PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Changing Fill and Border for Charts

When you add new charts in PowerPoint, the default fill and border (line) that PowerPoint 2011 applies to chart elements are perfectly adequate. Still, you might want to play with the Chart Styles available — all these Styles are based on the Office Theme you have applied to the active presentation, and while this works great most of the time, there will be occasions when you may want to use a color for any of your data series that’s not part of the Theme palette in your presentation. In times like these, you can control the fill and border of chart elements using the techniques explained on this page.

Learn how to change the fill and the border of selected chart elements within PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

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

Hyperlinks Support in SlideShark: Conversation with David Klein

David Klein is senior director of product management at Brainshark, Inc., leading the product team in developing innovative business solutions. Brainshark’s cloud-based software lets users create online and mobile video presentations — using simple business tools like PowerPoint and the phone or computer microphone — and share and track their content. Brainshark is also the creator of the award-winning SlideShark app for viewing, presenting, and sharing PowerPoints on the iPad and iPhone.

In this conversation, David discusses SlideShark’s newly announced support for hyperlinks and how users of the app will benefit.

Geetesh: It’s awesome that SlideShark now supports both internal and external hyperlinks contained in the original PowerPoint presentation. Can you tell us more about this feature?

David: Sure. Links appear in presentations for a number of different scenarios. External links point to URLs — either to focus on a particular website or to invoke a document housed in cloud storage, like Box or Syncplicity. Tapping on the link in SlideShark will display a view of the website, and when you’re done, one more tap on a button brings you back to your presentation.

Internal links are used to jump to another part of the presentation. So if you have a slide that acts like a table of contents for other sections of your story, it’s easy to tap right over to that part of the deck. It’s like the ol’ “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. We’re actually seeing a lot of presentations organized like websites — navigating a person throughout the deck based on decision trees.

We’ve heard from users that they’re especially excited about our new hyperlink support — as it enables them to give even more informative and interactive presentations from their iOS devices.

Geetesh: Essentially, only hyperlinks within the presentation and web hyperlinks will work within SlideShark. What approach do you suggest to link to other files (i.e., documents, pictures, etc.) from within the SlideShark presentation? And also, do these links need to be put in place within the original PowerPoint file?

David: Cloud storage is such a popular trend among professionals and non-professionals alike. Each file out there is represented by a URL that could be secured if required. Take that URL and insert it into your slide, and SlideShark will treat it as an external link.

SlideShark also supports the mailto link, enabling you to tap and bring up your email client on the device with prepopulated To and Subject fields. It’s like a bookmark to email someone.

The links do need to be in place within the original PowerPoint file. SlideShark is designed to support the integrity of the PowerPoint file so that it can be presented the way it was supposed to be seen. And there are benefits of doing all of your work up front in PowerPoint versus doing additional production work in an app. For example, when marketing teams are challenged with controlling the number of ad-hoc presentations created after distributing their brand and data-sensitive content, SlideShark ensures that there remains only one version of that presentation. In that same relationship, you have one team authoring and another team presenting. So, it behooves organizations and streamline processes to have the production work done first.

We’re glad to make hyperlink support available to our users and, as always, continue to endeavor to provide them with innovative, new features for a superior mobile presentation experience. Thanks, Geetesh, for the opportunity to discuss SlideShark.

See Also: SlideShark – Box OneCloud Integration: Conversation with David Klein

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Brainshark, Interviews, iPad, iPhone, Online Presentations, PowerPoint

Account Option in Backstage View in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows

In PowerPoint 2013, and in other Office 2013 programs, you typically need to sign in to a Microsoft Account so that you can access saved settings, customizations, and even some files off the cloud. You typically do this by managing your Account, right inside PowerPoint or another Office 2013 program such as Word and Excel. The Account tab in Backstage view allows you to sign in to your Microsoft Account, and automatically connect to your OneDrive account. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to access PowerPoint 2013’s Account Management options.

Learn about options within the Account tab of Backstage view in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2013
Tagged as: Backstage, Interface, Microsoft Account, Microsoft Windows, PowerPoint 2013, Tutorials

Notes Shapes for PowerPoint – 02

These Notes Shapes have applied shadows, and fold effects, and are ready to use in your PowerPoint slides. The sample presentation that you download includes plenty of variants of these Notes Shapes, and also has complete instructions on how to use them in your own slides! Use these notes to add a personal touch to your slides and make them look different from the millions of other slides created each day. Also, since these notes are essentially native PowerPoint shapes, you can use all of PowerPoint’s fills, lines, and effects to customize their appearance.

Download and use these Notes graphics in your slides.

Filed Under: Presentation Bank
Tagged as: Design, Graphics, PowerPoint, Presentation Samples

Sign In, Sign Out, and Switch Accounts in PowerPoint 2013 on Windows 7

Office 2013 programs such as PowerPoint 2013 work with their own Accounts system. Many options within PowerPoint show up or change depending upon which Account you are signed into, and these include your Recent Files list, your connected services, and even the interface color for your program. While these customizations show up irrespective of whether you are running PowerPoint 2013 on Windows 8 or Windows 7, the process in which you sign in and switch Accounts differs a little in both these Windows versions. In this tutorial, you’ll explore the Account management for PowerPoint 2013 within a Windows 7 environment.

Learn how to sign in, sign out, and switch Microsoft Accounts in PowerPoint 2013 on Windows 7.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2013
Tagged as: Account, Microsoft Account, Microsoft Windows, Office 2013, PowerPoint 2013, Tutorials