PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Learn PowerPoint 2013 for Windows: 3-D Rotation Options For Shapes

PowerPoint 2013’s 3-D options that allow you to rotate or bevel shapes 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. This tutorial explains these extra 3-D Rotation options.

Learn how to format the 3-D Rotation attributes of a shape in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2013
Tagged as: Effects, PowerPoint 2013, Shapes, Tutorials

Free Perspector: Conversation with Steve Hards

Steve Hards plays with PowerPoint all the time, and creates add-ins. He was involved with Perspector, a 3D add-in for PowerPoint that enables users to manipulate shapes in 3D inside PowerPoint and to create all sorts of interesting effects. Until very recently the top of the three editions (Lists, Standard and Professional) sold for $299. Surprisingly, the Pro version is now freely available to everyone.

In this conversation, Steve, who managed sales for Visual Exemplars, the company that produced Perspector explains what’s behind the move.

Geetesh: It’s amazing that a full featured PowerPoint add-in such as Perspector is being given away free. Why is that so?

Steve: Ten years ago, when the 3D Perspector add-in was conceived, we didn’t realize how many years it would take to program the refinements into it that resulted in the mature version 4.2.1 a few years ago. There was, and still is, nothing like it. However, in recent years Microsoft, pursuing its own development path for Office, unknowingly hit us with a double whammy.

First, Microsoft changed its Office Marketplace site so that available add-ins are very difficult to discover. They either didn’t know or chose to ignore the effect it had on 3rd party add-in sales. All add-in developers, not just us, were affected.

Second, 64-bit versions of Office followed the introduction of 64-bit versions of Windows and, although Microsoft’s line was that most people did not need to use the 64-bit version of Office, we know that it is being installed by default more and more. Like many other developers of add-ins for Office we had to weigh up whether recoding Perspector to run in 64-bit versions was worth the likely return on investment. Reluctantly, we concluded that it was not, so we have withdrawn it from sale.

Geetesh: So why did you decide to make it freely available rather than just shutting it down?

Steve: Our most common support request was from people who had replaced their computer and had lost their license key and we wanted to make sure that our customers, whose loyalty we have appreciated over the years, would still be able to access it. That’s why we have made the Professional Edition available for download, along with a generic license key that anyone can use. Also, anyone who has the Lists or Standard versions can upgrade using that key. In the Perspector Editor they just need to go to Help, Register or Upgrade.

We will not be providing technical support for the free license – people can try it and, if it works for them, fine. If it doesn’t, they should just uninstall it.

For any people new to Perspector who want to try it there is some Getting started help when you run the add-in within PowerPoint. There are two interactive User Guide presentations that can be accessed from the Perspector Help menu or the Perspector Panel on the right of the screen when Perspector is in use. The other thing that people need to know is that presentations containing Perspector-generated images can be viewed in any PowerPoint presentation but can only be edited using Perspector.

The free Perspector license and download is available from the Perspector site.

Steve has some other add-ins he produced independently: Opazity and FillSlammer. He also has a comprehensive free resource, The Encyclopedia of Best Free Resources for PowerPoint Users.

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: 3D, Add-in, Interviews, PowerPoint, Steve Hards

Learn PowerPoint 2013 for Windows: Apply 3-D Rotation Effects

Among all the Shape Effects in PowerPoint 2013, 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. We already covered the Bevel effect in a previous tutorial. In this tutorial, we will cover 3-D Rotation, and in the next tutorial, we will explore 3-D Depth.

Learn how to apply the 3-D Rotation effect to selected shapes in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2013
Tagged as: Effects, PowerPoint 2013, Shapes, Tutorials

Resonate Giveaway: Conversation with Nancy Duarte

  Nancy Duarte has been Principal at Duarte Design since 1990. Her firm is in the heart of the Silicon Valley, and the client list is loaded with Fortune 500 companies. Her passion for business communications that are clear, meaningful and attractive has opened doors for her in a business world full of cluttered and complex visual communications. Nancy has also authored three amazing books: Slide:ology, Resonate, and the HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations.

In this conversation, Nancy discusses the new multimedia edition of her book, Resonate that is being given away gratis.

Geetesh: Resonate has been a groundbreaking book that’s helped so many people create slides with better messages and content – so how do you feel looking back at something so amazing that you created?

Nancy: Writing Resonate really changed me. It’s impossible to study story and not be changed. I never dreamed it would change others as much as it did me. Teaching others to use story patterns to persuade has been the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done. My whole world used to be about writing and producing presentations for others. Teaching them to do develop story-based presentations themselves has been rewarding.

Geetesh: Almost as amazing as the book is that you are now giving it away for free in a digital version – what motivated this decision?

Nancy: When I wrote Resonate two years ago, I developed multimedia-rich assets at the same time. In the printed book, I added green www letters to signify there’s multimedia content online. Now, with the multimedia version of Resonate, we wove the rich media with the book content it makes it a much more immersive book. It’s a very different experience actually. I gave it away for free for two reasons. First, I wanted to set a high benchmark for what a media-rich business book can be. My books are all visual books and publishers have struggled to come up with a compelling format for visual and multimedia books that work on all desktops and all devices. I wanted to demonstrate how it can be done. The other reason is because, as I said in the first question, the material really changed me. It is very transformative and I want the concepts to spread so more people can change the world.

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: Books, Interviews, Nancy Duarte, PowerPoint, Presentation Skills

Learn PowerPoint 2013 for Windows: Apply Bevel Effects to Shapes

By default, the PowerPoint shapes that you insert on your slide are flat and two-dimensional. And this indeed works well most of the time. Yet, there are opportunities and situations that may benefit from a three dimensional graphic. It is times like these that you can apply plethora of Shape Effects that PowerPoint provides, or just use the Bevel shape effect that makes it stand apart by making your shape look embossed, like a button, or even a pillow — the different output variations occur since there are many Bevel presets available in PowerPoint 2013. Play with all the presets, and some Bevel presets will make your shapes will look as if they can pop out of the slide. Do note though that 3D does not always have to be loud and opulent — there are plenty of Bevel effect presets that are more restrained and understated!

Learn how to apply Bevel effects to selected shapes in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2013
Tagged as: Effects, PowerPoint 2013, Shapes, Tutorials