One of my favorite PowerPoint hacks is to hide page numbers in slideshow mode because really, who needs to see those on screen? This simple technique can also be used to hide unreadable source notes and any other content that should be visible in printouts and PDFs, but just isn’t needed or wanted on screen. Watch it here!
I’m just back from the recent Presentation Summit where I had a chance to hang out with many old and new friends including Tom Howell from Australia’s Synapsis Creative. Tom is the newest PowerPoint MVP, and one of the things I love about the MVPs is that each comes to the PowerPoint with a very different perspective and skillset.
Tom’s specialty is using PowerPoint to author professional videos exploiting the program’s powerful, but often overlooked animation and video output features. Tom did a session at the Summit breaking down exactly how his studio creates videos for brands such as Coca-Cola, P&G and Nestle. Occasionally, he will use live video mixed in with graphics, but usually these videos all make use of vector-based objects, illustrations and text. I won’t go through Tom’s whole process and workflow, but one of the advantages to working in PowerPoint that he stresses is the ability to storyboard and author all within the same program, saving a great deal of time. Synapsis is gaining more and more clients who want a social media video executed in under 48 hours, and apparently that’s something they can do.
Oh, and he also said that they rarely use Morph which I found fascinating.
Check out an example of their PowerPoint video work above, and see their whole portfolio here.
And check out their blog as well.
Sadly, the world lost statistician, doctor and TED personality Hans Rosling yesterday. In honor of his endless enthusiasm for and influence on data and data visualization, I put together this little tutorial on how to approximate his Trendalyzer software to create animated bubble charts using PowerPoint’s morph transition.
If you haven’t seen Hans present, take a look at some of my favorites:
The Best Stats you’ve Never Seen • 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes • Global Population Growth, Box by Box • Asia’s Rise: How and When
Episode #22, Our Favorite Animations is live.
This week we’re animated and talking about animation: when we use it, when we don’t use it and why the wagon wheel is so awesome. Not so much on that last thing. We get into the design and the technical and discuss the evolution of animation in PowerPoint and we hope it will go in the future.
Don’t forget to give us a rating on iTunes if you like the Podcast and want to help spread the word!
Subscribe on iTunes and check out the show notes for more info.
At least among designers, PowerPoint has a reputation as “not a professional program” in the way that Adobe software is. And while it’s true that Photoshop is a far more powerful image editing program than PowerPoint is, it is not true that PowerPoint can’t do some things just as well as PowerPoint. On a daily basis, I often edit imagery using PowerPoint’s built-in tools because it’s quicker, simpler and also non-destructive.
But the other day I heard a speaker make the case for using PowerPoint for video effects because “users shouldn’t have to buy and learn AfterEffects” if they’re not a professional video editor. And users also shouldn’t have to pay a professional video editor when they can get a usable result on their own using PowerPoint.
That speaker was P-Spice, someone I’ve known for a while and whose YouTube channel of “Spicy” PowerPoint tips, tricks and hacks has racked up almost 3 million views.
In tutorial after tutorial, P-Spice shows how PowerPoint can be used for business and for fun to create incredible animation and video effects—most of which I didn’t even know were possible.
If you’re into animation, or just want to check out some fun things you, check it out here!
Below is one of my favorite tutorials. For years when clients asked if PowerPoint could create a spinning globe effect, I always said, “no.” Well…guess I was wrong!
Just a really nice use of and demo of PowerPoint’s new Morph transition from PopComms.
It really does open up a whole world of possibilities for motion graphics.
H/T Ellen Finkelstein.
Holiday greetings from my very talented friend’s presentation company…animated completely in PowerPoint. Yes, this is possible with PowerPoint!
GIFDeck is a new ridiculously simple online tool for converting Slideshare presentations to animated GIFs.
If you’ve ever wanted animated gears in your presentation, InDezine.com has done the hard work for you. For just a few bucks, you can have cut and paste access to a wide variety of pre-made and pre-animated gears.
Download them here.
Really nice whiteboard animation—created entirely in PowerPoint using native animation.
If you’re looking to add this to your presentations, PointMadeAnimation are your guys.
