PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

PowerPoint and Presenting News: October 26, 2021

Do you get angry when an AutoCorrect feature changes what you type instantly? Yes, this feature can be both a blessing and a curse. We look at both AutoCorrect options in PowerPoint 365 for Windows, and also how you can create and edit AutoCorrect entries so that you can turn off what you don’t need, and actually make AutoCorrect be helpful for what you require. Also, the second edition of the best-selling Building PowerPoint Templates v2 book has been released, and we feature both authors, Echo Swinford and Julie Terberg in separate interviews.

We also look at how you can manage and remove Connected Services such as multiple OneDrive accounts in PowerPoint 365 for Windows. We also bring you quotes, press releases, and templates from the last few days.

Stay informed about updated tutorials and happenings related to PowerPoint and presenting.

Filed Under: Ezine
Tagged as: Ezine, Indezine, News, PowerPoint

The Better Deck Deck: Conversation with Nolan Haims

  Nolan Haims has over 20 years of experience in the fields of visual communications and presentation, having created every type of presentation from Fortune 500 CEO keynotes, to TED talks to multi-million dollar agency pitches. He trains organizations to think visually, speaks at national conferences, writes on visual storytelling at PresentYourStory, and is a co-host of the long-running Presentation Podcast. And as one of only 34 Microsoft PowerPoint MVPs in the world, he works with and advises the software development team. He runs his own visual communications consultancy in Montclair, NJ.

In this conversation, Nolan talks about his new product, The Better Deck Deck, which is a deck that shows options for creating no-bullet slides.

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Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Bullet Points, Death by PowerPoint, Interviews, Nolan Haims

The Rules of Netiquette and How to Use Them Both to Communicate Clearly and Save Time

By Brad Revell, Toastmasters International

The 2020s continue to invent new words to make sense of the new world we live in, including our use of the internet. One such term is netiquette. Netiquette has had its etymological evolution from the word etiquette. Whilst etiquette is focused on the conduct and behavior observed in social life, netiquette refers to this aspect of governance from the perspective of the Internet.

I have learned and experienced many things in my time as a technology executive and as a Toastmaster. As an executive, I have the latest tools and technologies at my fingertips (e.g. “The What”). Yet, as a Toastmaster, I have built foundations of communication, public speaking, and leadership (i.e. “The Why and How”). My aim is to share some of the key tips, tricks, and lessons on netiquette through each lens.

Image: Yay Images

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Filed Under: Guest Posts
Tagged as: Communication, Guest Post, Toastmasters

Creating and Editing AutoCorrect Entries in PowerPoint 365 for Windows

The AutoCorrect feature in PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office programs is dependent on a small list of words and phrases. This list contains two columns called Replace and With. For example, the Replace entry for teh will correspond to the With entry containing the word the. You can easily tailor your AutoCorrect list by adding your own commonly misspelled words. Similarly, you can make changes and delete entries from within this AutoCorrect list.

Learn how to create and edit AutoCorrect entries in PowerPoint 365 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 365
Tagged as: AutoCorrect, Microsoft Windows, Office 365, PowerPoint 365, Proofing, Spelling, Tutorials

Building PowerPoint Templates v2: Conversation with Julie Terberg

    Julie Terberg is the creative force behind Design to Present and Terberg Design, focused on crafting presentations that better communicate with audiences. With decades of experience in the presentation industry, Julie has trusted partnerships with other presentation professionals and valued clients around the world.

Since 2005, she has been recognized as a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP for her contributions to the presentation community. Julie enjoys teaching and sharing ideas at industry conferences, including the Presentation Summit and the Present to Succeed conference. She is a director of the Presentation Guild and cohosts the webinar series “Inspired by Design,” exclusively for Guild members. She just completed her latest book, Building PowerPoint Templates, version 2, with co-author Echo Swinford.

In this conversation, Julie talks about her updated book, Building PowerPoint Templates v2.

Geetesh: Julie, the new version of your book, Building PowerPoint Templates, co-authored with Echo Swinford, looks at PowerPoint templates so comprehensively. What’s new in this version of the book?

Julie: The process of constructing a PowerPoint template hasn’t changed much since we wrote the first edition. The components and basic steps remain the same. That said, we have updated our advice regarding default slide layouts and default placeholders.

We cover all of the newer features in the program that are relevant to template building. New since 2013, Theme variants are present in all of the stock themes including PowerPoint’s blank template. In the book, we stress (repeatedly) the need to save as a POTX file to strip these variants from your new template in progress.

Another new feature, PowerPoint Designer, uses artificial intelligence to surface alternate design ideas for your slide content. These design ideas can pull from custom layouts within a template. In the book, we teach you how to build a template to work with Designer.

One of the biggest changes to PowerPoint is the font story. A couple of years ago, Microsoft introduced a font service with hundreds of new and legacy fonts available for folks with the latest versions of Office. This cloud font service offers up many gorgeous new typefaces, perfect for presentation templates. We have included a ton of advice about choosing fonts for templates and we cover updates with font embedding, also. While this is exciting news, there are many caveats to embedding and we list all of them in the book.

Geetesh: Echo and you have shared knowledge that you both use in your work life, creating PowerPoint templates for organizations. Can you tell us more about your work, and how it helped you write this book?

Julie: Along with crafting presentations and related materials, I design and build templates, and template systems, for large and small companies. Echo and I work together on many projects; I design, and she builds the templates. Together, we’ve built hundreds of templates, many of them for worldwide corporations with thousands of presentation creators. We’re always keeping these folks in mind when designing and constructing, aiming to make templates that are useful and timesaving. And we’re learning and adapting our methods along the way.

Years ago, we worked together on a large project with Microsoft, designing and building unique templates representing a wide range of topics. We learned a lot during the project and honed our process along the way.

Along with you, Geetesh, Echo and I are Microsoft MVPs and as such, we meet regularly with folks on the PowerPoint team. This enables us to learn about new features from the source, to ask specific questions pertinent to template building, and sometimes, to influence changes to the program that will benefit everyone in the future.

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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: Books, Interviews, Julie Terberg, Templates