PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Halloween Clip Arts for PowerPoint

These Halloween Clip Arts for PowerPoint are ready to use clip-art graphics that you can use within your PowerPoint presentation slides. These clip art graphics are available in black and white colors — both variations are contained within two separate sample presentations you can download. Copy the clip art graphics of your choice from the downloaded presentations, and paste them into your PowerPoint presentation slide, or you can also paste them into a Word document or an Excel worksheet.

Download these free Halloween clip art graphics here.

Filed Under: Clip Media
Tagged as: Clip Media, Design, PowerPoint

Annoying PowerPoint Survey Results: Conversation with Dave Paradi

Dave Paradi helps presenters communicate more effectively by using persuasive PowerPoint presentations. He has published over 240 issues of his bi-weekly newsletter, produced more than 70 slide makeover video podcasts and appears in media regularly. Dave recently held his biennial survey on what annoys people about PowerPoint presentations.

In this conversation, Dave discusses the results of this survey.

Geetesh: Tell us about the results of your “What annoys you about bad PowerPoint presentations?” survey — and what are the top annoyances?

Dave: As I analyzed the responses and comments in the survey, a clear theme emerged. Audiences are fed up with presenters who fill their slides with too much content and are then compelled to read it all to those seated in the room.

Let’s look at the responses first and then the comments.

In looking at what the 603 respondents said were their top three annoyances, it was clear that reading the slides is by far the top thing that presenters do that annoys their audience. This has been in top spot for all five of the surveys I have done going back to 2003. Moving up one spot from the last survey, the second most annoying thing is the presenter filling the slides with full sentences of information instead of summarizing the key messages in bullet points. And rounding out the top three, is the presenter using fonts that are too small to read, probably because they are cramming too much information on the slide.

Here are the top five annoyances along with the percentage of respondents that selected them as one of their top three:

1. The speaker read the slides to us — 73.8%
2. Full sentences instead of bullet points — 51.6%
3. The text was so small I couldn’t read it — 48.1%
4. Slides hard to see because of color choice — 34.0%
5. Overly complex diagrams or charts — 26.0%

Geetesh: Based on these results, what advice will you give to presenters?

Dave: It is clear that the top three annoyances are separated from the rest by a significant distance and are clearly the areas presenters need to focus on. And yet, I think that these are only symptoms of the bigger issue of information overload. When a presenter feels that they have to include everything they have done or all they know on this topic, the slides will be a confusing mass of text and numbers that give the audience no clue on what the important takeaway should be. Presenters need to make better decisions on what content to include in a presentation so that the message is clear and understood.

There are three major themes that need to be observed here:

First, comments from the survey respondents reinforced my conclusion that the root cause of the annoying behaviors was really due to presenters attempting to cram too much information in to the presentation. Many commented that presentations have become reports that are read to the audience. It is a trend that I am seeing in my workshops as well. Attendees are asking how to determine what should go in and what should be left out of the presentation. Because they are unsure, they default to including everything. Another contributing factor is the need to send the presentation by e-mail to those who could not attend the live presentation. In order to make the presentation make sense, the presenter basically writes their script on the slides. This will be a key area of focus in my writing and work over the next year. I am starting to teach strategies for questioning each piece of content to determine if it really contributes to the goal of the presentation. I am also teaching ways to include additional detail that is not on the slides presented during the live presentation, but is available when the slide file is sent to others (or used as a record of what was presented at the meeting).

The next theme is that presenters need to be better prepared to deliver the presentation. Some of the comments related to presenters who did not create the slides themselves and had not practiced with them before the presentation. The presenter ends up reading the slides and is not able to add anything to what is written on the slide. Audiences feel that this shows a lack of respect. Presenters need to be familiar with their presentation and invest the time to rehearse and make the presentation their own, even if the slides were prepared by someone else. Respondents also commented on presenters who lack the skills or knowledge of how to speak effectively or don’t know how to use the equipment when presenting. If you aren’t comfortable speaking or don’t know how the equipment should be used, ask someone. Get some training so that you don’t embarrass yourself at the front of the room.

