PowerPoint and Presentation News - Issue 073

I just had a great vacation in Singapore and Bangkok -- here are some pictures.

Giveaways and More

This time, Neuxpower is giving away 10 copies of their new NXPowerLite v3 software that optimizes PowerPoint, Word, and Excel files. To win, all you need to do is fill in this form. This giveaway ends on May 15th.

Ppted is giving away ten copies of their Graffiti collection of PowerPoint templates. To win, all you need to do is fill in this form. This giveaway also ends on May 15th.

You can see the names of last ezine's winners of the De Stijl giveaway here.

Congratulations to all the winners!

InfoComm Presentations Survey

Are you a presentation professional?

Take a 15-minute survey and learn how you compare with your peers, from the work you do and the expertise you have, to the challenges you face. Are you similar to others, or charting your own course? Find out for yourself in InfoComm International's annual 2007 Presentation Professional Survey.

To thank you for sharing your opinions and experiences in this survey, you will receive a free survey report by e-mail.

The survey is available here until May 18, 2007.

Learning PowerPoint

In our continuous Learning PowerPoint section, here are some more basic tutorials:

Inserting Charts in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003
Inserting Charts in PowerPoint 2007
Inserting a New Slide in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003
Inserting a New Slide in PowerPoint 2007

If you want to know more about PowerPoint 2007, check out my new books on PowerPoint 2007:

Cutting Edge PowerPoint 2007 For Dummies is an updated version of my earlier PowerPoint book -- completely redone for PowerPoint 2007. In the typical Dummies style, it makes complicated concepts seem easy to comprehend and apply in your day to day work.

Most PowerPoint elements like text, graphics, charts, animations, transitions, fills, etc. have separate chapters -- and don't miss the part of tens in the last chapters.

Special Edition: Using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 is a detailed book that explores almost everything that can PowerPoint can do. The book can be used both as a reference and a cover-to-cover reading material -- depending upon how you want to use it. At over --- pages, it is thick and heavy enough!

I co-authored this book with Patrice-Anne Rutledge and Tom Muccilio.

Both books have amazing CDs -- and complement each other just in case you want to get them both!

News and Happenings

Read reviews

• Classic Menu for Office 2007 brings back the menus in Office 2007 applications including PowerPoint 2007.
• muvee AutoProducer is a wizard style video application that's amazingly easy to use and the results are nothing short of outstanding.
• NXPowerLite v3 optimizes the size of Office documents without compromising their content or quality -- thus making them easier store and share.
• ALLCapture allows you to create tutorials for e-learning, and product presentations, demos, software simulations, etc.
• PackITSuite from I-Logik helps reduce the size of stored file data in several file formats including PowerPoint presentations without deleting or archiving them.

Read interviews

• Kathy Villella is cofounder of PowerFrameworks, and is primarily responsible for the site content. In this interview, she discusses the use of visuals in PowerPoint.

Read conversations

• Rajeev Arora discusses Elluminate and vRoom.
• Mike Power of Neuxpower discusses the new NXPowerLite version 3.

Read blog posts

• RibbonCustomizer, the add-in product for Microsoft Office 2007 that allows you to customize the tabs within the Ribbon has now been updated to version 1.1
• Wildform, Inc. announced the release of WildPresenter Pro 3.2, a significant update that includes improved support for Windows Vista.
• Carmine Gallo, author of 10 Simple Secrets of the World's Greatest Business Communicators wrote a nice feature for BusinessWeek recently. He sent me this link, and it makes great reading -- he's discussing Duarte Design, a design firm based out of Mountain View headed by Nancy Duarte.
• Google has acquired Tonic Systems, which provides a set of tools for the online editing, viewing, and sharing of presentations created with Microsoft PowerPoint.
• Google plans to launch an online presentation program competing with PowerPoint.
• Articulate announced Articulate Online, a new user-friendly hosted service that allows you to track how employees, customers and prospects interact with your e-learning courses, assessments and presentations.
• Electric Rain was selected as the grand prize winner of the Windows Vista Code Master Challenge for its development of the StandOut presentation solution, a new desktop application for creating stunning cinematic-style presentations.
• Scrapblog is a site where you can create scrapbook-like, online content that can be adapted to look like online presentations.
• authorSTREAM is a new, content sharing social media networking site open to everyone to upload, share and view PowerPoint presentations.
• Articulate, a provider of rapid e-learning authoring tools, has announced the winners of its 2007 Articulate Guru Awards.
• Impatica ShowMate won the Most Innovative Wireless Device award in the Andrew Seybold Choice Awards 2007.
• W2solutions announced the release of HeadsetPresenter 3.0, a simple program that turns any Bluetooth headset into a Windows application remote control suitable for controlling onscreen activities including PowerPoint presentations.

End Note

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

And here's a link to the previous issue of this newsletter.

Until next time - have a great day. Andkeep the feedback coming.