angle -- be it in the form of television and online video, or even in the form of digicam pictures and music tracks. And of course, this can be extended to something much more huge by the plethora of file formats inhabiting everybody's computer hard disks in the form of ubiquitous PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, Excel sheets, Adobe PDFs, Flash movies, and more.
So how does one create logical collections of such photos, document files, music tracks, and video files in one place, and will this collection be easy to maintain and share? That's a challenge we all face each day. Take an iPod for example -- it comes with iTunes that allows you to make some sense of your huge music collection by creating manual and intelligent playlists so that they can be played in an organized, arranged, and presequenced manner. Freepath, the product which I am reviewing tackles many of these challenges by extending the playlist metaphor to all your document and media formats, including all the formats discussed in the preceding paragraph. In addition, it also tackles QuickTime movies, YouTube videos, and live websites.
Read the Indezine review of Freepath 2.0 here...
Categories: freepath, playlists, powerpoint
Labels: interviews, powerpoint 
Steve Rindsberg is the founder and President of RDP, based in Cincinnati, OH (USA). Steve's been associated with PowerPoint since the product originated -- his PowerPoint FAQ site is a treasure trove of PowerPoint information. When he's not updating his site, he's creating new add-ins that expand possibilities. Steve's also into a lot of print technology related stuff.
Geetesh: How did the PowerPoint FAQ (PPT FAQ) evolve?
Steve: Back before the internet and web became mainstream, Microsoft had several support forums on Compuserve. I used to hang out on the PowerPoint forum and answer questions. In part, it was a great way to learn more about the software and to get ideas for a monthly column I used to write for Inside PowerPoint magazine, but mostly it was fun to be able to help other PowerPoint users.
Of course, newcomers always tended to have the same basic questions. Rather than type the same answers over and over again, I started to keep a couple of text files with "stock answers" that I could copy and and paste as responses. That may seem a little impersonal, but really, it works out better for everyone. Instead of dashing off a quick answer (and maybe leaving out important bits by mistake) I could take the time to write a nice, clear, complete answer once and many people could benefit from it. And that left more time to work on the tricky, less-frequently asked questions.
Then along came the web. Publishing all of these stock answers on my web site seemed like the obvious thing to do. That way people didn't have to wait for me to reply to their questions on the forums, they could just check the site for a quick answer.
Geetesh: How do you keep all this content updated?
Steve: For a while, I wrote the content and created the links in Word, then exported to HTML for the web. That worked fairly well when there were only a few dozen questions and answers, but the FAQ very quickly grew unmanageable in Word.
You know what they say: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."
Well, the not-so-tough, if they're nerds, write software.
I wrote my own program to create and update the questions and answers, create the HTML and publish it to the web. And of course I added features that make it easy for me to find an answer quickly and paste a link to it directly into forum and later newsgroup replies.
This all evolved into a program called Friday (for obscure reasons having to do with a 1950's TV detective show), that I use to maintain the PowerPoint FAQ, the various PPTools sites, and several other sites.
Interestingly, a lot of the work that went into Friday became the basis for our PPT2HTML add-in for PowerPoint, but that's another story for another day, I think.
Geetesh: Does the PowerPoint community help you?
Steve: Oh, absolutely! Somebody has to ask questions frequently in order for them to become frequently asked questions.
Without the PowerPoint community, the PowerPoint FAQ (at least my version of it) wouldn't exist. Between the users' questions and the contributions of the PowerPoint MVPs and other newsgroup regulars, there's no end of material for the FAQ. Even with Friday's help, I have trouble keeping up.
The PowerPoint FAQ really is a community effort. You might say that I'm more the librarian than the author. That's why this is one of the first things you see when you go there:
"Thanks to everyone on the newsgroups for asking such interesting and challenging questions, and a very special thanks to the PowerPoint MVPs and the OughtaBeMVPs who've contributed so much to this site and to the larger PowerPoint community."
And since I wrote that myself, I couldn't agree more.
Categories: interviews, powerpoint
Labels: positioning, powerpoint, tutorials
When you have many (or more than one) slide objects on a slide that you want to manipulate in the same way, you might want to consider grouping them. Grouping can be helpful in the several scenarios: You want to animate several slide objects at the same time as a single object, or you have too many objects on the slide, and want them all grouped so that you don't have to select them individually all the time, or maybe you just like to have all objects on your slide organized.
Learn more now...
Categories: positioning, powerpoint, tutorials
Labels: books, interviews, legal, powerpoint 
Herbert Rubinstein has been involved in computer graphics for over 15 years as founder and CEO of ReGraphix, an award winning creative house for graphics and design. The past few years, Mr. Rubinstein has taken his presentation graphics experience and applied it to developing presentation techniques for the Courtroom. He has worked with the FBI, DEA, U.S. Customs Service and other government agencies, as well as many law firms across United States. In this conversation, Herb talks about his book and CD called PowerPoint For Court.
Geetesh: How are presentations created for the courtroom different than your conventional PowerPoint presentations?
Herb: I believe that the main difference would be in style Courtroom Presentations need to be, stylistically speaking, bland. If the judge feels that you are trying to influence a decision by including design elements that are prejudicial, it will not be allowed.
Case in point. A Paralegal for a District Attorney prepared a Cast of Character illustration using the SmartArt feature of PowerPoint. For the background he used a gray/blue but it had little pin stripes, very subtle, in the background. The judge would not allow it to be presented claiming that the pin stripe design was reminiscent of Prison Clothing and was therefore prejudicial to the client.
When designing for Courtroom display, you need to keep the design clean and devoid of distracting graphic elements.
Another area that is quite different is in the presentation. The show may need to be paused repeatedly because of objections from opposing counsel.
Geetesh: Tell us more about your new book on using PowerPoint in the courtroom.
Herb: The new PowerPoint for Court updated for 2009 has all the screenshots from the latest version of PowerPoint. This e-manual is not meant as a complete PowerPoint bible, it has been designed specifically for the Legal Profession. You can hand this to a staff member and have them up and running creating cutting edge Trial Presentation material in a very short time.
Dealing with audio clips, opening PDF’s, proper preparation of images, inserting Flash animations and how to work with Deposition Video are just a few of the many subjects covered and updated in this latest release.
If you want to continue winning in the courtroom you must utilize the latest court technologies. PowerPoint for Court 2009 will help you and your staff accomplish this.
PowerPoint for Court 2009 is now available as an instant download, as well as on CD and the price has been reduced! Now the CD package is $99 (with free shipping) and the instant download package is $89 with instant access to the Resource page on our website that includes all the resources mentioned in the book.
Categories: books, interviews, legal, powerpoint
Labels: authorstream, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint 
Dinesh Awasthi is Product Manager for authorSTREAM.com at authorGEN (authorSTREAM's parent company). In addition to developing the strategic product roadmap and implementation of various features on authorSTREAM, he works with the development team and keeps an eye on user feedback to formulate new releases. Dinesh holds a Masters degree in Computer Applications, and certifications in Quality Management and Software Testing.
Geetesh: What are these new presentation channels on authorSTREAM?
Dinesh: authorSTREAM Presentation Channels are your personalized web pages that showcase a collection of presentations -- be it on one topic or a theme. We realized that each individual usually has a bunch of presentations on each topic, and that everyone has a variety of interests. authorSTREAM Channels allow users to create multiple channels, say each focusing on one topic of interest. For example, a channel on photography would cater to photography enthusiasts and another one on China travel would help people find information on traveling to China. One can start a channel on 'Global Warming'. Companies can create a channel for each of their products and services. We went a step further by empowering channel owners to allow other users to upload presentations in their (owner's) channels. Say, an instructor might want to let all her students upload their English assignment presentations in one channel and so on.
Geetesh: How do you think channels will help users in a web-social way? Also, do you plan to provide a pro level channel with more abilities?
Dinesh: We have visualized authorSTREAM Channels as a platform for creative collaboration. Channel owners can also invite other authorSTREAM members to add presentations to their channel. A university department can create a channel and allow its professors to contribute, a journalist can start a channel about a story or an event where witnesses to the event can post their own point of view. A teacher can create a channel on a homework assignment and allow her/his students to submit their assignments there. This gives people the freedom and the ability to keep a lively discussion going about any particular topic or theme.
If you like a particular channel, you can subscribe to it with a single click and authorSTREAM will keep you updated about them on your dashboard. Soon, you will also see the RSS feed of a channel. If you like to embed a particular channel on your blog or website, simply use the channel embed code -- in a small area on your website, all the channel presentations would show up! The buzz has already started with people creating channels on fashion, spirituality, marketing, beliefs etc.
In the coming months, we have plans to add pro level channels with advanced features.
Categories: authorstream, interviews, online_presentations, powerpoint
Labels: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
You need to re-order your animations mainly because you might have more than one animated object on a slide, and you discover that some re-sequencing of animations as they happen in relation to each other may provide a better result. For something of this sort, PowerPoint provides a Re-order option that lets you play with the sequence of the animation.
Learn more now...
Categories: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
Labels: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
Before you start with removing an animation, there is something you need to decide:
Learn more here...
Categories: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
Labels: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
When you add animation to any slide object, and set the animation event for it to occur, the next thing to do is set the speed of the animation. In this tutorial, I explore speed presets in PowerPoint that determine how long an animation takes to complete.
Learn more now...
Categories: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
Labels: animation, photos, powerpoint, presentation_samples, tutorials
Learn how to animate a series of headshots -- very useful for an opening slide sequence. You can also use the same technique for product shots or vacation pictures -- just substitute the headshots!
Learn more now...
