PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Change Connector Type

You have already learned that there are essentially three types of connectors that you can use to link shapes or other slide objects in PowerPoint 2011 — also you can add any of these three connectors (straight, elbow, or curved) as per your requirements. However, what if you add a connector of one type and later realize that you should have used a different type? You need not delete that connector, and place another type of connector in its place because PowerPoint 2011 allows you to change from one connector type to another very easily.

Learn how to change between connector types in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

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

Doodleslide: The Indezine Review

It’s always good to be different — and canned slides with Calibri or Arial text over those same template or Theme backgrounds can look so monotonous! Doodleslide is a PowerPoint add-in that enables you to add a human touch by inserting hand-drawn images and organic looking slide templates. The Doodleslide add-in consists a library of around 350 high-resolution doodle images with transparent backgrounds. These are divided into 25 categories. In addition, it also comprises over 50 slide templates that match the look of the doodles. Both these elements: the doodles and the slide templates can be accessed by two buttons that are integrated into the Insert tab of the Ribbon in PowerPoint.

Read the Indezine review of Doodleslide.

Filed Under: Reviews
Tagged as: Add-in, Graphics, PowerPoint, Review, Templates

Animated Slide: Blueprint

This blueprint slide essentially is not an architectural blueprint, but it could have been! This slide is more of a lesson in how you can slowly introduce slide objects one after the other so that they animated almost like performing in sync – in a ballet or concert. Every shape is a native PowerPoint shape that either has a white fill or outline, or even both. Then we used the Spin animation to primarily get all shapes rotating together. We used PowerPoint 2010 to create this presentation, and it works best in either that version or in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

Download and use this slide for your own presentations.

Filed Under: Presentation Bank
Tagged as: Animation, PowerPoint, Presentation Samples

Learn PowerPoint 2010: Using Windows Rights Management

We already explored how you can get started with Information Rights Management (IRM) in PowerPoint 2010 by first signing up for the Windows Rights Management (WRM) service. This service implements Microsoft’s access controls for documents across Office 2010 applications such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel, etc. Once you have signed up for WRM, you can set permissions for all presentations that you need to share as long as you and all other recipients for your files fulfil these two requirements: All users have a Windows Live ID, and all users have signed up for WRM using their Windows Live IDs.

Learn how to to use Windows Rights Management in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows.

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

Reduce Stress and Save Time

By Claudyne Wilder

One of my clients’ major issues is time or lack of it. They have to prepare between presentations. Needless to say, this causes stress. Consider the following scenario.

Ginger has a presentation to give to new customers. She was told about it last week. She worked on it to the detriment of a critical project, even practicing out loud the night before the talk. She gives it and feels successful. But she has some revisions to make before sending it to the customer.

At the same time, she has to prepare a talk next week to division managers about her project (the one she has been neglecting). Now she has two presentations to work on simultaneously, one to revise and the other to create from scratch. She has no time to rehearse for the second talk and feels nervous. She doesn’t sleep well. Although acceptable, she feels tired, overworked, and frustrated. But today she’s got to revise the first presentation.

Image: Yay Images

Yes, it’s stressful to be constantly getting over one presentation while preparing for the next. There is no one solution. The best way to reduce stress is to analyze the way you go about creating presentations and figure out where you can save time. If you don’t use the following strategies, then you are probably taking twice as long as you need. Use them, save time, reduce your stress level, and get more work done. And you’ll never give a mediocre presentation again!

1. Create a PowerPoint file for each type of presentation. For example, create a project update file with all the slides set up exactly as you need them. Then you just need to put in your new content.
2. Learn to use the Slide Master. It’s the best time investment you can make. People waste hours creating every slide themselves rather than inserting a slide from the Slide Master that already has a layout. Pay someone to explain how to use it and to create several Slide Master looks you can use over and over again.
3. Keep a file of artwork, tables, images, and shapes. I am not talking about looking at other presentations for ideas every time you are preparing a talk. I am talking about a file with all these images in the right background and color scheme. You open the file and choose several to use.
4. Know how to use PowerPoint effectively so you can save even more time. Taking a PowerPoint class may not help you that much. You need a class on how to create a presentation using PowerPoint.

  Claudyne Wilder is a guest lecturer at conferences, business shows, and corporate events. She is the creator of three presentation seminars: The Winning Presentations Seminar, The Winning Presentations Sales Seminar; and Creating PowerPoint Presentations That Get Your Point Across. She offers The Winning Presentations Seminar publicly about six times a year. She also licenses this seminar to companies and consultants to teach.

Do visit Claudyne’s site at Wilder Presentations to learn more.

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: Guest Posts
Tagged as: Claudyne Wilder, Guest Post, Opinion, PowerPoint, Presentation Skills