PowerPoint and Presentation News - Issue 053

Winners and Giveaways

The winners of the last ezine issue's NXPowerLite sweepstakes are Kathy Norton (Canada), John Rhodes (South Africa), Lisa Gowdy (United States) and Tim Owers (UK) - congratulations to all of you. Tommy Powell of Neuxpower has already sent you complimentary licenses.

This time, I am offering four copies of my new Frank Lloyd Wright collection of PowerPoint templates. To enter the sweepstakes, just fill in this form. Mention "Frank Lloyd Wright" in the Comments field - the sweepstakes ends on February 24th, 2005.

Here are some new articles and happenings:

Learn how you can create holiday cards at SmartDraw.com

PowerPoint Camtasia Tutorials Contest

Betsy Weber of TechSmith suggested this fun contest and giveaway. Using their Camtasia product, create a small video tutorial that explores a PowerPoint or presentation design tip.

Five Camtasia licenses and ten SnagIt are up for grabs. Here are more details about how you can share your knowledge in a video tutorial with fellow product users.

• Email a Zip archived video tutorial for PowerPoint to me at (email link removed). The best tutorials will be posted and also win a free copy of TechSmith Camtasia or SnagIt. Those who win will be notified by email.
• You must base the tutorial on PowerPoint and show the products and features.
• The tutorial video should be 640 x 480 or 800 x 600 resolution.
• The tutorial video should be under 2 minutes in the Windows Media (WMV) streaming media file format and use the TechSmith codec for compression as a .WMV file.
• File size of the zipped file should be under 4MB.
• You can add audio to narrate the tutorial or use text box callouts.
• Be creative and try to teach someone who will see the video something new and unexplored about Powerpoint such as a new feature or tip or trick.
• You must agree to release of rights on the video so that I can post the tutorial.
• Tutorials should be in English.
• All submitted tutorials should contain a description of the tutorial and who created it.

You can create your video entry by downloading the free 30 day trial of TechSmith's Camtasia.

Snapz Pro X for PowerPoint:mac

I work cross-platform on PowerPoint for Windows and Mac. Most PowerPoint users on Windows believe that the best feature on PowerPoint for Mac is the ability to export an entire movie to a QuickTime file. A few PowerPoint designers actually create their presentations on Windows but move them to the Mac so that they can produce a movie.

So is PowerPoint's QuickTime output good enough? For simple presentations, it is adequate. Add some complicated animations or include a voice-over or background music score and PowerPoint's movie output options get stretched to their limits.

At times, I've output movies from PowerPoint:mac 2004 only to find that the entire narration for a slide plays before the first animation sequence even starts moving. That's clearly not acceptable.

Someone suggested Snapz Pro X as an alternative. Read more.

How do I use an animated GIF as a fill for my WordArt?

Try these steps:

1. Create your WordArt as required.
   
2. Then right-click the WordArt object and choose Format WordArt.
3. In the Colors & Lines tab, click the downward pointing arrow next to the Color fill option and choose Fill Effects from the resultant menu.
4. Select the Picture tab in the resultant Fill Effects dialog box and navigate to where you have stored the animated GIF you want to use as a fill.

The animated GIF will be active (animated) while in slide show mode within your WordArt object.

End Note

More PowerPoint related info on the PowerPoint Blog and PowerPoint Notes. And PowerPoint templates for all of you.

Until next time - have a nice day. And keep the feedback coming.