Categories: animation, photos, powerpoint, presentation_samples, tutorials
Labels: books, interviews, powerpoint 
Andrew Abela is an Associate Professor of Marketing and Chair-elect of the Department of Business & Economics at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and author of Advanced Presentations by Design.
His consulting clients include Microsoft, ExxonMobil, Motorola, Burger King, eBay, and Kimberly-Clark. Prior to academia, he ran the Marketing Leadership Council, was a consultant with McKinsey & Co., and a brand manager at Procter & Gamble. He lives with his wife and their six children in Great Falls, Virginia, and was born and raised on the island of Malta.
Read the interview here...
Categories: books, interviews, powerpoint
Labels: add-in, powerpoint, slide_management
Liber Rodríguez of Novatrox sent me this awesome bit of info that should make universities and non-profit educational institutions very happy indeed. They have decided to give away their amazing slide cataloging and management program for free to them for installation on institutional servers.
"Being able to search the entire University knowledge base of presentations to find individual slides, will save scientists and researchers huge amounts of time", says Jonas Fernholm, CEO at Novatrox AB.
Free non-profit educational licenses can be obtained from Novatrox AB. Educational institutions may use the info@slideexecutive.com mail address to initiate contact.
About Slide Executive Professional
Slide Executive Professional enables organizations to store their presentation content in a single slide library, making it available to business professionals and decision-makers throughout the enterprise and through any web browser, from anywhere in the world. Slide Executive provides simple, one-click presentation browsing, advanced slide search functionality, easy assembly of new presentations with approved content, virtual presentations automatically updating to the latest version of each slide and advanced user management functions including audit trail.
For organizations with many presentations, Slide Executive Professional will save lots of time and help improve the quality of their presentations. Slide Executive can also be used as a digital asset management system for the small company since it handles all kinds of documents including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, PDF, image files, movies and more.
Categories: add-in, powerpoint, slide_management
Labels: interviews, powerpoint, powerpointlive
Rick Altman of PowerPoint Live has launched the PowerPoint Live Template Contest for this year's event to be held from October 11 to 14 at Atlanta. Winners of the template contest will get a free trip to the fall event!
For those of you who want to see how the winning entries look like, head to this exclusive page we created last year that shows you all the winners over the years.
Also exclusive is this small conversation with Rick.
Geetesh: So the PowerPoint Live template contest enters its fifth year -- I know you cannot say what you are looking for in a winner, but you could say what you are not looking for?
Rick: I can say both. We are looking for an intelligent and elegant design that will remain as attractive on Day 3 as it was on Day 1. We are not looking for something that shows off a person's knowledge of PowerPoint features. That is the job of our presenters.
Geetesh: Tell us more about what the winner gets.
Rick: Free pass to the conference and round-trip airfare from any city in the United States that Delta Airlines flies to.
Now, how do you take part in this contest? Head here to learn more.
And who judges the entries? The entries are judged by a panel of conference regulars, including "yours truly":
Ric Bretschneider, is Senior Program Manager for PowerPoint at Microsoft and he celebrates many years as a Microsoft veteran, having joined the company in 1993 to work on PowerPoint for Windows and the Macintosh. Over the years, he's contributed to the design and direction of the application, and been awarded three PowerPoint related patents.
Nancy Duarte has been a Principal of Duarte Design since1990. Her firm is in the heart of the Silicon Valley and the client list is loaded with Fortune 500 companies. Her passion for business communications that are clear, meaningful and attractive has opened doors for her in a business world full of cluttered and complex visual communications.
Julie Terberg develops custom presentation solutions -- unique for every client and purpose as owner and principle designer at Terberg Design. She co-authored a book on crafting medical presentations. Julie also conducts training sessions for those who want to expand their skills, and is a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) for PowerPoint.
Geetesh Bajaj has been a Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) for PowerPoint since 9 years now, and is currently authoring his fifth book on the program. Based in India, Geetesh also runs the popular Indezine.com web site.
Categories: interviews, powerpoint, powerpointlive
Labels: add-in, interviews, powerpoint 
James Ontra, co-founder of PPTshare, has been developing presentation management solutions for over thirteen years. His company’s software products range from the high-end Ontra Presentation Management solution known for its ability to play rich animations and video, to applications that enhance and help manage PowerPoint. In this conversation, James discusses the new PPTshuffle product.
Geetesh: Tell us about PPTshuffle, and what does it do?
James: Find the slide you need, when you need it. PPTshuffle is a browser-based PowerPoint slide library that lets you preview slides and then drag & drop them into another presentation. It's a presentation management solution that helps companies with thousands of PowerPoint presentations manage and organize all of that content, so individuals can find the slide they need, quickly and easily. Companies can use it on their Intranet behind a firewall, or use it online as an on-demand service.
Features include:
Geetesh: Who is the potential user of PPTshuffle, and what benefits will a user achieve from this product?
James: PPTshuffle is made for organizations that have hundreds, even thousands, of PowerPoint files that no one can seem to find.
It works on two levels.
First for individual users, it is a library where a user can preview individual slides and then drag and drop them into a new presentation. They can do a key word search for individual slides based on file name, title, speaker notes and content, preview the slide, and then decide whether or not to drag & drop into a new presentation. Or they can click on a PowerPoint file and quickly preview all of the slides within that file. No more hunting and pecking through their e-mail, networks and hard drive looking for the great pie chart or latest sales figures. It saves hours of time preparing presentations.
Second for managers and administrators, PPTshuffle serves as a repository of approved presentations and manages access through user groups. Therefore, it ensures that everyone in the organization has the most up-to-date, branded and compliant presentations.
Categories: add-in, interviews, powerpoint
Labels: design, interviews, powerpoint 
Scott Schwertly is from Ethos3 Communications, an internationally renowned and award-winning presentation design and training company located in Nashville, TN. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of SlideMagnet.com - an online portal for the presentation space. Scott works with a wide spectrum of clients that includes Fortune 100 companies, Silicon Valley start-ups, and various other organizations throughout the world. He may live in Nashville, TN with his wife and three dogs, but he calls San Diego home - the place of his beloved San Diego Chargers. Scott has a B.A. and M.B.A. from Harding University. In this conversation, Scott discusses his new SlideMagnet site.
Geetesh: Tell us more about SlideMagnet, and what is its raison d’être?
Scott: SlideMagnet.com is an online portal/magazine for both novice and professional presenters. It provides presentation tips and advice as well as the latest presentation technology news. The site features articles to help maximize the effectiveness of presentations through improved design, content and delivery methods and includes an ask-the-expert section. There’s also a community forum that encourages discussion on related topics.
When I first started Ethos3 close to 3 years ago, I found very limited online resources to build presentation knowledge. Thus, I found myself taking lessons from classics like the works of Dale Carnegie. The unfortunate reality is that I had to rely on books written from the 1930's since I couldn't find anything on the web. Today, the resources remain limited -- there are, without doubt, some fantastic blogs and tools, but the overall resources are still lacking. My hope is that SlideMagnet will help fill that gap. With sites out there like SlideShare, SlideRocket, Presentation Zen, Slideology, and now SlideMagnet -- 2009 will surely be the year of presentations!
My dream is that SlideMagnet will empower presenters. It's a shame when people inquire with presentation design firms, but due to budget cuts or limited capital, they can't afford solid presentation design services. Hopefully, SlideMagnet will serve as an alternative by providing tips, tricks, hacks, etc for the entrepreneur with a shoestring budget or the Marketing Director who is unable to receive corporate buy-in regarding presentation services.
Geetesh: What sort of content do you plan to make available on SlideMagnet, and whom is this targeted towards?
Scott: SlideMagnet.com has lots of great features including items such as:
SlideMagnet.com is for everyone. Most importantly, it's for presenters. It is my hope that SlideMagnet will be the catalyst for everyone's next great presentation.
Categories: design, interviews, powerpoint
Labels: clip_media, photos, powerpoint 
Pictures make presentations work. But the most interesting and compelling images aren’t generally found in free clipart galleries. So you comb the Internet, looking for just the right image to convey your message. Click-cut-paste. You’ve got it!
While you may have “it”, that “it” is more than likely the copyright-protected work of a photographer or designer. Even for department presentations, sales presentations, training materials, and other internal business purposes, using images without the proper permission and rights is a serious issue, and may constitute a breach of the creator’s copyright.
Guest author John Billington has lots of info to share with you on this interesting topic -- read the article here...
Categories: clip_media, photos, powerpoint
Labels: clip_media, interviews, maps, powerpoint 
Carles Enric Lopez is CEO of Netmaps, SA -- a Barcelona, Spain based company. He has a degree in Geography from the Universidad de Barcelona (UB) and the University College of London (UCL). In addition, he holds a Master in Demography (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ) and is a Postgraduate in Urbanism (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya).
In this conversation, Carles Enric Lopez talks about the use of maps in PowerPoint.
Geetesh: How can presenters and presentation designers benefit from using maps in their PowerPoint slides?
Carles: PowerPoint maps are not only perfect for making your presentations easier to create, but also give them a far more professional look. Such maps are ideal if you are looking to add clear, visual references into your presentation. One of the benefits of our maps for presentations is that we have covered all the country maps in the world with the same kind of information so it would be perfect for any company to unify their information.
You can modify any of the maps, and make your own look and feel, so our maps can be combined with your corporate images in an easy way. It is a well known fact that visual aids greatly help people to retain for longer the information which you present to them, and the speaker finds it much easier to engage with their audience and pull off a successful presentation, if they don't have to worry about technical problems or trying to describe geographical locations. PowerPoint maps will save you a lot of time and hassle, since the maps have been purposely created for PowerPoint software, so you won't have to worry about glitches, bad graphics or difficult modifications.
Geetesh: Tell us more about your company, and the PowerPoint specific maps that you provide.
