PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Learn PowerPoint: Animating Text

As part of the animation tutorials series, I have showed you how you can add an animation to any slide object in PowerPoint. However, there’s more to animating text than just adding an animation since PowerPoint provides specialized options for animating paragraphs and bulleted text. In this tutorial we will learn how you can use these special options to animate text sequentially by words, by letters, and by paragraph levels.

Learn more now.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2007
Tagged as: Animation, PowerPoint, Tutorials

Office Intervention: Learning PowerPoint with Julie Terberg

Julie Terberg is a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP, has been busy doing this cool video with Microsoft Office Online as part of their new Office Intervention series. In this particular video, Julie shows a law student how she can effectively use PowerPoint effectively to create a compelling presentation.

Here’s the video.

Filed Under: Presentation Skills
Tagged as: Julie Terberg, Microsoft Office, Office Online, PowerPoint

Animate Charts in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows

In PowerPoint you can animate any slide object, but some objects have extra animation options. These objects include charts and bulleted text, and in this tutorial, we will work with chart animation in PowerPoint. Since animation is largely unchanged in PowerPoint versions 2002 through 2007, we’ll explore how to apply animation to charts and also explore the various chart animation options available for versions 2007, 2003, and 2002.

Learn how you can animate charts in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2007
Tagged as: Animation, PowerPoint, PowerPoint 2007, Tutorials

SlideBoom World Presentation Contest

SlideBoom, a presentation sharing site from the makers of iSpring, announced the SlideBoom World Presentation Contest. This contest, open to everyone, requires participants to submit any PowerPoint presentation (or another compatible file format) on the SlideBoom site. All participants need to be members of the site, and basic membership is free.

Applicants can submit their works from 18 May to 21 June inclusive. Winners will be announced on 30 June 2009.

The contest winners will be judged by a panel of 5 presentation professionals including yours truly.

More info can be found on the contest site.

Filed Under: Companion Programs
Tagged as: Companion, Online Presentations, PowerPoint, SlideBoom

Studio-Max: Conversation with Max Wijgergangs

  Max Wijgergangs is the owner of a Dutch PowerPoint presentation company, Studio-Max. Max admits that he bought his first computer only in 2001, until which time he knew practically nothing about computers and PowerPoint. But he made up for that lost time soon by rapidly discovering all kinds of possibilities working with Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe graphics software. This remained a big passion, but it was still a hobby until 4 years later, when he decided to quit his regular job. He launched Studio-Max with a goal to provide the Dutch market with professionally designed PowerPoint presentations. Since then, his energy focused on taking PowerPoint presentations to a higher level that has allowed Studio-Max to become a known name.

Max and his team love to play with the animation possibilities in PowerPoint. In this conversation, Max discusses this and more.

Geetesh: How can animation enhance a regular PowerPoint presentation to something above the ordinary?

Max: Many Dutch clients and companies don’t know the full possibilities of PowerPoint, and they are in most cases, pleasantly surprised when they see some of our work. “Wow, is this really done by only using PowerPoint?’ is what we hear a lot from these people. This reaction probably stems from the way we use graphics and animation. When animations are used in the right way, they can really enhance any PowerPoint slide. The secret is to combine different basic animations on pre-calculated timeframes (we use Excel formulas for this!).

When combined with well-designed, corporate-looking content (Photoshop/Illustrator artwork), this will result in stunning and professional-looking animated slides that will blow people away.
We have an in-house PowerPoint professional, Lam Quang Huy working with us at Studio-Max. He is an animation specialist, and he really knows how to take PowerPoint animations to the next level.

There are many secrets hidden in the PowerPoint animation schemes, and we continue to discover new tricks on a regular basis! A layperson could well imagine that these animations were created using Adobe Flash!

Geetesh: Is there anything called too-much-animation? Tell us more about the dividing line.

Max: Yes, there is, I see that almost every day when companies send me their in-house presentations. Content is animated too fast or too slow, pictures are spinning and turning around the screen to vertigo levels, and so on. Too much animation of that sort can distract the audience from the message. Of course, an overkill of animations can also be annoying.

The dividing line in animations can be a distinct difference — between slides created by a PowerPoint professional or an amateur. Most presentations made in this part of the world demand animations on each slide. It’s always a challenge to find the balance between restful and highly dynamic, yet sophisticated animations.

Audiences must not be overwhelmed by all kinds of animations but, it’s also important not to bore them with standard animation stuff they have seen a zillion times before. Being original and creative will help a lot!

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Animation, Interviews, PowerPoint