PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

PowerPoint and Presenting News: January 31, 2017

We begin by exploring Rooster Shapes, in time for the Chinese New Year–and you can also use these Rooster shapes for other reasons. Ethos3, a leading presentation design house shares a case study about making financial slides. And Kurt Dupont talks about an amazing new option that lets you add text to speech features in PowerPoint!

In the Tutorials section, PowerPoint 2016 users can learn about Shape Effects, such as Bevels, 3-D Format, and 3-D Rotation. We also explore Morph, an amazing PowerPoint transition. Finally, do not miss the new press releases and templates of this week.

Read Indezine’s PowerPoint and Presenting News.

Filed Under: Ezine
Tagged as: Ezine, Indezine, News, PowerPoint

3-D Rotation Options For Shapes in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

PowerPoint’s 3-D options allow you to rotate shapes or add beveled edges. And these 3-D options are surprisingly powerful. In fact, some of these options are good enough to be compared to a basic 3-D program! While you can always apply a 3-D Rotation preset effect to a shape, you can actually rotate your shape in 3-D space on your own by altering the X, Y, and Z position coordinates.

Format 3-D Rotation attributes for shapes in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2016
Tagged as: 3D, Effects, Microsoft Windows, Office 2016, PowerPoint 2016, Shapes, Tutorials

Making Finance Fun: An Ethos3 Design Story

By Gabrielle Reed

At Ethos3, we work with several clients from a variety of industries. As a Content Strategist at the Nashville-based presentation design and training agency, I create content and mold narratives. Recently, I worked on a set of slides for Mark Harmon, a financial and retirement planning advisor. After discussing the details of his original presentation at our first meeting, I discovered that he had a powerful personal story related to his interest in the financial field. But he hadn’t been telling the story. Check out the presentation below!

I, along with one of our expert presentation designers, crafted a deck with these 3 influential elements:

1. Bookending Story

Mark’s mom lost her husband. She was left with 5 children – all of which she wanted to put through college. On a teacher’s salary, this was difficult. However, she enlisted the aid of her family and a financial advisor to take control of her and her children’s destinies. This simple narrative began the presentation. But, attendees didn’t know that the woman Mark mentioned in his story was his mom until the conclusion of the talk. The ending describes how Mark’s mom has more money saved than she has ever had in her lifetime – a success story.

2. Animation and Iconography

Throughout the deck, a few slides reveal information via animation to emphasize certain parts of the narrative – such as Mark’s mom’s loss of her husband. Iconography serves as a visual hook for the presentation message without playing a prominent role in the design layout. The use of both of these design techniques adds a fun flair to what could otherwise be another dull finance deck.

3. Dynamic Tone

Mark primarily delivers this presentation to his own potential clients, however, his main objective isn’t necessarily selling them on his services. Instead, he aims to inform them and gift them with the foundational knowledge needed to secure a bright financial future. First and foremost, he wanted the design and content to illustrate the opportunity understanding finance can bring to individuals and families. Through off-center color blocking and a visual metaphor of “snapshots,” the Ethos3 team created a dynamic and vibrant tone for Mark’s presentation. Mark even mentioned the engaged and attentive mood in the room during the initial presentation of his new set of slides.

Gabrielle Reed is a Content Strategist at Ethos3, a company specializing in presentation design and training. She posts thoroughly researched, highly useful content frequently to the Ethos3 blog, which offers presentation tips geared toward a variety of professions.

You May Also Like: Designing Story Slides in PowerPoint: Learning from Ethos3

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: Case Studies
Tagged as: Case Studies, Ethos3, Gabrielle Reed

Getting Started with Morph in PowerPoint

Every new release of PowerPoint brings forth new features, and some of these features have made people sit up and take notice. The most popular of these features has been the Morph transition effect. So, what exactly is Morph? Morph is a transition effect that you will find on the Transitions tab of the Ribbon. When you use the Morph transition, you get a total of three options in the Effect Options drop-down gallery.

Learn how you can get started with the Morph transition effect in PowerPoint.

Filed Under: PowerPoint All Versions
Tagged as: Morph, Movement, PowerPoint, Transitions, Tutorials

Apply 3-D Rotation Effects to Shapes in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

Among all the Shape Effects in PowerPoint, the 3-D ones stand apart. For any of the 3-D effects to work, you must understand two important 3-D parameters. These two parameters are 3-D Rotation and 3-D Depth. Although you can rotate any shape that has a Depth of zero, you really cannot see any Depth within a flat object. Thus you must first rotate your object and then add Depth.

Apply 3D Rotation effect to shapes in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2016
Tagged as: 3D, Effects, Microsoft Windows, Office 2016, PowerPoint 2016, Shapes, Tutorials