Carles: We, at Netmaps, have over 11 years experience under our belts, and specialize in the creation of digital maps in a variety of formats, for example PowerPoint, Illustrator, and Freehand. Our diverse team comprises of experienced geographers and cartographers. Our head office is located in a four story building in the quiet suburbs of Barcelona (Spain), but we have reputable customers in 69 countries throughout the world, such as DK, Time Out, National Geographic, African Development Bank, HP, BBC, Apple, and so on. We offer maps of continents, countries and cities, both topographical, political and road maps. Our maps for PowerPoint were created in 2003 because some of our largest clients needed specific and customized maps for their presentations. We used our beta website version from 2003-2005, with Maps 1.0 available. In 2006 we launched the new version of our website 2.0, and finally in 2009 we have decided to start our PowerPointMaps version 3.0 which combines the free version 1.0 and the payable version. We have also reduced prices by 50% of the version 2.0. Version 1.0 maps are completely free to download, and you can start using them straight away. Upgrading to version 2.0 maps (at a cost of just 49 euros each) allows you to easily modify the PowerPoint map.
Geetesh: Tell us more about your support infrastructure.
Carles: Our maps are fully vectorized, which means that our production team is working day in day out to update any new information. When we update any of the maps, we also transform them to PowerPoint format to make them available for users of PowerPoint presentations.
We can be reached by either phone or email. You will be put straight through to a member of staff (no pushing lots of buttons!). If you choose to send us an email, we promise to get back to you within 6 hours. Our team comprises of native speaking English, French, Spanish, and German nationals. Our production team is on hand if you have any problems with downloading, but if all else fails we can send the map to you via email. Our central server is in the UK and we have backups in India and France. It means our presentation maps are guaranteed 24 hours X 7 days.
Categories: clip_media, interviews, maps, powerpoint
Labels: delivery, interviews, powerpoint 
Jerry Weissman is among the world's foremost corporate presentations coaches. His private client list reads like a who's who of the world's best companies, including the top brass at Yahoo!, Intel, Intuit, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Netflix and many others.
Jerry founded Power Presentations, Ltd. in 1988. One of his earliest efforts was the Cisco Systems IPO road show. The Power PresenterFollowing its successful launch, Don Valentine, of Sequoia Capital, and then chairman of Cisco's Board of Directors, attributed "at least two to three dollars" of the offering price to Jerry's coaching.That endorsement led to more than 500 other IPO road show presentations that have raised hundreds of billions of dollars in the stock market. In this conversation, Jerry discusses his new book: The Power Presenter: Technique, Style, and Strategy from America's Top Speaking Coach.
Read the interview here...
Categories: delivery, interviews, powerpoint
Labels: add-in, officefx, powerpoint
Have you ever wondered how you might transform your presentations into the kind of integrated media displays you see on television during high profile shows and events? Examples would include the information graphics that appear during network nightly news broadcasts or major sporting events. In those displays backgrounds move subtly, transitions incorporate key branding and design elements, and video is included in visually interesting ways? Our review product, OfficeFX® Presenter version 3.5 offers these capabilities and does so without changing the way your file looks or behaves in PowerPoint.
Read the review here...
Categories: add-in, officefx, powerpoint
Labels: design, interviews, opinion, powerpoint 
Olivia Mitchell has been a Toastmaster, a management development trainer for a major bank, and a political candidate. Now she teaches others how to become more confident and effective presenters - through face-to-face training courses in New Zealand (Effective Speaking) and her blog Speaking about Presenting.
Geetesh: Can you tell more about what got you interested in design changes for PowerPoint slides? And how did the idea of a group blog come about?
Olivia: Most of my course participants, and visitors to my blog, already know that bullet-points are awful but they don't know what to do about it. I want to make it easy for people to transition from bullet-point slides to visual slides.
Many presentation design bloggers have a particular design style and that comes through on their blogs. So I see my role as digesting all the great design and styles that are out there and showing people how they can adopt those styles. For an example see my post The Top 7 PowerPoint slide designs.
The group blog came about because of post by Laura Bergells from the Maniactive blog. Laura argued that in some cases we need a return to more detailed slides. I started composing a blog post to respond to what Laura had written but realized that initiating a wide-ranging debate would be more interesting. I broadened the debate by suggesting that the theme of their posts should be "What you'd like to see in PowerPoint slide design in 2009."
I invited presentation bloggers and selected experts to contribute. There's now a total of 40 contributions. It seems to be an issue that people wanted to write about.
Geetesh: What's your opinion about changes in design?
Olivia:I totally support the move away from bullet-point slides.
But I think there is an issue with integrating new design approaches into everyday business culture. It's all very well to say that businesses should put as many resources into their PowerPoint slides as their brochures or annual reports, but that's not going to happen. The reality is that everyday business people will continue to put together the majority of PowerPoint slideshows. They are not going to read design books or read the archives of Presentation Zen. They need quick and simple ways of putting together slides that don't suck.
Geetesh: Can you quote some opinions from the numerous blog posts that have been put up as part of this group blog initiative.
Olivia:Here are some of the themes that have come through.
First, from the presentation bloggers who are in the trenches working with business people, there comes the theme that most presentations still suck. Here's Bert Decker:I would estimate 90% of all types of presentations are created by people who go to their computers and start the process by using the PP outliner or going right to writing text and bullets on the slides themselves. So the end result is totally PP driven, and we have information without influence and data without emotion.
Many other bloggers echoed this.
There are two main controversies that came through. The first one is "Does Design Matter?". On the one hand you have Joey Asher saying:But ultimately my position on PowerPoint is this: it’s largely irrelevant to whether you accomplish your goals. That’s because PowerPoint and other visuals, now matter how graphically pleasing, don’t inspire audiences, sell ideas, or win business.
and on the other, Ellen Finkelstein:I’d like presenters in 2009 to know that design is important. Good design provides a professional, custom look that says that the presenter cared enough about the audience to do more than slap on a default background. Companies hire professionals to design their web sites and printed brochures; why not their presentations, which are just as important?
The second controversy is "Simplicity versus Detail". This is the issue that Laura Bergells discussed in the post that sparked the project. The majority suggested that there should be one idea per slide and that should be supported by a visual.
But there was also a significant minority who suggested that it should depend - this from Brent Dykes:I am concerned that rather than adding the simple, visual approach to presenters' "toolboxes", presenters will use it as a hammer for all presentation situations. .. Just because bullet points may be perceived as the duct tape of PowerPoint design (inelegant and ugly), it doesn’t mean bullet points aren’t effective in certain situations.
Many bloggers used this opportunity to reiterate key design principles - there's a lot of unanimity around these -- which will provide clear guidance to presenters. For example:
Finally, many bloggers also looked at what might be ahead. The most interesting theme here was the influence of social media techniques on PowerPoint and presenting. Laura Bergells suggested that:The brevity of Twitter can make you a better designer. A better headline writer. A better presenter. Using and studying Twitter can be a powerful exercise in how to get your point across swiftly and succinctly.
I'll be publishing four round-up posts to highlight these themes. The first one is already published: PowerPoint Slide Design in 2009: Does Design Matter?
See Also: Slide Design in 2009: Changes -- by Geetesh Bajaj | PowerPoint Design in 2009 -- by Olivia Mitchell
Categories: design, interviews, opinion, powerpoint
Labels: add-in, interviews, powerpoint
Damian McDonald is the founder of Visual Newmedia which has over 15 years’ experience in developing communication solutions for a number of leading global brands. Damian heads the team in the development and implementation methodologies of Visual’s presentation management solution - Visual Presenter.
Geetesh: Can you tell us more about the problems being faced by folks who create and deliver presentations?
Damian: We’ve been developing presentations for corporate clients since the mid-nineties and have found that the issues businesses face in the area of presenting to their own clients have remained pretty consistent throughout that time.
Obviously the most-widely used presentation application is Microsoft PowerPoint, which is simple enough that most presenters can construct a basic piece of work within it. The problem lies in a more macro sense: in particular the management – and control – within the business of the various presentations that have been created.
From a business point of view, there tends to be no brand consistency across this multitude of presentations, both visually and within the content itself. This is an issue even for smaller organisations. With individuals ‘going it alone’ to create presentation collateral, the brand messages are mixed, confused, personalised and worse, often obsolete. This isn’t necessarily the fault of the end user -- another issue we find time and again is that those presenting cannot find the information within the company’s network drives to even update what they are going to present. This is especially true for those working remotely who, ironically, tend to be in the kinds of roles that have to deliver most of the company presentations, and so they simply create and recreate ‘individualised’ presentations, and the information being delivered becomes more and more off-brand, off-message, and out of date.
We also find that even if businesses want to keep their front line personnel updated with the latest information for client presentations, they often have no mechanism with which to do this. Or you’ll find they can get information to one business channel, but not others, so you still have a frighteningly inconsistent brand message being communicated to clients and prospective clients. So it becomes a vicious cycle, in a sense. These are all issues that we created Visual Presenter to address.
Something else we worked on while developing Visual Presenter was addressing the issues in PowerPoint when it comes to linking associated media files. Clients no longer accept sitting through ‘Death by PowerPoint’ bullet point after bullet point. People expect multimedia, and any effective presentation will include this.
Unfortunately, as multimedia technology has evolved with PowerPoint, media formats such as video, audio, and Flash struggle to maintain valid media links. For example, if you import a video over the network and then disconnect from the network, when it then comes to presenting, PowerPoint can’t play the video as it tries unsuccessfully to search for the file on the ‘non-existent’ network location. Very frustrating for the presenter, and very unprofessional.
