PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Drawing Shopping Bags in PowerPoint

PowerPoint is a ubiquitous presentation program that also works great as a simple drawing program. We have already done an extensive series of tutorials on shapes, and in this tutorial, you will learn how to use simple techniques already explained in other tutorials to draw a shopping bag in PowerPoint 2010. No, you need not go back to those older tutorials since most concepts are drop-dead easy – yet if you want to know more, we have linked to all technique tutorials in the relevant parts of this page.

So let’s start creating our shopping bag!

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2010
Tagged as: Drawing, Graphics, PowerPoint 2010, Shapes, Tutorials

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Add Pattern Fills to Shapes

Do you need fills for shapes in PowerPoint that really contrasts well, especially when you have multiple shapes on a slide that need different types of fills? Yes, picture, gradient, or even solid fills work great — but what happens when you need to print that slide on a black and white printer? Or if your audience includes those who have problems distinguishing between different colors? In that case, your best option is to use pattern fills. We have already explored many of the fills available for shapes in PowerPoint 2011, and in this tutorial you’ll learn how you can use pattern fills — but first, let us explore patterns a little.

Learn how to add pattern fill to selected shapes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

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

Learn PowerPoint 2010 for Windows: Handout Master View

Handouts are documents you can print from within PowerPoint that include slide representations from your presentation — you can opt to include as many as 9 slides on each handout page, and then the slides look more like thumbnails. Of course, you can also choose to print just one slide on every handout page — then your handouts will look like individual slides printed on a page. Most handouts are created to be printed — and the look and feel of these printed handouts is determined by the Handout Master. To access and make edits to the Handout Master, you need to get to the Handout Master view in PowerPoint 2010 — changes you make in this view influence the look and layout of printed handouts. You can change or edit the background, the header, and the footer of printed handouts.

Learn about the Handout Master view in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows.

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

authorSTREAM Desktop 2.0: 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 authorSTREAM Desktop 2.0, the new version of their presentation upload program.

Geetesh: What does the authorSTREAM Desktop 2.0 product do right inside PowerPoint, and how much does it cost?

Dinesh: authorSTREAM Desktop is a free PowerPoint add-in which helps you create impactful presentations right from within PowerPoint. Creating a presentation with authorSTREAM Desktop is a breeze. You don’t have to go outside of PowerPoint to find the right images or videos for your presentation.

With authorSTREAM Desktop, you can:

• Insert videos from YouTube and Vimeo directly in your slides: Easily search and add videos from YouTube, Vimeo or use URL/ embed code to insert YouTube/ Vimeo videos right into your slides.
• Search for images from the Web to insert them in slides: With advanced search options (such as image size, copyright attribution, etc.) and support for Bing and Flickr image search engines, you can directly hunt for images from the Web without leaving PowerPoint, and insert them in your slides.
• Share your presentations directly on Twitter: Share your presentations swiftly and easily on Twitter right from within PowerPoint.
• Collect images and videos to insert into the slides: Create a collection of your searched images and videos to insert in the slides later on with the feature Add to Collection. The collection stays intact until you close PowerPoint.

Geetesh: I looked and found that you do allow searches on Flickr to be restricted to Creative Commons so that users don’t end up inserting copyrighted pictures on their slides – tell us more about what prompted you to add this welcome feature.

Dinesh: Most image searches these days happen on the Web. Invariably, unable to find the right images in the clip art or image gallery of PowerPoint software, PowerPoint creators end up using copyright protected images from the Web in their presentations.

We thought of bringing those image websites and search engines right into PowerPoint. authorSTREAM Desktop not only helps users search web images without leaving PowerPoint, but also lets them search Creative Commons images from Flickr and add them with attribution in the slides. For Bing image search, where the Creative Commons filter is not available, authorSTREAM Desktop inserts copyright attribution along with the pictures so that the presenter can provide the right attribution and contact the owner of the image for permission, by following the links. In future we’ll be adding more image search APIs and more options to search non-copyrighted images.

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: authorSTREAM, Interviews, Online Presentations, PowerPoint

Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Add Texture Fills to Shapes

PowerPoint’s fill options for shapes are extensive — you have already learned how to apply solid fills, gradient fills, and picture fills for shapes in PowerPoint 2011. The next fill option is texture fills, which incidentally are not too different from picture fills other than the fact that they can be tiled. PowerPoint includes a built-in library of textures, and you can also import any picture, to be used as a texture.

Learn how to add a texture fill to selected shapes in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.

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