The third theme was the continuing problem of poorly designed slides. From poor color choices to unreadable fonts, to spelling and grammar errors, the basics are still not being understood by too many presenters. If the content of the slide can’t be understood because of poor design, there is no way it can be an aid to the presenter. You don’t have to be a designer to create slides that are visually appealing. Select colors that have enough contrast, use sans-serif fonts in large enough sizes, and double check all text on your slide before presenting. When the presenter doesn’t even bother to get these basics correct, the audience feels that the presenter doesn’t care about the presentation, and the audience will naturally be less willing to listen and act upon the message the presenter is giving.

See Also: What Annoys You About Bad PowerPoint Presentations?: Conversation with Dave Paradi

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, Opinion, PowerPoint, Survey

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Shape Styles

PowerPoint’s fill, line, and effect attributes enable users to customize the look of shapes in a presentation. However, it may take ages to get that perfect color for a shape fill — and even after spending so much time the final look may not match the overall Theme of your presentation. To end up with shapes that use coordinated colors, you can use the Shape Styles gallery that contains a collection of preset styles. These styles are all Theme-specific, so if the presentation Theme is changed — you’ll end up with new Shape Styles that are always coordinated.

Learn how to apply preset Shape Styles in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac to impart Theme coordinated fills, outlines, and effects.

Categories: office_mac, powerpoint_2011, tutorials

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

Learn PowerPoint 2003: Notes Master

PowerPoint allows you to print Notes pages — these contain the notes that you may have saved within the Notes pane for all your individual slides. Unless you modify the Notes Master, your printed Notes pages may look basic. The Notes Master is one of the four Masters within PowerPoint 2003 — this Master enables you modify the appearance of your Notes pages — especially how they will look when you print them. Do note though that these changes do not affect how the notes within the Notes pane of your slides in Normal View appear.

Learn about the Notes Master in PowerPoint 2003 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2013
Tagged as: Masters, PowerPoint 2003, Templates, Tutorials

Share PowerPoint Presentations on authorSTREAM: Conversation with Dinesh Awasthi

Dinesh Awasthi is Product Manager for authorSTREAM.com. In addition to developing the strategic product roadmap and implementation of various features on authorSTREAM, he works with the development team and keeps an eye on user feedback to formulate new releases. Dinesh holds a Masters degree in Computer Applications.

In this conversation, Dinesh discusses the PowerPoint sharing options on authorSTREAM.com

Geetesh: What are the most simple means in which anyone can share their presentations online on authorSTREAM.com?

Dinesh: Sharing PowerPoint presentations online on authorSTREAM.com is faster and easier with in-built sharing options. Following are the simple ways to share slideshows with anyone on authorSTREAM:

• Get a unique link (URL) for your presentations and share via email with others.
• Automatically share on Twitter and Facebook. Once you activate Auto Post, your presentation gets automatically published on Twitter or Facebook as soon as you upload them on authorSTREAM.
• Post other members’ public PowerPoint presentations freely on social websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Delicious and StumbleUpon.
• Embed presentations on various websites or blogs of your choice.

Geetesh: How can they use more advanced options such as sharing only with selected people, set pass codes, and prevent embedding of their content?

Dinesh: authorSTREAM provides full privacy giving users complete control over who, what and how to share their presentations. Users can share their presentations privately with only people they select with the option to grant and revoke access anytime, set a secret passcode to view, and restrict private embedding to certain websites or blogs by opting for our premium plans.

There are two plans that we are currently offering: authorSTREAM Pro ($29.95/year) and authorSTREAM Business ($39.95/month).Pro ($29.95/year) is for any advanced user of authorSTREAM who is looking for presentation analytics, passcode protected presentations and unlimited private uploads whereas Business is meant for users who, in addition to features available in the Pro account, want more control over embeds or sharing, detailed presentation analytics, unlimited PowerPoint to video conversions, branding and customization.

See Also: authorSTREAM Premium Subscriptions: Conversation with Harman Singh.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: authorSTREAM, Interviews, Online Presentations, PowerPoint