And how do you merge interactive custom shows? Again we’ve frequently found that those presenters who do begin to get a bit smarter with the advanced functionality of PowerPoint are hampered by the fact that currently there is no way to merge interactive presentations without losing this functionality and having to recreate it. Again, very restrictive, and very frustrating.
The end result, invariably, is that presenters give up trying to create dynamic presentations, they find they can’t customise material to suit a particular audience, they can’t access new information and so they go out to the market with tired, inaccurate, unprofessional-looking material, despite the best of intentions. And the organisation suffers accordingly.
Geetesh: How does your Visual Presenter product help them in the problem scenarios you explained?
Damian: Working for such a long period of time in this area, and with a large range of businesses has enabled us to address all these problem scenarios effectively. We also continue to develop Visual Presenter to address issues that we anticipate could affect businesses in the future. At a one-on-one level, we work with the organisations to use this knowledge to address their specific needs. Thankfully not every business is affected by every problem we were talking about in the first question!
Specifically, where we help is addressing the needs at both ends of the problem, if you like: those of the business itself, and those presenting.
With Visual Presenter, users can create presentations in minutes that automatically tailor the content and design to their audience. Content that is relevant to a user is automatically updated from a centralised server. This is one of the key pieces of functionality of Visual Presenter: it operates as a Master Library of presentations: easy to access, easy to update, easy to control.
We’ve also designed Visual Presenter to allow users to create presentations remotely while flying or in between appointments without internet or network access. Everything they need to create presentations is cached locally.
From the viewpoint of the organisation, if messaging changes, or if there’s an entire brand ‘look and feel’ change out, it is simply a case of applying a new PowerPoint template to the library of presentations. Visual Presenter automatically reformats the required content to the correct design format. For larger organisations, or those that manage multiple brands, Visual Presenter also enables them to have information dynamically represented with different template designs across the library.
When any changes are published to the main library – and it’s a very simple process to make alterations to the content – online users are automatically notified that updates are available. Through a “one click” update process all required content for the user is updated to enable them to create presentations on or off the network.
We did a lot of work around the media file issue, and the effectiveness of our solution is that it automatically tracks media content supported by PowerPoint. If media is found that is not stored locally, Visual Presenter will automatically copy down the media and make sure it is tracked with the presentation, the key point being that this ensures that media always plays effectively during a presentation whether you are on or off the network.
A concern often raised with us is the inability companies have to tailor presentations to suit their audience. This is where Visual Presenter, as an Agenda Based Presentation Management Solution is streets ahead of Slide Management Solutions. When a presentation is created it automatically selects the appropriate information and structure for a given audience. This allows companies to better manage how information is communicated to different target audiences. Further to that, if a presenter wants to tweak the content while they present, Visual Presenter has a unique agenda-based interface that allows additional information to be made available while presenting, giving the presenter a new level of control.
And to complete the process, Visual Presenter makes it simple for companies to get accurate presentation feedback. They can define what they would like to report on, e.g. presentation results, content feedback, next action and date, market feedback etc. As with the other features of Visual Presenter, this works to ensure a company is delivering the best presentations possible to an ever-demanding market.
Categories: add-in, interviews, powerpoint
Labels: design, opinion, powerpoint
This article by Robert Lane and Dr. C. June Maker explores how the human brain handles visual input and the implications for PowerPoint presentations. We recommend eliminating most of those carefully thought-out words on slides and replacing them with certain kinds of rich imagery. 
Doing so efficiently feeds the brain what it likes to see, and allows you to communicate messages in ways not possible with words alone.
Read this now...
Categories: design, opinion, powerpoint
Labels: powerpoint, training, tutorials
On the surface, PowerPoint looks like an easy program to learn -- in fact, plenty of users have been able to create PowerPoint content within a few minutes of starting using this program -- and most of them then believe that they are now PowerPoint savvy. Nothing can be further from the truth -- unfortunately, most users will never be aware of the fact that behind its simple interface, PowerPoint provides tons of features and options that make creating and delivering everyday presentations so much easier and rewarding. Clearly, there is a need for some well designed and conceptualized PowerPoint training.
This review looks at one such offering from Train Signal's CBT (computer based training) on PowerPoint 2007.
Read the Indezine review here...
Categories: powerpoint, training, tutorials
Labels: add-in, powerpoint
In the last few years, there have been a spate of products that offer compression and optimization for PowerPoint presentation file formats. Many of these do an awesome job, making PowerPoint files more lean and compact, and easier to share. Now the next generation of these products does the same compression and optimization for many more file formats including the ones introduced in Microsoft Office 2007. Our review product, FILEminimizer Office is one of them.
Read the Indezine review...
Categories: add-in, powerpoint
Labels: add-in, interviews, officefx, powerpoint
Don Brittain is CEO and a founder of Instant Effects, a California company that develops software to visually enhance presentations, communications, and collaboration. In this conversation, Don discusses the new v3.5 release of Instant Effects Presenter.
Geetesh: What’s different in this release of Presenter v3.5, and what are “brandable” themes?
Don: The Presenter product line is known for producing very fluid presentations from content authored in PowerPoint. In addition to the large number of included professional looks, 3D artists have always been able to add fully-branded backgrounds, transitions, and logo treatments to Presenter by using our free theme authoring tools.
Presenter v3.5 takes this ability to create customized motion backgrounds and transitions to a whole new level. With the new “brandable” looks introduced with this release, 2D user-supplied images are seamlessly integrated with our brandable themes in such a way that everyone can produce custom-branded broadcast quality results.
This feature raises the bar for visual branding by allowing people to easily produce customized results that are not possible with any other presentation package available today. And you should see the effect on potential clients and customers when they see their own logos and brands appearing in your presentation in TV-like fashion!
Moreover, with a single button press, the custom-branded looks can be captured, in still form, as PowerPoint backgrounds, so that branding remains consistent across live motion presentations, traditional PowerPoint presentations, audience handouts, and user-produced digital movies made with Presenter.
With Presenter v3.5, we’ve also enhanced the user interface for dual monitor shows, improved support for HD video, and enhanced playback performance for all ranges of hardware. Users can often pay for the Presenter software license with just the savings that come from reduced video equipment rental and setup charges at their first video-rich show!
Geetesh: How well does Presenter v3.5 work with PowerPoint 2007 files.
Don: We put a lot of work into Presenter v3.5 to provide tighter integration with PowerPoint 2007. Due to bugs and missing features in Microsoft’s programming interface for PowerPoint 2007, some features in the previous release of Presenter were only available to people running PowerPoint 2002 or PowerPoint 2003.
Presenter v3.5 uses alternative approaches to get around many of the limitations present in the PowerPoint 2007 programming support. In particular, support for bitmapped text has been dramatically improved. This feature is critical for presentations that contain text that reads right-to-left, and for improving text clarity on computers with minimal 3D graphics support (e.g. integrated Intel graphics).
As with earlier releases of PowerPoint, we now support the use of external sound files and event triggering in PowerPoint 2007. And all new features and benefits of v3.5 also work well with PowerPoint 2007.
Geetesh: Do you provide any samples that can be downloaded and viewed?
Don: Yes. We encourage people to try our software with no need to buy anything. You can download a free copy of Presenter from this link. This free version runs with a "watermark" on the images that is removed if you purchase a license. There is no time limit to the trial, so you can test out various features of Presenter as your schedule permits.
We also have videos throughout our web site that show our software in action, and, of course, we would be very happy to discuss how Presenter can help you improve your presentation effectiveness. Feel free to contact us via the links or numbers on the contact page of our web site.
Categories: add-in, interviews, officefx, powerpoint
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: design, opinion, powerpoint
This article by Robert Lane and Dr. Stephen Kosslyn explores how the human brain handles visual input and the implications for PowerPoint presentations. We recommend eliminating most of those carefully thought-out words on slides and replacing them with certain kinds of rich imagery. Doing so efficiently feeds the brain what it likes to see, and allows you to communicate messages in ways not possible with words alone.
Read the article here...
Categories: design, opinion, powerpoint
Labels: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom 
Yury Uskov is a founder and CEO of iSpring Solutions Inc., an innovative software company with the development center in Russia. Yury has a Masters degree in Software Engineering and since 2001 have been working in rich media industry inspired with the idea of making the best solution for online presentation sharing. iSpring Solutions has already launched several Flash technology projects including iSpring, a PowerPoint to Flash converter, and SlideBoom, an online service for presentations sharing. In this conversation, Yury discusses the new SlideBoom Pro account.
Geetesh: Tell us more about how the SlideBoom Pro account evolved, and how it differs from the free account.
Yury: As you know SlideBoom is a professional solution for sharing PowerPoint presentations which offers a full set of services for publishing presentations on the web. Sharing and distributing PowerPoint presentations on the web was normally quite difficult as PowerPoint PPT files are usually large to send, they require the proper version of PowerPoint installed, etc.
SlideBoom makes presentation sharing as easy as never before. It takes just a few clicks: upload a presentation to SlideBoom, and send a link to anybody. SlideBoom has become extremely popular due to the rich set of features, and excellent presentation quality. Plus it’s available for free.
Those who use PowerPoint presentations on a daily basis require additional capabilities for online presentation delivery. We are happy to supply them with advanced features available under the Pro account now.
Professional service cannot be free, but the pricing is quite moderate: The Pro account is available for $99 per year including SlideBoom technical support.
SlideBoom service can be a perfect online companion to iSpring desktop products for PowerPoint to Flash conversion. While free SlideBoom Basic accounts are targeted to users of the non-commercial iSpring CONVERTER freeware, SlideBoom PRO accounts are primarily designed for customers of the advanced iSpring PRESENTER product, widely used in a business sphere.
