PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Insert Tables

Tables — we all use them in our slides all the time because they present numeric data in an organized way so that the audience can easily comprehend or compare values, trends, or even messages. And it’s quite easy to insert a new table — yet there’s more than one way to do this simple task. In fact, there are 3 distinct ways to insert a table on your slide.

Learn how to insert a table in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2011
Tagged as: Office for Mac, PowerPoint 2011, Tables, Tutorials

Learn PowerPoint 2013 for Windows: Slide Background Styles

When you create a new presentation in PowerPoint 2013, you may typically see a single slide with a white background. Alternatively, if you open any of your existing presentations, the background of the slides may be in a different color or fill depending upon the Theme that the presentation is based upon. You can always change this slide background to a picture, a solid color, a pattern, or even a gradient. However, even without exploring all those options, there are twelve Background Styles that PowerPoint offers for every presentation by default. These styles are all coordinated and also designed to work well as a set of complementary backgrounds. You can change your presentation slides to follow any of these background styles by following the steps explained here.

Learn about different slide background styles available in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2013
Tagged as: Background, PowerPoint 2013, Tutorials

NXPowerLite 6: Conversation with Mike Power

Mike Power is the founder and Managing Director of Neuxpower, a software solutions company based in the UK. Neuxpower custom-builds both stand-alone applications and add-ins that enhance existing software such as Microsoft Office. Their commercially-available file optimization software NXPowerLite compresses PDF, Microsoft Office and JPEG files simply and effectively by up to 90%, making them easy to email as attachments.

In this conversation, Mike discusses the new version 6 release of NXPowerLite.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Add-in, Interviews, Microsoft Office, Mike Power, Neuxpower, NXPowerlite, PowerPoint

Learn PowerPoint 2013 for Windows: Change the Default Shape Attributes

When you insert a new shape on a slide in PowerPoint 2013 (or in any previous version), by default it is filled with a solid color and an outline (or something else depending on the Theme your presentation is based on). For example in a new blank presentation that we created, the shape is by default filled with a blue solid fill and has a thin dark blue outline. Whenever we insert another new shape on a slide, it will possess these same default shape attributes ( fill, outline, and effect).

Learn how to change the default shape attributes in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2013
Tagged as: Effects, Fills, Lines, PowerPoint 2010, Shapes, Tutorials

Callout Sample 01: Arrow Pointing to a Map

Callouts are amazing – with just an arrow and some text, you can point at something and add a whole new meaning to any picture! One of my favorite things to do is collect examples of how people use callouts. Just a few weeks ago, I saw this example in TIME magazine where a callout is not used to indicate text but instead a position on a world map! This is such a simple trick, yet so useful.

With a small arrow, you can add an indication to where in the world an event has taken place. Or even to indicate a city or any other geographical location. This type of representative indication via callouts can be very helpful in your slides too.

So what do you all think? Do you want me to make an entire series of posts with samples of callouts? Do you folks have thoughts on callouts to share? Love to hear from all of you!

Filed Under: Presentation Bank
Tagged as: Callouts, Design, Opinion, PowerPoint, Presentation Samples