PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Apply SmartArt Styles

While changing the colors of a SmartArt graphic does change the fill colors of all shapes in your SmartArt graphic, it does not add other niceties such as coordinated outlines or effects. Yes, you can change the fill, line, and effects for individual shapes within a SmartArt graphic — or you can use the all-inclusive time-saving SmartArt Styles option. In this tutorial, you will learn how to apply SmartArt Styles to a SmartArt graphics in PowerPoint 2011.

Learn how to apply different Styles to SmartArt Graphics in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2011
Tagged as: Graphics, PowerPoint 2011, SmartArt, Tutorials

Learn PowerPoint 2010: Saving Chart Templates

Once you insert a chart on your slide, you can tweak it as much as you want so that the resulting chart follows your specifications. You have now created a standard that you may want to replicate often. PowerPoint 2010 makes it easy to save any chart you create as a template. Saving a chart as a template saves all the tweaks you made — and you can use the template as a starting point to create another chart.

Learn how to save chart templates in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows.

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

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Changing Fill, Line, and Effects for Shapes within SmartArt

Once a SmartArt graphic is inserted within PowerPoint 2011, you can recolor the entire SmartArt graphic any time — this applies new colors to the entire SmartArt graphic including the various shapes in it. However, there may be times when you want one of the shapes to look differently — in this tutorial we’ll explore how you can change the fill, line, and effect attributes for individual shapes within a SmartArt graphic in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

Learn about fill, line, and effect options for shapes within SmartArt graphics in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2011
Tagged as: Graphics, PowerPoint 2011, SmartArt, Tutorials

SlideShare Moves to HTML5: Conversation with Jonathan Boutelle

    Jonathan Boutelle is the CTO of SlideShare, and is a principal at Uzanto Consulting. A software engineer by training, his interests lie at the intersection of technology, business, and user experience. Jonathan is particularly focused on technology that brings the web experience closer to the capabilities of the desktop.

In this conversation, Jonathan discusses SlideShare‘s move from Flash to HTML5 for its presentations and how this move makes SlideShare content more accessible.

Geetesh: Moving your SlideShare content from Flash to HTML5 must have been a huge investment. What are the benefits that this move will provide to SlideShare users?

Jonathan: Yes, this was a huge effort. Most of engineering has been working on this for the last six months! We feel like it was well worth it though. There’s three main benefits to our users:

• Works on Mobile. The HTML format that we’ve developed works equally well on Smartphones, tablets, and desktop browsers. So, your documents can be viewed by a much wider audience now.
• Speed. The HTML 5 documents load 30% faster and use 40% less bandwidth than the Flash documents they are replacing.
• Semantic. The documents are “just HTML”. They are text, so they can be read by Google and other search engines. So, publishers should expect more search engine traffic as a result of this move.

Geetesh: Will the HTML5 format allow more faithful reproduction of PowerPoint abilities like transitions and graphic elements? Also, what does this mean for iPad (and other iOS) users?

Jonathan: Compatibility with the iPad and iPhone was one of the main reasons we did this move. Those devices don’t support Flash, and they are growing increasingly popular with both business and consumers. In particular, the iPad is a fantastic device for presentations … for personal browsing or for presenting to one or two other people, the iPad feels more natural than a laptop computer. Our mobile web app supports navigating by swiping the screen, so it feels very much like a native app, even though it’s a web app.

No changes on animations and transitions as a result of this move. Here’s our thinking behind that. Some authors love animations and transitions. But we’ve found that viewers generally prefer to be able to quickly navigate through the content.

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: Interviews
Tagged as: Interviews, Jonathan Boutelle, Online Presentations, PowerPoint, SlideShare

Learn PowerPoint: Download Clip Media from Office.com

There is no dearth of sites providing royalty-free pictures that can be used in your PowerPoint presentations — but none of these provide the breadth of choices that you can find at the Microsoft Office site (Office.com). Even better, all these pictures are free to all licensed users of Microsoft Office programs such as PowerPoint. Office.com allows you to download various types of clip media, including pictures.

Learn how to download Clip Media from Microsoft’s Office.com.

Filed Under: Clip Media
Tagged as: Clip Media, Office Online, PowerPoint