SlideBoom PRO account adds a number of advantages essential for professional work with presentations:
Geetesh: What sort of branding options do you allow in the Pro account -- and how is that a convincing reason to upgrade to the Pro account?
Yury: Branding options are available for Slidelog and customizable players.
You can customize your Slidelog, posting your company logo and choosing a color scheme that matches your company colors. It’s easy to set up a custom appearance for your Slidelog by changing navigation elements and sidebar blocks.
The players also change their colors according to a color scheme, and display your company logo over your content if needed. For example, you may want to include company logo in a presentation when it appears at third-party sites and blogs or only into its offline versions that should be delivered on CD/DVD.
If you’d like to have personal web page at SlideBoom, brand your presentations, and require advanced sharing experience -- then Pro accounts are the right choice. For $99/year you get the maximum from SlideBoom.
Categories: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
Labels: effects, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
We have already covered the fill and line options in PowerPoint 2003 and earlier. While these versions of PowerPoint do not have a dedicated "effects" set like in PowerPoint 2007, they do offer some effects like shadows and 3D. In this series of tutorials, we will first explore shadows.
Learn more about adding shadows in PowerPoint here...
Although PowerPoint provides 20 preset shadow styles, you can still create your own customized shadow, or edit the preset shadow styles using the Shadow Settings toolbar.
Learn more about the Shadow Settings toolbar...
Categories: effects, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
Labels: effects, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
Although PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions don't have a specific Effects category like PowerPoint 2007, they do have two effects -- these are shadows and 3D. In this tutorial, we'll cover the 3-D styles. Unlike shadows, 3-D styles only work with AutoShapes -- this leaves out pictures but you can always use a rectangle AutoShape with a picture fill to mimic a picture with a 3D style.
Learn more about 3D Styles here...
You can also do more with 3D Styles using the 3D Settings toolbar using options such as tilt, depth, direction, lighting, surface, and color.
Categories: effects, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
Labels: authorstream, online_presentations, powerpoint
Many PowerPoint users create and send their cards as PowerPoint presentations, mainly as email attachments. These work great, but do have some disadvantages:
Now authorSTREAM has added a new feature that lets you resolve both the problems. Their new option to create and send custom eGreetings is easy to use -- read more on their site...
Categories: authorstream, online_presentations, powerpoint
Labels: accessibility, color, design, powerpoint
Color blindness is some sort of color vision deficiency which results in differences in the way that an affected person sees and distinguishes various colors. It is mostly inherited, but can also be caused due to damage in the eye, nerve, or brain. There is no proven way to change these vision deficiencies.
When a color blind user looks at a PowerPoint slide, he or she might view it differently than other people. Even different color blind users may not see the same slide with the same vision -- there are three known varieties of color blind visions.
Learn more here...
Categories: accessibility, color, design, powerpoint
Labels: case_studies, interviews, powerpoint, second_life 
Lisa Lindgren has brought solid presentation advice to hundreds of thousands of people during her professional career. For nearly a decade she published the critically acclaimed Presenters University Web site and its monthly Presentation Pointers newsletter. Now a member of the Steering Committee for InfoComm's Presentations Council, she continues to work to enrich the industry and advocates for improved presentation techniques and standards.
Geetesh: Tell us about Second Life, and how it can be a platform to deliver and share PowerPoint presentations.
Lisa: Second Life is a 3-D virtual world where you navigate “inworld” using your own, personalized avatar. It claims to have millions of participants and many companies and universities have built presences there with the hopes of capitalizing on it. The reviews are mixed, although I did hear a presentation given by Sarah Robbins from Ball State University about her experience in running her class lab in Second Life. She said that one of the challenges was that her students got so engrossed that they forget to go to their next class! This is precisely why I think that there may be some potential for giving presentations there when you can’t physically be in front of your audience. Unlike a Webinar, or a podcast, it’s a very rich and consuming experience, one that your audience is not likely to listen to half-heartedly while they check their e-mail.
I should make it clear that I am not an expert on Second Life, but I have had the opportunity to visit the Virtualis Convention and Learning Center located in Second Life. There may be other presentation-oriented locations (called islands) there, but this was the one that I got to visit; or, more precisely, that my avatar visited.
Geetesh: Tell us about your experiences. And what sort of potential do you foresee for something of this sort?
Lisa: I watched a basic presentation, without any animation or fancy bells and whistles. But that didn’t really matter, at least to me. I was so engrossed in the total experience that perhaps it was best that the visual slides were simple.
Because it is a virtual world, the possibilities are literally endless. There were a variety of pre-set rooms and seating arrangements, such as a large theater-style room and small classrooms. The classrooms were equipped with individual workstations, where streaming video could be displayed. There were even break areas where your avatar could enjoy a coffee break, and a ballroom complete with a dance floor and disco lights.
Just like a Webinar or Webcast, your audience logs on from wherever they happen to be. Then they direct their avatars to the pre-determined location and have them gather to watch the event. They can sit in chairs, or since the avatars don’t get tired that really isn’t necessary. They could position themselves wherever it was easiest to see. You could even have them fly and hover around the presentation screen. Although in his Tips for Second Life Presentations, Gary Barber suggests you seat the avatars “very close together in almost a tiered traditional speaking pit of amphitheater arrangement…” He offers some other common sense suggestions for the would-be Second Life presenter.
One of the strengths of using Second Life is that the audience members are likely to pay more attention since they are actively participating in controlling their avatars. Of course if it is a boring and truly awful presentation, they are still likely to tune out, just like they do during Webinars or in person. So the responsibility is still on the presenter to provide engaging content.
Second Life has some advantages over traditional in-person presentations too. Instead of simply showing photos of a new product in a sales presentation, one that you couldn’t easily bring to a physical venue, you can literally create a working model of it inworld. And the physical limitations disappear. Need to teach your technicians how to repair your latest copier, for example? Build one 50 times to scale and take their avatars “inside” to see the mechanisms. It’s really pretty amazing when you think of it in these terms.
Geetesh: What does one need to get started with using PowerPoint as a content source within Second Life?
Lisa: The obvious requirement is that you need a presentation forum in Second Life. Similar to presenting on the Web, you can either build/buy your own or use a service. Virtualis is one option for using a service and there may be others. Building your own may not be as daunting as it sounds. Many large companies of course already have islands in Second Life, but Andrew Burton in Giving a PowerPoint Presentation in Second Life, and the ensuing commentary below his article makes it sound like it would be a pretty doable endeavor, assuming that you were already competent in building simple structures in Second Life and didn’t need a lot of fancy extras for your audience.
After you have a place to present your slides, you then need to import them. They must be imported one slide at a time as GIF, JPEG, or PNG files. So no animation or transitions, but because it is such a visually rich environment, you want to keep them simple so that they don’t compete with the experience. Finally you have to pay in Linden dollars to import your images. You purchase Linden dollars with real money, so there is a real expense in this virtual world.
The final “cost” of presenting in Second Life is both you and your audience need to create avatars and learn how to operate inworld. It’s really not very difficult, but I’ll admit I was a bit intimidated at first. My friend, and presentation consultant, Ellen Finkelstein, offered to accompany me at first, and it was reassuring to have her there with a helpful tip or two as I learned the basics. But Second Life really does make it pretty easy. There are standard avatars from which you select, which can be customized later. And you start your inworld experience on a beginner’s island, where everyone is learning. There are tutorials to walk you through what you really need to know and host and hostess avatars available to answer your questions. Only newbies are around you at first, so you are less likely to be embarrassed.
Is Second Life for everyone? Certainly not. You need an open mind and a business culture that will support it. If management or your client base perceives it as just a game, they are not going to be receptive. But for the right companies and markets, I think it’s a powerful option.
Categories: case_studies, interviews, powerpoint, second_life
Labels: color, lines, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
I previously explained how you can format a line with color, weight, and dash styles in PowerPoint 2003 and previous versions. Now, let me show you how you can add an arrowhead on one or both sides of a line. Arrowheads can only be added to lines within open shapes.
Learn more here...
Categories: color, lines, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
Labels: color, lines, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
In a previous tutorial, I showed you how you can format line attributes (outlines) in PowerPoint 2003 or earlier. In this tutorial you will learn more about the cool patterned lines option.
Learn more here...
Categories: color, lines, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
Labels: add-in, elearning, online_presentations, powerpoint
The amount of content available in the form of PowerPoint slides is amazing -- almost every computer literate person has a bank of slides, be it at their company, home, school, university, or elsewhere. Most of this content won't work too well when saved as a document -- but since slides typically have (or should have) small portions of large sized text with contrasting backgrounds and visuals, they end up becoming perfect as content from PDAs and Smartphones.
Products like ToolBook Instructor do a whole lot more than just such conversion, but in this review, we will focus on the PowerPoint capabilities of Toolbook Instructor, which will help you to convert your PowerPoint files into online, interactive learning course content with ToolBook's rapid eLearning content creation capabilities.
Read the review here...
Categories: add-in, elearning, online_presentations, powerpoint
Labels: color, lines, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
We have already covered the fill options in PowerPoint. In this series will go through the many ways in which you can format lines. The term "line" in itself is confusing, because all the options explained on this page pertain to "outlines". Microsoft probably realized the confusion prevailing -- and decided to call it an "outline" rather than a "line" since PowerPoint 2007.
Read more here...
Categories: color, lines, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
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: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, wildform
Colby Devitt is the president and co-founder of Wildform, a multimedia software company based out of Los Angeles, USA. In this conversation, Colby discusses Flair, their Flash authoring product that includes a dedicated PowerPoint to Flash converting component.
Geetesh: Tell us more about Flair, and its PowerPoint to Flash converting capabilities.
