PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

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

Learn PowerPoint 2010 for Windows: Change Background Styles for Slide Layouts

We explored differences between the Slide Master and its Slide Layouts within the Slide Master view. Also you learned how you can change Background Styles within the Slide Master — when you do so, you may end up changing the Background Style for all dependent Slide Layouts. However, it is not necessary for all your Slide Layouts to possess the same Background Style as the Slide Master — or even another Slide Layout. Each Layout can have its own independent Background Style — as you will learn in the rest of this tutorial.

Learn how to apply Background Styles to individual Slide Layouts in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows.

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

Searching Flickr for Creative Commons Pictures

There are a number of sites that provide royalty-free pictures that can be used in your PowerPoint presentations. One such site used to be Microsoft’s Office.com site. There are several other sites that provide free pictures. However, none of these resources can match the amazing breadth and variety of picture content you can find at Flickr, a photo-sharing site. Additionally, Flickr makes it easy for you to find pictures that you can legally use in your presentations since it lets you search for pictures within the Creative Common license.

Learn how to search Creative Commons pictures on Flickr.com.

Filed Under: Clip Media
Tagged as: Flickr, Graphics, Pictures, PowerPoint, Tutorials

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Changing Color for Negative Data Series of Charts

When you select the “Invert if negative option” for a chart that has any negative data values in a series, you end up seeing those negative series with an inverted gradient fill. Since there appears little difference between the gradient fill used for positive and negative values as far as appearance is concerned, you may wish your negative series to show in a solid color that contrasts with the positive series. This color can be red (or any other color). In this tutorial, let us learn how you can do so in PowerPoint 2011.

Learn how to change the color of negative value data series to a color of your choice in PowerPoint 2011’s charts.

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

New Year Clip Arts for PowerPoint

These New Year themed clip arts for PowerPoint are all silhouettes that are ready to use within your PowerPoint presentation slides. These have been provided in both black and white colors — both variations are contained within two separate sample presentations that you can download. Copy the graphics of your choice from the downloaded presentations, and paste them into your PowerPoint presentation slides. You can also paste them into a Word document, an Excel worksheet, or any other program.

Download these free New Year clip art graphics here.

Filed Under: Presentation Bank
Tagged as: Graphics, PowerPoint