PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

2015 Prezi Awards: Conversation with Susannah Shattuck

  Susannah Shattuck is the Content Marketing Manager at Prezi. She helps to create and distribute blog posts, videos, infographics, and—most importantly—prezis for Prezi’s marketing team. She also coordinates the Prezi Awards competition every year.

In this interview, Susannah discusses the 2015 Prezi Awards.

Geetesh: What are the 2015 Prezi Awards, and how were the contributions? And is this something you will also do in 2016?

Susannah: The Prezi Awards are an annual competition that we host to celebrate the best Prezis that our community has created over the course of the year. For the past three years, we have asked people to nominate their favorite Prezis for a Prezi Award in one of five different categories: Best Business Prezi, Best Educational Prezi, Best Use of Zoom, Best Reusable Design, and Best Overall Design. Our team of judges then has the very tough job of picking a winner in each category. This year it was particularly difficult, as we had over 5,500 nominations!

Additionally, we ask the Prezi community to vote for their favorite of all the nominees—the entry that receives the most votes win the People’s Choice Award.

We will absolutely be running the Prezi Awards again in 2016—so keep an eye out for next year’s announcement sometime in October and submit your best work for the chance to win acclaim and fame!

Geetesh: What do you look for when you decide who will win? And what sets the winner of the Best Overall Design award this year apart from other Prezis?

Susannah: Our team of judges—top Prezi designers from our Evangelism team, who have created presentations for everyone from TED speakers to executives at multinational corporations—looks for presentations that make the best use of Prezi. We’re looking for Prezis that tell a visual story through great design and execution. The winner of the Best Overall Design this year does just that. Through playful graphics and an excellent use of zoom, “Heimathafen” really brings its content to life. As a result, it’s more memorable and engaging than any bullet-pointed slide deck ever could be—and that’s what makes it an amazing Prezi.

Best Overall Design by Anna Bojti and Inka Vigh

Virtual tour CEVA Logistics

Best Zoom by Josh Bonito

Best Reusable Design by Prezibase

You May Also Like: Prezi/Harris Interactive Survey: Conversation with Peter Arvai | 50 Million Prezi Users: Conversation with Scott Kabat

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: Awards, Interviews, Online Presentations, Prezi, Susannah Shattuck

Changing Between Group Card Types in Sway

Any content within Sway needs to be within one of the three Card categories: Text, Media and Group. As far as Group Card types are concerned, they are essentially a group of some combination that can include the Text and Media Card types. As long as you have the Card types and numbers that are a prerequisite for a particular Group Card type, you can change from one Group type to another.

Learn how you can change from one Group Card type to another within Sway.

Filed Under: Sway
Tagged as: Group Cards, Media Cards, Sway, Text Cards, Tutorials

Working with Dubsmash

Are you one of those folks who is always ready to play with the next new thing on a cell phone? Or maybe you won’t touch something unless it’s very mainstream? Either way, you must have heard some murmurs about Dubsmash – or you may be a seasoned Dubsmasher? Whether you have heard of Dubsmash or not, there’s no denial that this is a fun program although it can also be an awesome time waster!

Explore ways in which you can get started with Dubsmash.

Filed Under: PowerPoint All Versions
Tagged as: Android, Dubsmash, Fun, iPad, iPhone, Phone, Tutorials, Video

pptXTREME Add-ins for PowerPoint: Conversation with Keith Tromer

Keith Tromer is the Founder and President of Corporate Imaging, Inc. since 1989. His strategic vision for Corporate Imaging, Inc. focuses on three fundamental aspects: generating the best creative content possible; fostering innovation; and utilizing the latest technologies.

In this interview, Keith discusses PowerPoint add-ins from pptXTREME.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Add-in, Interviews, Keith Tromer, PowerPoint, pptXTREME

ToolsToo v6.2 for PowerPoint: Conversation with Gil Segal

  Gil Segal is the creator of ToolsToo and a senior software consultant. Gil is always on the lookout for ways to automate manual tasks in any software he uses and has been a PowerPoint power-user since the mid 90s.

In this conversation, Gil talks about his new ToolsToo v6.2 add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint.

Geetesh: Can you tell us more about the new features added to ToolsToo v6.2?

Gil: ToolsToo v6.2 adds support for manipulating shapes within groups. Now, many of the powerful ToolsToo productivity tools can be applied to the shapes within a group and not just to the group in its entirety. The new version also adds the exciting ability to add shapes to an existing group (or to a single shape) while preserving any animation applied to the original group (shape) and its layering.

ToolsToo v6.2 also adds a new tool to Make Same Table Column Width. This tool applies the column widths of the table the user specifies as the Reference Shape to the selected target tables. If any of the target tables have more columns than the Reference Shape table, the additional columns retain their original widths. If the Reference Shape is not a table, then all columns in the target tables are set to the width of the Reference Shape.

One oddly missing feature in PowerPoint is the ability to set the language across the presentation. Instead, PowerPoint sets the language separately for each object: shapes (text boxes, in particular), notes, chart titles and axes, and tables. ToolsToo v6.2 rectifies this with its new Set Language tool.

Lastly, ToolsToo v6.2 expands on the set of tools used to reduce presentation size by adding two tools to remove unused layouts. Some layouts can get quite large, particularly if they contain embedded images.

Geetesh: What according to you is the most time-saving option available within ToolsToo?

Gil: That is a difficult question to answer given that ToolsToo has more than 70 tools specifically designed to improve PowerPoint editing productivity. It is a question of whether we are looking at saving a small amount of time for something that is used very frequently (such as the various alignment tools) or a lot of time for things that are done less frequently. It also depends on the nature of the presentation itself as to which tools are used while editing that presentation.

The tools that stand out in my experience as saving the most time when they are used are the Copy Agenda Slide tool, the Reformat Slides tool, and the new Add to Group tool.

The Copy Agenda Slide tool replicates Agenda slides throughout a presentation wherever one is needed and shows progression through the presentation by dimming all topics other than the current topic. Instead of tediously manually updating all of the agenda slides throughout the presentation, you update just the wording for one agenda slide without worrying about the current topic and then click on the tool to take care of all the rest.

When copying slides from one presentation to another, often some or all of the colors of the slide content change to match the color scheme of the target presentation. When this is not wanted, it is quite tedious to manually change the colors. The Reformat Slides tool merges the look and feel of the target presentation with the color scheme of the source presentation in a single click.

The Add to Group tool adds shapes to an existing group (or a single shape) while preserving any animation applied to the original group and its layering. A single click on the Add to Group tool replaces all the manual steps required to add the shapes to the group, restore all the animations, resequence all the animations, and place the group in its correct layer.

You May Also Like: ToolsToo 5.1: The Indezine Review | ToolsToo: Conversation with Gil Segal

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: Add-in, Gil Segal, Interviews, PowerPoint, ToolsToo