Colby: Flair is a fantastic all-round program for people who want to author in Flash, but don’t want to take the time to learn or pay for Flash. (That said, we also have plenty of customers who are Flash developers who use Flair to supplement their work in Flash.) Flair is primarily designed for people who want to create multimedia and e-learning presentations. It includes a top of the line PowerPoint to Flash converter which consistently creates high quality conversions with small files sizes. Plus, you can edit your converted PowerPoint files within the Flair editing environment, which is a huge advantage.
Geetesh: Flair is much more than a PowerPoint to Flash conversion program. However, can you highlight how Flair differs from other PowerPoint to Flash converting solutions.
Colby: You’re right -- Flair is much more than a PowerPoint to Flash converter. Flair has multiple essential presentation capabilities in one program. It’s a Flash authoring tool, a video, image and audio converter, a text effects animator, a quiz creator, and a full video and screen recorder (like Camtasia), in addition to being a full PowerPoint to Flash converter. Each of these capabilities in Flair could be a full program in itself.
The PowerPoint to Flash converter by itself is considered to be the best on the market. It creates high quality conversions with small file sizes, and is the only converter that I know of that lets you edit your PowerPoint files after you import them into Flair. This is a huge convenience for people working with multiple PowerPoint files because it lets you combine pieces from different PowerPoint files, or edit the content of your inherited PowerPoint files before converting them to Flash. It also lets you use your existing PowerPoint templates and designs in Flair projects.
One of the reasons we created this all-in-one program called Flair, was that our customers not only wanted to convert PowerPoint to Flash, they also wanted to add multimedia elements and interactivity to their presentations. Flair is unique because it lets you create a lot of things you either cannot make at all, or can’t make easily in PowerPoint. For example, Flair has a wizard that lets you combine, and synchronize your video and PowerPoint files in three steps! People love this feature. Again, no other product on the market does this.
Categories: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, wildform
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slidesix 
Todd Sharp (pictured to the right) is the creator of SlideSix.com, an online presentation sharing community site. He has been programming in ColdFusion since mid 2004 and blogs regularly about ColdFusion and Ajax at his site cfsilence. Todd provides ColdFusion/Ajax development and consulting services through his company Sharp Interactive, LLC.
In this discussion, Todd discusses his SlideSix site.
Geetesh: Tell us more about SlideSix, and how it evolved.
Todd: Just over a year ago, in December of 2007 I decided to experiment with ColdFusion's dynamic presentation capabilities by integrating them with a well known Java API called Apache POI which allows you to read and extract text and objects from PowerPoint 97/2000/XP files. Using the Java API was extremely simple by leveraging ColdFusion's ability to easily integrate with Java.
I created a few test cases and was very excited about the potential for creating dynamic, Flash based presentations. So through that experimentation the idea for SlideSix was born. Over the next six months I set out to create a presentation sharing community and finally launched it on May 1, 2008.
The initial launch lead to the realization that Apache POI wasn't quite 'ready for prime time'. It was fun to experiment with, but the presentation conversion simply would not be sufficent to handle anything more then a simple presentation with very little formatting. I quickly realized that I would need to utilize a different conversion engine and switched to utilizing OpenOffice to convert the presentations. Using OpenOffice gave me the added advantage of being able to support a wider array of presentation formats like the OpenOffice format (ODP, SXI) as well as MS PowerPoint (PPT, PPS). There are other techniques I use to support the conversion of additional formats such as Adobe Acrobat (PDF), QuickTime (MOV) and PowerPoint 2007 (PPTX).
In addition to the conversion engine, there have been numerous enhancements to the user interface. For example, our presentation viewer and user management console are both newer additions that are build with Adobe Flex.
Since the launch I have been constantly looking to improve and enhance the site to become one of the world's premier online presentation sharing communities.
Geetesh: How is SlideSix different from other online slide and presentation sharing sites, and what is SlideSix's best feature according to you?
Todd: SlideSix has many features that differentiate it from other presentation sharing communities. First and foremost we try to keep our site extremely simple. Some other sites put too much focus on being a social network. We focus on being a mutlitmedia enabled presentation sharing community. In other words, we realize the focus of the site is our users' presentations, and we try to empower our users to create a unique identity for themselves. The most powerful feature that we offer to help our users create that identity is the ability to record video or audio directly within our management console. Once recorded, the media becomes embedded directly within the presentation. We also offer the ability to embed supporting documentation directly within your presentation (by uploading data in ZIP format), and embedded slide notes. Other familiar features are also available such as RSS feeds, groups, favorites, tagging, ranking and much more.
Our About page contains a comprehensive overview of our features and even has a sample multimedia presentation.
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slidesix
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare, youtube
SlideShare announced the capability to embed YouTube videos within SlideShare uploaded presentations in an open beta. Embeded YouTube videos show up as separate slides inside the SlideShare player. The embedded demo below explains the entire process.
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare, youtube
Labels: design, opinion, powerpoint
I came across this interesting blog post by Andrew Dlugan that's actually an open letter to the PowerPoint programming (development) team. It talks about making some changes to the program, and I do agree with several of them. About those I don't agree with, those are mainly wishes to curtail how the program operates by providing users with less options for transitions, words, and color. That's like debating the intelligence of users, and putting a road block to creativity.
I like the requests that pertain to including Nancy Duarte's book with every copy of PowerPoint. But asking everyone to pay for visuals and give Microsoft a cut -- well, that's a no-no. Lots of PowerPoint users are students, teachers, and churches that cannot afford to pay for every graphic that they use on a slide.
Andrew's opinions form a great starting point -- and the comments on the page prove that!
Categories: design, opinion, powerpoint
Labels: delivery, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
SlideBoom, an online presentation viewing and sharing site announced the availability of Pro accounts that add more options than what are available to existing Free accounts.
These extra options include:
More info can be found on the SlideBoom site...
Categories: delivery, online_presentations, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, slideboom
Labels: iwork, keynote, powerpoint
Apple announced the release of iWork '09 including Keynote '09, the presentation component of the iWork suite. iWork '09 also includes Pages '09 and Numbers '09.
There are plenty of changes in Keynote '09, but the most noticeable of these is the new Magic Move option that allows you to add an across-the-slides animation to a single slide object. To do that, you select Magic Move as the transition between consecutive slides with a repeated slide object that could be a logo, a picture, some text, etc -- and then watch as that object changes location, scale, opacity, and rotation automatically across successive slides. There's a demo of how Magic Move works on the Keynote page of Apple's site.
Other new features include a Theme Chooser, more transitions, chart animation improvements, the ability to use an iPhone or iPod touch as a presentation remote, and better PDF and PowerPoint sharing capabilities.
Pricing for iWork '09 is $79 for the single pack, and $99 for the 5 computer family pack. No upgrade pricing seems to be available to users of existing iWork products.
Categories: iwork, keynote, powerpoint
Labels: charting, graphics, powerpoint, smartdraw
SmartDraw.com announced the release of version 2009.5 of SmartDraw. This new release includes updated features and enhancements that allow easier interoperability with Microsoft Office applications:
PowerPoint Animation Support: Users can now add images, animation, and text that is replicated within PowerPoint as native PowerPoint objects when exported from SmartDraw.
Microsoft Project Interoperability: Users can take the tasks, sub-tasks, and dependencies from a smaller SmartDraw-created Gantt chart and export it directly into a larger Microsoft Project chart.
Integrating Excel Spreadsheets: Users can directly import and manipulate Microsoft Excel spreadsheets inside of SmartDraw, which means charts and graphs can be created and changed without exiting the SmartDraw file.
Existing version 2009 users of SmartDraw can get the 2009.5 upgrade free of cost.
More info is available on the SmartDraw site...
Categories: charting, graphics, powerpoint, smartdraw
Labels: design, opinion, powerpoint
Life changes every day, and the world goes around. And even if we did nothing, said nothing, or put ourselves in the deep depths of contentment, change will still happen. Change is akin to growth -- and that growth might be a sapling sprouting from its seed or a conglomerate increasing its reach in world markets.
Both the sapling and the conglomerate can use PowerPoint slides in different ways -- and that's the ironical twist in the tale that brings me to the subject of this blog post. Before I tell you where PowerPoint slides come in the picture, let me share some info about the inspiration for this post.
Olivia Mitchell of the Speaking about Presenting blog sent me a note about this new group blog initiative that she was spearheading to collect opinions about PowerPoint design changes in 2009. I had just got back from vacation, was writing my next book, and had a full inbox! But Olivia was persistent -- and she even responded to my request to view posts by others.
Ellen Finkelstein, a dear friend says "design" rhymes with "2009". And half a dozen posts later, I knew I had different (but not opposing) opinions than the rest -- so I got started with this post.
So now about PowerPoint slide design, and what I am hoping will change in 2009. I kept my list very simple with ideas you can use straightaway -- if this helps, do come back and read this post again because most of my thoughts seem to indicate that "repeat" is a great word! Of course, feel free to comment on that as well.
Something, Nothing, and Everything: First of all, as I mentioned earlier change happens if you do something -- or if you do nothing. However, that statement is not an incentive to do nothing, but it certainly does indicate that don't do too much. I think at some time or the other, we all fall in the trap of doing too much, getting loads of info on our slides, and drowning the actual message of the presentation with gobbledygook. Not doing too much is probably the easiest thing we can do to make better slides, and it might also be the most effective part. By all means though, keep all that extra info, and try to make this supporting info available as handouts or downloads. Since you end up with less content, you can spend more time on the design of your slides.
Think Ahead of Time: If you don't spend enough time creating the message and flow of your presentation, it shows in the design as well. I know there may be occasions when you are hard-pressed for time -- in that case, make concept slides you have to use often even before you know you have to design or deliver a presentation.
