Here’s a little video courtesy of Rick Altman from my session last year at Presentation Live.
And next year is shaping up to be another conference.
Photoshop and Illustrator are forever open on my computer, and yet I am a big proponent of doing as much design as possible directly in PowerPoint. Very often, adding an effect or editing an image in PowerPoint is actually quicker than doing the same in Photoshop. And even more importantly, effects created natively in PowerPoint are almost always non-destructive, which means adjustments are far easier as presentation content continually shifts (because it always does…)
One of my favorite techniques in PowerPoint is to place a semi-transparent gradient box over full-page imagery. This is a way of “editing” the photo to make it fade out on an edge or to reduce the opacity over a part of the image and to allow for the placement of text on top of it.
Continue reading the entire post at Indezine.com…
In my longer trainings, I take a 10-minute break midway through to recharge the blood sugar and let everyone stretch. (I don’t serve twinkies—the above is just a screen I put up previewing something we cover after the break…)
Since the training is a very full 3 hours, and since I never want to run over, I always make sure that the 10-minute break is exactly 10 minutes long. How? By just putting up a 10-minute countdown clock on the screen and starting to talk again when it hits 00:00. No, not everyone is back in their seats, but a lot more are now than when I used to take similar breaks without a countdown.
Google “PowerPoint Timers” and you’ll find lots of tutorials and tricks for using timed animations and transitions to create a countdown timer natively in PowerPoint. Some are cool, but all are largely unneccesary.
The best way to use a timer in PowerPoint is to insert a video file of a countdown. If your countdown is longer than what you need, simply advance the start point in the playback options (PPT 2010 and later or Keynote).
You can download a number of free video timers from ipresentee.com, a good site that also sells timers and other presentation tools. The catch is that these timers are for Keynote, so to use them in PowerPoint, you’ll need to extract the videos from Keynote and then convert to a Windows friendly format. Click below for the timers on ipresentee.com.
Or…since I’m a nice guy, I converted my 10 minute Keynote timer for use in PPT. Right click the below image to download it to your desktop…
PowerPoint 2013 has been out in beta for a while now, but the official launch is getting nearer.
Check out my friend Echo’s rundown of new features.
And here’s more information on what’s new from Microsoft.
Oh, and if you want to know everything about how to create PowerPoint templates correctly, check out Echo’s and Julie Terberg’s brand-new book…
And some more good coverage on new features from my friends at InDezine.com…
Cross-posted from my friend Geetesh’s site, Indezine…
In Thailand, Steve Jobs will teach you PowerPoint! So wrong on so many levels…
First things first: You should ALWAYS endeavor to create a distinctly different leave behind for your presentation if a leave behind is necessary. It should be much more detailed, function more like a printed document and NOT simply be a printout of your on-screen slides.
There are a lot of strategies and tricks for creating a more detailed leave behind from your slides, and I’ll be discussing some of these in my session at this year’s Presentation Summit.
BUT … creating TWO items for a presentation is a challenge, and sometimes you do just have to “hand your slides out.” Whatever the content of these handouts looks like—and whether they are different from your on screen slides or not—there are still simple ways to have them be not so “PowerPoint-y.”
This one is so simple I can’t believe I never thought of it until recently when my project manager Dave suggested it for a very thin client proposal we felt would have seemed unsubstantial on normal paper. If you have a thin deck, printing on cardstock will make it seem literally and figuratively more weighty. Use a nice coated stock.
It’s not just more green, but it can also make your slides seem less like a deck and more like a document. A simple layout change in your masters can place logos, page numbers and even headers on alternating sides of the page, so the end product does feel more designed.
A “bleed” is when imagery and graphics extend beyond the edge of the page without a white border. To do this for an entire deck, you’ll need the help of a printshop that will print your presentation on larger than needed pages, then trim everything down. For trimming, there needs to be at least 1/8″ on all sides that will be trimmed away, so your end document will be slightly smaller than your document page size unless you account for this (set up a letter-sized PPT file as 8.75″ x 11.25″). Or, if you have a really good printer, he can actually blow up a document 1-2% before trimming back down to normal page size.
And of course, you’ll need to design your presentation with content that does bleed off the page edges. But make sure that any important information is at least 1/2″ from the edge—this is called a “safe zone.”
If you do nothing special on your slides themselves, at least create a well-designed cover page. Use a full page hi-res image and make sure it bleeds off the page. To create this, you’ll either have to have the cover printed at a printshop or Kinko’s or you can print on 11×17 paper in-house and trim it yourself. And while you’re at it, make a back cover as well so you have a full attention-getting wrapper for your presentation.
Whatever you do, avoid that awful plastic comb binding! If you’ve made friends with a good local printer, they can offer you more professional binding solutions such as wire or perfect-binding. If you do a lot of binding, replace that comb binding machine with a wire spiral binding one. We bought ours from these guys who are pretty good.
If you’re trying to stand out among competitors, consider distributing your presentation in an unusual size. For big, involved presentations set up your file and print at tabloid (11×17). Or legal-sized (8.5×14) for something different but not as unwieldy. Finally, you can go the other way and print at a very small size. A printer can take your standard-sized presentation and print it at 50% of size to create more of a handbook for your audience. Note that whatever size your PowerPoint file is, it will still scale to fill the screen in presentation mode.
If you really want your leave behind to standout, design your PowerPoint file as “spreads”—a double-sided print style in which content and layouts are designed as pairs of facing pages (just like a magazine.) This is an admittedly advanced solution in which you hack PowerPoint to work like a professional layout program, and it can involve bleeds and content that actually stretches from slide to slide (like a panoramic photo that lives half on one slide, half on the next.) If you’re clever, you can create a spreads presentation that also works on screen. Stay tuned for more on spreads in the future…
Digiday got a hold of the original ad sales deck used by Eduardo Saverin when initially trying to sell advertising for Facebook.
This is an actual test question that my company gives new hires to test their knowledge of PowerPoint.
I can’t even understand this question well enough to make an educated guess.
I would liken a question like this to being asked on a driver’s test the average rubber composition of all weather tires.
If anyone is considering attending this year’s Presentation Summit 2012 in Scottsdale, AZ at which I’ll be speaking, the organizers are offering my readers a discount. Just use the code “NH75” when registering here.
Flying last month on Singapore Airlines, I wanted to see how their in-flight international guides characterized the U.S. for visitors.
This is the page on what to expect in an American business meeting. D’oh!
