PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

PowerPoint Holiday Cards: Conversation with Sandy Johnson

  Sandy Johnson is a 20-year marketing communications veteran who has developed and successfully implemented marketing communications programs for clients like 3M Health Care, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, and Porsche Cars of North America. Her strategic expertise, creative PowerPoint design, and strategic consultation skills have made her a valuable resource for her clients. Visit Sandy’s site to learn more.

In this conversation, Sandy discusses the use of PowerPoint to create holiday cards.

Geetesh: What motivated you to use PowerPoint to create such awesome holiday cards?

Sandy: Like many businesses, each year at this time I would send some sort of print holiday greeting to each of my clients. At some point, it occurred to me that, since my business is based on electronic messaging — PowerPoint — my cards should reflect that medium. Besides, it was an opportunity to stretch PowerPoint a little further than I might be able to do on a daily basis with my business clients.

So, I started sending out holiday greeting eCards (self-running PowerPoint presentations) around 2006. Around 2010, those who received the cards also received instructions on how they might customize each card with their own logo or name. Each year, this is my gift to my clients, thanking them for the work they’ve entrusted me with over the past year and giving them the opportunity to pass on a customized greeting to their customers. I also love sharing my cards with the technical community in hopes that users will better understand what PowerPoint can do — beyond the standard slide.

Geetesh: How much time does it take to create these cards – and how do you plan the concept and the animations?

Sandy: Honestly, I’m thinking about these cards all year, so I’m constantly looking for inspiration in print greeting cards, TV commercials, and websites that I run across. That’s the hard part — coming up with the big idea. If I’m passionate about an idea, I can’t get it out of my head until I start producing it. I rarely sketch these ideas on paper first (unlike client’s business presentations). Instead, I go straight to PowerPoint.

Newer versions of PowerPoint have shortened the production process considerably. I wish I’d had PowerPoint 2010’s Merge Shapes and Create a Video features back in 2006. To answer your question about the length of time, I’ll use examples. I think it only took me a couple of hours to create a Valentine’s card a few years ago. On the other hand, my 2008 card probably took 20 hours because of all the masks I used for the ornaments– and because I built it in PowerPoint 2003 (it’s really a “mess” behind the scenes). I don’t think it would take that long today.

See Also: Presentation Wiz: Conversation with Sandra Johnson

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: Interviews, PowerPoint, Sandra Johnson

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Chart Elements

Charts in PowerPoint comprise several individual components that are called chart elements. Some of these elements are Series (and this could be one or more series with values), Categories (again this can be one or more categories), Axes (horizontal, vertical, and in some chart types, a third axis as well), Plot area (the active chart area), Legend, Chart Title, and many more.

Learn about different chart elements in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

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

Are Your “Key Takeaways” a Needle in a Haystack?

By Jim Endicott

Imagine for a moment I hid a set of keys for a new Lexus in one of those personal storage lockers at Portland International Airport. And all you had to do is find the specific door, put in the key and it’s all yours!

My job? I just had to explain to you how to get you there through the busy and hyper-distracting environment of an international airport. It’s not that I want to make it hard for you to find–to the contrary–I really want you to find it. But we may have a challenge… I like to use words to explain things.. lots of them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed Under: Guest Posts
Tagged as: Guest Post, Jim Endicott, Presentation Skills

Learn PowerPoint 2010 for Windows: Group Pictures

PowerPoint does not limit you to the number of slide objects you can add within the slide area. Be it shapes, other slide objects, or even multiple pictures — you can add them all. There’s more — these slide objects may end up placed in a haphazard manner and pictures of different sizes may be scattered all over the slide. It is good idea to arrange them all properly to get a a more aesthetic looking slide. In previous tutorials we have explored techniques that help you arrange your pictures and other content — look at our Resize, Rotate, and Flip Pictures and Align and Distribute Pictures tutorials. Moving ahead in the same direction, this tutorial explores how you can group pictures on your slide.

Learn how to group and ungroup pictures in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2010
Tagged as: Pictures, PowerPoint 2010, Tutorials

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Chart Styles

Adding charts and editing them is a much more intuitive and easy task in PowerPoint 2011 than it used to be using older versions of PowerPoint. PowerPoint now makes repetitive formatting easy and consistent with the Chart Styles option. There are some pre-defined styles that contain combinations of formatting elements such as fills, outlines, and effects. PowerPoint provides various such styles to choose from — and all these styles are based on Office Themes. Just a couple of clicks can make your chart look great.3

Learn how to apply preset Chart Styles to your charts in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

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