Start with Paper: Always start your presentation on paper -- draw your ideas, link relationships between concepts, and create a storyboard. Take another sheet of paper, redo the entire thing -- this time, remove all unwanted info, and fine-tune further. Repeat as often as required -- show this to a trusted colleague or friend, and use their opinions where relevant. Think of the entire presentation from the audience point of view, and make more changes. This process will create an effective slide design in your mind -- subconsciously. It just works!
Next, the Computer: Now move the concept to the computer -- and don't start with PowerPoint yet. Use a mind mapping application if you are comfortable with it, or just use Notepad or Microsoft Word -- create a sequence and flow between successive concepts. Rethink, reorder, and reorient as required -- repeat as often as you want. This keeps your design clean.
Read more books in 2009: Get to read more books in 2009, but don't think they are the end-all. Consider them as inspiration to learn more, think about presenting concepts, and experiment with your design. I'll recommend these books:
Categories: design, opinion, powerpoint
Labels: digital_asset_management, interviews, powerpoint 
Steffen Setzer is Director of Marketing at Canto. Canto is a leading supplier of digital asset management solutions and has been dedicated to helping customers fully utilize their digital assets since 1990.
In this interview, Steffen discusses Canto Cumulus, a cross-platform solution that enables companies to easily organize, find, share, and track their ever-increasing numbers of photos, illustrations, presentations, video, audio, layouts and more.
Read the interview here...
Categories: digital_asset_management, interviews, powerpoint
Labels: color, fills, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
In previous tutorials, we have covered solid, gradient, texture and pattern fills for AutoShapes in PowerPoint 2003 or earlier versions. In this tutorial, we finish this series by showing you how you can use picture fills.
Learn more about picture fills in this tutorial for PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions...
Categories: color, fills, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
Labels: color, fills, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
Patterns in PowerPoint are two-color designs comprising patterns like lines, dots, dashes and checks. PowerPoint includes 48 patterns such with names like plaid, weaves shingle and zig zag. We also show you a sample presentation showing pattern fills in PowerPoint.
Learn more about pattern fills in this tutorial for PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions...
Categories: color, fills, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
Labels: color, fills, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
In previous tutorials of this series, I showed you how you can change or addsolid color and gradient fills to an AutoShape in PowerPoint 2003 or earlier. In this tutorial I'll show you how to add or change a texture fill for an AutoShape in PowerPoint 2003 or earlier. Also included is a sample presentation that includes a texture gallery.
Learn more about texture fills in this tutorial for PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions...
Categories: color, fills, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
Labels: color, fills, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
In the previous tutorial of this series I showed you how you can change or add a solid color fill to an AutoShape in PowerPoint 2003 or earlier. In this tutorial I'll show you how to add or change gradient fill for an AutoShape in PowerPoint 2003 or earlier.
Learn more here in this tutorial for PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions...
Categories: color, fills, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
Labels: color, fills, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
Whenever you add a new AutoShape to a PowerPoint slide, it is filled with a solid color by default. Most of the time, you may leave that unaltered, but it's easy to change that color or to even add another fill type altogether such as a gradient, pattern, texture, or picture. In this tutorial, I'll show you how you can change the default fill color to a color of your choice.
Learn more here in this tutorial for PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions...
Categories: color, fills, powerpoint, shapes, tutorials
Labels: add-in, narration, powerpoint, sounds
Tuval Software announced the new 3.0 release of SpeechOver Plus, a joint offering of Tuval and Acapela Group, producers of premium text-to-speech (TTS) voices.
Here's a list of the updates, provided by Joel Harband of Tuval Software:
Bundled Premium TTS Voices: In addition to SpeechOver, a software for generating narration in PowerPoint presentations with text-to-speech voices -- customers receive a high-quality, natural sounding text-to-speech voice that is automatically installed for immediate use with SpeechOver. This is a marked improvement over the regular version of SpeechOver, which comes only with the basic quality text-to-speech voices provided free by Microsoft.
Low Cost Commercial License: The Acapela TTS voices in Speech-Over Plus come with a commercial license that allows you to produce narrated presentations for internal business requirements such as corporate education and training, e-learning, and marketing presentations, -- and you can put the material on an internal corporate network. For the price, this is an excellent value and can help businesses save costs in these difficult economic times.
Additional Voices and Languages: Acapela Group produces 50 premium TTS voices in 25 languages. Right now, US English and Danish versions of SpeechOver Plus are available and different language versions are being added all the time. A basic language version includes one TTS voice in that language (for example, the US English version includes Heather) and TTS voices in the same language or in different languages can be purchased and added to the basic version. In fact, any vendor voice can be added as long as it is SAPI-compatible.
More info and free trials can be found on the SpeechOver site...
Categories: add-in, narration, powerpoint, sounds
Labels: online_presentations, powerpoint
I just read TechCrunch's coverage on SlideSix.com, a new presentation sharing site that lets you upload and share your PowerPoint presentations and other file formats such as ODP (OpenOffice), PDF, QuickTime MOV, etc.
At first glance, this looks like an interesting site not too different from other presentation sharing sites like SlideShare, authorSTREAM, and SlideBoom. But SlideSix's Todd Sharp says there's a difference. He adds: "Simplicity and identity are keystones of our presentation sharing community. Social networks, more often then not, are utilized by people looking to create a unique web identity. The motivation for the desire to create such an identity varies. Some people use social networks for personal reasons – to keep in touch with friends and relatives or reconnect with others whom they may have lost touch with. Others use them for business reasons - to create an online presence for a company or product. Often folks use them for a combination of business and personal reasons. SlideSix is a social presentation sharing community that caters to everyone."
Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint
Labels: animation, powerpoint, presentation_samples
This sample presentation shows you how you can use motion path animations in PowerPoint on ungrouped vector objects to create a very effective introduction or section slide.
Learn more here...
Categories: animation, powerpoint, presentation_samples
Labels: books, powerpoint 
We just did an interview with Claudyne Wilder, where she spoke about the new edition of her best-selling book Point, Click & Wow.
And now Claudyne has got back to me with a special offer only for Indezine readers. Before that, she wants to share a testimonial for her book:
- Dennis Ricks, President & CEO, CrystalGraphics, Inc
You can order the book now directly from Claudyne, and receive a free Delivery Skills job aid card, plus one of her PowerPoint formats from her CD: Presentations in a Hurry!!
This offer ends on January 31st, 2009.
Categories: books, powerpoint
Labels: opinion, powerpoint
Every year, Lisa Lindgren coordinates with the media for this professional survey on presentations for InfoComm -- and this year too, she sent me these details. All participants will receive a free survey report. Make sure you participate.
Are you a Presentation Professional?
Compare yourself with your peers in InfoComm International’s annual Presentation Professional survey. This year it’s shorter, easier and faster to complete. Whether you’re one of many in a corporate setting, or a one-person shop wearing all the hats, see how you compare in the skills you have and the challenges you face.
To thank you for sharing your opinions and experiences, you will receive a free survey report by e-mail.
This survey is completely confidential and anonymous. All data will be consolidated with other participants and will not be available to anyone as individual responses.
To participate, click here...
Categories: opinion, powerpoint
Labels: case_studies, powerpoint 
I meet Denise Then at PowerPoint Live each year, and we talk about "snow" -- the fact that she sees snow all around her in Canada, and that I have never seen snow ever -- yes, it does snow in parts of India where I live -- just that I've never seen it yet.
This year, Denise created a simple and personal holiday card using PowerPoint, and she emailed it to me. The card shows all the snow scenes that she can see all the time -- and I requested her permission to share it with all of you. Thanks Denise!
Uploaded on authorSTREAM by indezine_powerpoint
Categories: case_studies, powerpoint
Labels: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
Before you learn to add animation to any slide object, do remember that there are three ways in which your animation can be set to play. These are called animation events. By default, if you don't change anything PowerPoint sets the event to On Click.
Learn more here...
Categories: animation, powerpoint, tutorials
Labels: interviews, powerpoint
As Vice President and General Manager of ToolBook, Brad Crain is responsible for ToolBook products, including strategy, research and development, and product management. Brad previously held various positions at Click2learn/Asymetrix including Director of Learning Management Systems Engineering and Director of Enterprise Products.
In this interview, Brad discusses the ToolBook product from SumTotal Systems, and its PowerPoint related abilities.
Read the interview here...
Categories: interviews, powerpoint
Labels: keynote, online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
SlideShare, a leading site that lets you upload and share PowerPoint presentations now supports Apple Keynote files too. All you need to do is zip up your Keynote presentation files and upload.
There's an interesting tutorial on the SlideShare site that's embedded here:
You should also read this announcement on SlideShare's blog...
Categories: keynote, online_presentations, powerpoint, slideshare
Labels: animation, authorstream, powerpoint, tutorials
We took every single motion path animation available in PowerPoint including the preset and custom options -- and created this sample online presentation that you can use as a reference to preview.
Look here...
Categories: animation, authorstream, powerpoint, tutorials
Labels: interviews, powerpoint, slide_management 
Liber Rodriguez-Florez (pictured to the left) was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but is resident in Sweden. He holds a Master of Science in Engineering Physics and works as the Sales Director of Novatrox AB where he is responsible for the technical sales towards international customers. Prior to joining Novatrox AB, Liber worked several years at Relevant Traffic, a highly competitive Search Engine Marketing company, as Technical Director cooperating closely with the Relevant Traffic sales department.
In this discussion, Liber discusses Novatrox's Slide Executive product.
Geetesh: Tell us more about the improvements in Slide Executive Professional 2.3?
