PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Changing Fonts and Other Text Options for Charts

Although charts are a visual medium, they still contain some text in the form of data labels, titles, legend, axis labels, etc. You may need to format the chart text to suit your requirements. While PowerPoint 2011 makes it simpler to access text formatting options than in previous PowerPoint versions, there’s still some learning involved. That sort of learning is exactly what this tutorial aims to provide.

Learn about formatting fonts within charts in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

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

Learn PowerPoint 2010 for Windows: Custom Backgrounds for Slide Master and Layouts

There are plenty of opportunities to use a less restrained background for your slides — your choice for a slide background should complement the content of your presentation. For example, you’ll want a flashier background for slides created for kindergarten students — or if you were creating a PowerPoint greeting card. On the other hand, you may want a washed out, faded, or even a subtle patterned picture for a typical business presentation. PowerPoint 2010 does provide you with 12 default slide Background Styles which can be applied to both the Slide Master and individual Slide Layouts — other than these default background styles, you can also opt to change the slide background to a solid color, a gradient, a pattern or texture, or even a picture.

Explore different options available to create custom background for Slide Master and Layouts in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2010
Tagged as: Masters, PowerPoint 2010, Templates, Tutorials

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Vary Color by Point in Charts

If your chart includes only one series and several categories, then by default individual chart segments will use the same fill color (such as individual columns in a column chart) or varying colors (such as segments in a pie chart), depending upon the chart type you are working with. For all charts, you can always change the color of the entire series but that works best if you have multiple series in your chart. The same is not true for a chart that has only one series — in that case displaying all individual elements of a chart series in the same color can make your chart look dull — it also does not provide a proper way for your audience to compare the individual series’ elements. PowerPoint 2011 lets you resolve this limitation by using the Vary color by point option.

Learn how you can vary the color of different series’ elements in a chart within PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

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

Indezine News: January 1, 2013

Welcome to 2013’s first issue of your PowerPoint and presenting newsletter. We wish you a great new 2013 — do take a look at our New Year goodies and clip art to get started. David Klein discusses SlideShark’s newly announced support for hyperlinks — and we teach you how you can fool PowerPoint to consider any MP3 as a WAV file so that you can use them for animation and transition sounds. Learn also about Account Management options in PowerPoint 2013. Our regular tutorials’ series walks you through the topics of Slide Masters and Charts.

Read all this and more in Indezine News.

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

Buy Office 2010 or 2011, and Get Office 2013 Free!

Tomorrow is a new year — 2013 to be precise. And Office 2013 is expected to be released sometime soon in the first quarter of 2013. Conventional wisdom in such a scenario is to postpone any decision to buy the existing version of Office — and wait for the new one to be released. Yet, there’s a compelling reason to ignore that conventional wisdom and take the plunge now! Even if you already have Office 2010 for Windows — or Office 2011 for Mac, it makes sense to get a license today.

Here are a few reasons:

1. Microsoft has announced that anyone who buys a licensed copy of Office 2010 for Windows will get a free upgrade to Office 2013 (or Office 365) when it is released. You could have actually availed of this offer anytime after October 26th 2012 — so if you bought a license of Office last week or two months ago, you may still be eligible to get a free copy of Office 2013!

       

       

2. Microsoft has opened up this offer to Mac users of Office too — if you buy Office 2011 for Mac, you will still be eligible to get upgraded to Office 365 Home Premium — the Office 365 Home Premium product includes latest versions of Office for 5 computers (both Macs and Windows are supported).

   

3. So if you buy, install, and activate Office 2010 or 2011 today — you still get to use that version, and the new version too! That’s always good because the new version may have added, changed, or removed some features — and you have access to an older version just in case! This also gives you time to migrate from the older to the newer version at your own convenience.

   

4. Also there may be plenty of offers available for those who buy Office 2010 or 2011 today — once Office 2013 is released, you’ll have to pay premium price and not expect any great offers for at least a few months. Microsoft is offering a free USB portable speaker to those who buy a copy of Office Home and Student 2010 in some countries (here’s a link to the offer for India) — other countries may have similar offers. Amazon has also discounted some editions of Office by as much as 33% off their published prices — and yes, these are all eligible to get you the next version of Office for free!
5. If you run both Windows and Mac computers, this is a great offer since you can get Office 2011 for Mac and have access to latest Office products for both your Mac and Windows computers as part of Office 365 Home Premium.
6. Remember that Office 2013 only runs on Windows 7 and 8 — if you are running Windows XP or Vista, then this is a great chance to get Office 2010, which does run on those older Windows versions — and then a license for Office 2013 when you ultimately upgrade to Windows 7 or 8!

Do note though that you should read the fine print on Microsoft’s site to confirm if you are eligible — also find out if this offer is valid in your country. Once you find you are eligible, you will have to install and activate your Office 2010 or 2011 now — then send an easy e-mail reminder to Microsoft who in turn will let you know how to download your license for Office 2013 or Office 365 once the new product is available — you then download and install the new version for free!

Filed Under: Microsoft Office
Tagged as: Office 2010, Office 2013, Office for Mac