PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Use Dialogue to Enhance your Story

By Claudyne Wilder

I have been attempting to get my clients to use examples or stories. They frequently just describe what happened in a given situation. This does not have the same power as creating a dialogue.

Image: Yay Images

For example, Sarah is trying to convince department managers to stop using roaming plans. To give her discussion of cell phone charges more impact, here is what she can say:

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Filed Under: Guest Posts
Tagged as: Claudyne Wilder, Guest Post, Opinion, PowerPoint, Storytelling

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Create Custom Shaped Picture Placeholders

Rather than using simple rectangle placeholders for your pictures, you can use various other shapes that appear almost silhouette-like. Yes, this is possible within PowerPoint! In fact, these custom picture placeholders can be created within PowerPoint, using nothing that’s not a part of PowerPoint. Of course, this process is a little detailed, but not difficult!

Learn how to create custom shaped picture placeholders in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

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

authorSTREAM’s Dynamic Embeds: Conversation with Harman Singh

Harman Singh is the Founder and CEO of two Internet platforms – authorSTREAM and WiZiQ. authorSTREAM is a PowerPoint sharing platform striving to make your presentations sharable on the Web — whether they are viewed from desktops, mobile phones or tablets like the iPad.

In this conversation, Harman discusses authorSTREAM’s new Dynamic Embed technology that automatically delivers optimized video content to all sorts of devices.

Geetesh: Can you tell us more about authorSTREAM’s new Dynamic Embed option, and what this means to bloggers and website owners.

Harman: Dynamic Embed code is an intelligent embed code that is capable of handling all devices on its own, be it a desktop computer, laptop, iPhone or iPad. It’s dynamic in true sense of the word as it automatically renders Flash embed on a Flash-supported device like a laptop, Mac and Linux computers and renders non-Flash embed on a non-Flash supported device like iPhone and iPad.

For bloggers and website owners, this means that their multimedia presentations, having animations, transitions, sound, in-slide videos, and rehearsed timings, play as they created it on a Flash-supported device and in a non-Flash format on a non-Flash supported device. Dynamic Embed is thus an empowerment tool for bloggers and website owners as they no longer need to manually format their presentation to suit the needs of presentation sharing platforms.

Viewers across all devices can watch embedded presentations on blogs and there is no need at all for blog and website owners to sacrifice animations and other multimedia effects from their presentation just so that it is able to play across all platforms and browsers. Bloggers and website owners can now choose a dynamic presentation output and thus a dynamic blog or website look over static output with Dynamic Embed.

It also means better viewing experience for users of their blog and website, more satisfied visitors and thus more returns to their website and better business eventually. Dynamic Embed, in effect, is the panacea to all problems relating to embedding presentations on blogs and websites.

Geetesh: Will this option be available for new presentation uploads to authorSTREAM, or even all existing content?

Harman: It’s available for all-existing content as well as new presentation uploads.

Those bloggers and website owners who used our Flash embed or iPad embed code earlier to embed presentations on their blogs and websites can update their work using Dynamic Embed. This will ensure that their multimedia presentations play across all devices as well as ensure that animations, rehearsed timings, sound, in-slide videos and other such effects play seamlessly on a Flash-supported browser.

See Also: authorSTREAM Video Improvements: Conversation with Harman Singh

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: authorSTREAM, Harman Singh, Interviews, Online Presentations, PowerPoint

Learn PowerPoint 2013 for Windows: Live Preview

Editing slide objects works almost the same way, irrespective of what you are actually editing — you select the object you want to edit and change some attributes — you then get to see what your changes have caused — and then you either undo your changes (if you are not too happy with them) or just accept them and start working with another object. What if you could see/preview how an actual change will look on the slide object before you decide to accept or decline that change? PowerPoint 2013’s Live Preview allows you to do just that — this feature was first introduced in PowerPoint 2007, and continues being available in newer versions. Additionally, PowerPoint 2013 now also includes the Live Preview option for Chart Styles as well.

Learn how Live Preview works in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.

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

PowerPoint and Presenting News: June 11, 2013

In this issue, we bring you an invitation to a free webinar on Making PowerPoint Interactive. And we have added new pushpins to our pushpin collection for PowerPoint — these new pushpins are based on feedback from you all! Also we have an exclusive interview with Robert Lane, the spearheader of the Relational Presentations concept — he discusses his upcoming Visual Language Online Workshop. PowerPoint 2013 for Windows users can explore the new Format Task panes — you also get familiar with PowerPoint’s ten views, and look closely at Normal view. PowerPoint 2011 for Mac users can learn more about working with their Slide Masters and Slide Layouts.

Read Indezine’s PowerPoint and Presenting News.

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