Liber: We have improved and streamlined a numerous number of things that will increase usability and make working with Slide Executive even easier. I can’t tell you everything we’ve done because I would go on for too long. But here are some top picks:
Search improvements: A search form is now accessible from the toolbar so you can start a search for slides or files without needing to click any menu or button first. This is very handy not only for slides but also if you want to look for some file you know is far down in the folder structure. Just as before you can limit your search by searching just a part of your slide library from folder down to presentation level. Also the relevancy of the search is improved since Slide Executive takes account of more parameters when sorting the results. We also added some nice shortcut buttons for each slide in the slide search results, allowing you to immediately download a slide’s master presentation or going to that slide’s master presentation directly within Slide Executive.
Auditing and statistics: For managers we have added auditing and statistics to improve the possibility to track how Slide Executive is used in their user base. We have added both general statistics and audit trails on file and folder level. This way you can see exactly who has viewed or downloaded a particular presentation/file in the system in any period of time. The general statistics give you numbers like the total number of indexed slides and indexed presentations resident in the system and much more. Thanks to the easy access of information we now know that having thousands or even tens of thousands of slides in a Slide Executive slide library, is a common thing among our customers.
Progress details: Now when you import or export presentations to the system you are shown continuous information of what Slide Executive is doing, basically you see the progress slide by slide from indexing to creation of thumbnails. You can also choose to cancel a job at any time.
Export options: Slide Executive has always allowed a variety of export options. A new feature is that you can now export to older PowerPoint versions. Together with the already existing export possibilities to PDF, web archive, web page etc. we now offer a complete set of export options reducing the steps for preparing materials for professionals.
Previews: Now you can preview how a virtual presentation will look when new versions of master presentations have been imported. If you have chosen to update your virtual presentations manually (the automatic update works as before, updating immediately) you will be able to see all new versions of updated slides on forehand, before choosing to update. You can also choose to update slide by slide on an individual level, of course you can also preview the new slide version before updating a single slide.
More features: We have also introduced other new features like a garbage can to be able to restore deleted files, ability to add discussion posts per slide (not just per presentation like before) to allow user comments on ongoing work, new actions added to the roles section for customizing what each user can do within the system, a last visited files section with links to the files you looked at recently and many more minor things to improve the user experience in Slide Executive.
Let me also mention our coming release which I am very excited about. If 2.3 has been packed with new, truly good features, our 2.4 release in the first quarter of 2009 will be introducing some new functionality to improve the user experience dramatically.
Geetesh: Can you give us an idea about your support infrastructure?
Liber: Novatrox always gives personal support from highly skilled people. We provide support in form of phone, mail and even by remote desktop connection if needed. Having support staff that have thorough knowledge about development allows us to respond not only with immediate qualified support but also to collect new ideas and requirements to implement for “the next version”.
On our website, we have a Support Center where we have all kinds of information available for our users. Apart from document downloads, an extensive forum and contact information, we also have flash video instructions for paying customers.
Categories: interviews, powerpoint, slide_management
Labels: animation, clip_media, powerpoint, templates
AnimationFactory.com is a huge resource of visual content that I have known for a very long time now. Founded in 1996, the site now comprises over 500,000 animations, video backgrounds, PowerPoint templates, backdrops, web graphics, sound clips, Flash source files, etc. They have a dedicated team of on-house artists who create this content. Their media elements can be use in any kind of presentation.
Read the review here...
Categories: animation, clip_media, powerpoint, templates
Labels: add-in, delivery, powerpoint
Ebba Åsly Fåhraeus (pictured to the left) is VP of Sales Markeing Forms at Anoto, a leader of digital pen & paper technology. Anoto was founded in 1999 and is the pioneering leader of digital pen & paper technology, based in Lund, Sweden. Anoto technology optimizes paper-based processes by rapidly and reliably converting handwritten information from business forms into digital documents.
In this discussion, Ebba discusses the use of Anoto technology for PowerPoint usage.
Geetesh: Tell us about the Anoto product line-up, and which of the Anoto products work best with PowerPoint.
Ebba: Anoto is the pioneering leader of digital pen & paper technology. Anoto technology optimizes paper-based processes by rapidly and reliably converting handwritten information from business forms into digital documents.
By far the most exciting product offered by Anoto is a PowerPoint® add-in called Anoto penPresenter. It utilizes the Anoto digital pen and Bluetooth® technology, enabling real-time collaboration during presentations. Users can make notes or sketch on their printed PowerPoint® slides using an Anoto Digital Pen and instantly see them appear on their computer, projector, monitor or flat screen LCD screen. The slide can then be saved, printed or e-mailed.
Geetesh: Can you share some scenarios in which PowerPoint users can benefit from the Anoto penPresenter?
Ebba: Anoto penPresenter allows users to have a more engaged audience in a meeting room environment and put focus on the meeting itself.
Scenarios in which users can benefit from include, having to use an electronic whiteboard and not being able to easily transport it from room to room or floor to floor. They aren’t as portable as penPresenter.
Have you ever needed to transcribe notes for data entry after a meeting? Or have you ever brainstormed an idea on a whiteboard only to have it erased before anyone “took notes”?
Anoto penPresenter allows you to make notes and sketches on your PowerPoint® slides with the Anoto Digital Pen and see the results instantly on the meeting room screen. Later on, they can easily be saved, printed and emailed to the meeting room participants.
Most importantly, have you ever tried to do something to make your PowerPoint® slides more engaging? Anoto penPresenter enhances your slides in creative ways and you certainly won’t put people to sleep with them!
Categories: add-in, delivery, powerpoint
Labels: powerpoint, templates
Ppted released a new PowerPoint template set -- this one is called Christmas. Not only do you get five great template designs, you also get the actual backgrounds so that you can use the same designs elsewhere. In this collection, you also get wide screen templates and backgrounds, and ten transparent PNGs you can use in your presentations -- at no extra cost.
Templates
Transparent PNGs
Categories: powerpoint, templates
Labels: education, equations, mathtype, powerpoint
Design Science announced the new 6.5 release of MathType for Windows -- starting from this release, Design Science is positioning MathType as a universal editor for mathematical notation. There are no new PowerPoint specific features, but here's a list of the updates, provided by Bob Mathews of Design Science:
Equations Everywhere and Anywhere: Up until now, MathType has been thought of mostly as a tool that works with Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. But it has always been much more than that. You can label graphs with equations, create equation images for websites, blogs, wikis, export equations to TeX or MathML, and much more. See Works With .. to see our MathType Interoperability Registry which lists the many, many applications and websites MathType works with. More info here...
Enter equations in TeX/LaTeX directly in Word: If you know the TeX typesetting language, you can type it directly into your Word document. When you are done, the TeX code will be converted to a MathType equation. [Bob's note: This isn't automatic. You can either click an icon on the toolbar or Ribbon, or use the Alt+\ keystroke.] The TeX Toggle keyboard shortcut allows you to toggle between TeX and MathType views of the equation.
New keyboard shortcuts in Word to open equations for editing: Many of our customers like to use the keyboard. Now you can open an equation next to the insertion point using a keyboard shortcut. Together with our new TeX Toggle feature, you can now enter and edit equations completely from the keyboard without leaving Word.
New translators for Maple, Mathematica, Physics Forum and more: As part of our "Equations Everywhere and Anywhere" effort, we have added new translators for many applications and websites.
MathML Import: Now you can import mathematics defined using MathML from the many applications that produce it. MathML code can be either in the new MathML Clipboard Format that is supported by a growing number of mathematical and scientific applications or plain text such as from an XML editor, for example. The MathML can be imported via cut and paste or drag and drop.
Thank you so much, Bob!
Categories: education, equations, mathtype, powerpoint
Labels: add-in, charting, excel, powerpoint
Andy Pope (pictured to the right) works in London, UK, developing in-house reporting systems. He uses VBA to automate Excel and PowerPoint. In his spare time, he frequents various Excel forums and maintains his own website on Excel charting. His contributions to the Excel community have resulted in him being awarded as Microsoft Excel MVP since 2004.
In this discussion, Andy discusses the Chart Pattern Fills add-in for Excel 2007.
Geetesh: Tell us more about your Chart Pattern Fills add-in for Excel 2007, and what motivated you to create this add-in.
Andy: I developed the add-in in response to posts by users who need the pattern fills feature that was depreciated in Excel 2007. Apparently pattern fills are heavily used by those in academia. I was aware that actually only the user interface for the feature had been removed so I went about reconstructing the Patterns dialog. I enjoyed the challenge of creating a dialog that would dynamically reflect the users color choices, rather than just using static images.
It’s a totally free add in and available on my site.
Geetesh: PowerPoint 2007 users also no longer have access to the pattern fills so will this add-in work for them too?
Andy: Unfortunately not directly within PowerPoint. The porting of the add-in to PowerPoint is not currently possible. This is due to limitations in PowerPoint’s VBA Object Model and how the add-ins function works compared to those in Excel. As and when/if Microsoft make appropriate changes I will attempt to make a PowerPoint version.
In the mean time for those wanting to use the add-in, you can create their chart in Excel, format it as required using the add-in and then insert the saved file as an Object within PowerPoint.
See Also: Pattern Fills Add-in: Conversation with John Wilson
Categories: add-in, charting, excel, powerpoint
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A lot is at stake -- power, money, reputation, future plans, justice. You need to win this case. Your presentation materials surely will play an important role in helping the judge and jury experience the sights, sounds, and details of the case ... or not. The choice is up to you, says one tech-savvy attorney.
The choice is up to you, says one tech-savvy attorney. It all depends upon whether you are willing to push PowerPoint beyond its normal boundaries to maximize its interactive and persuasive potential. This article by Robert Lane and
Bruce A. Olson
provides a better idea of using PowerPoint in court. 
