Peggy Duncan works with teams and individuals to help them spend less time working but get more done. Peggy travels internationally training on organization, time management, advanced PowerPoint, Word tips, email management with Outlook, do-it-yourself search engine optimization, and getting started with video and YouTube channels. Peggy is an award-winning video blogger at SuiteMinute and the author of Just Show Me Which Button to Click! in PowerPoint 2007.
In this discussion, Peggy discusses how she uses PowerPoint for creative projects other than just slide design.
Geetesh: You use PowerPoint for more than just slide creation, especially for image editing. Tell us what makes PowerPoint such a great image editor, and what types of images you can create within this slide program?
Peggy: I was struggling with Photoshop trying to create, I think at the time, a web banner. It was painful. I remember thinking how easily I’d be able to perform the same tasks in PowerPoint, so I just tried it. I resized a slide and designed from there. I went on to create the background for my YouTube channel, DigitalBreakThroughs, postcards, CD labels…whatever I needed.
PowerPoint is the right tool for the job. It just works for me. It’s so flexible and can do almost everything I want: sizing to fit my needs, formatting the background, manipulating pictures by rotating, shaping, adding depth with shadows, and so much more. Plus, there was no learning curve because I already knew the software. I was able to transfer the skills I use to produce presentations to my projects.
Geetesh: How do you export images from PowerPoint, and do you use any add-ins to make the process easier?
Peggy: When I wanted to use PowerPoint to design a business card or anything that I’d send to a traditional printer, I had the problem of low resolution produced in native PowerPoint (96dpi). I think I was on a Microsoft forum and read about ImageExport from the PPTools website. I use this powerful and affordable add-in to either produce an entire slide, a full presentation, or an image on a slide in high resolution.
Here’s a video from my YouTube channel that shows how I use PowerPoint to create all sorts of marketing collaterals.
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