PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Learn PowerPoint 2003 for Windows: Picture Fills for Chart Data Series

Have you seen charts that were not filled with solid color fills or geometric patterns, but rather with pictures? For instance, if you wanted to show how the export of grapes has increased over the years, your column chart would have all columns filled with pictures of grapes stacked one over the other? The good thing is that PowerPoint allows you to do just that within your charts — as long as you know which options you need to change — and that’s explained in this tutorial!

Learn more here.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2003
Tagged as: Charting, Fills, PowerPoint 2002, PowerPoint 2003, Tutorials

PRojects: Conversation with Simon Newlyn

Simon Newlyn is a PowerPoint artisan. Based in London, he works for advertising, design and public relations agencies as well as for direct clients through PRojects. His PowerPoint experience therefore brings him into contact with a wide range of styles and presentation needs and for fun… Simon has animated the London tube map!

In this conversation, Simon talks about PowerPoint inspiration, and the presentation design scene in the UK and Europe.

Geetesh: If you look at a PowerPoint slide and imagine a blank canvas, then what will inspire you to color that canvas?

Simon: In a word: Simplicity. Simplicity of design: Simplicity of language: Simplicity of color (usage: not too many and good contrast) with the overall objective of creating dynamic impact. This is not always easy to achieve as my work requires me to follow source material, complex designs and ideas, without the freedom to edit.

This is because I work mainly for advertising, design and public relations agencies who tend to use PowerPoint as a secondary medium. For example, I recently created a presentation about an educational DVD created by an advertising agency. The agency requested that I follow the design style of the DVD but this, with the all essential navigation links, made the PowerPoint slide far too complex. Secondly, the PowerPoint presentation was to be given to over 100 people whereas the DVD was designed to be viewed by one person at a computer.

The solution, working with the presentation presenter, was to use some of the images and drawings from the DVD as full slides (backgrounds) and then float in a key word or topic that she would speak to. In this way we created a simple dynamic presentation that stimulated audience interest in the actual DVD which the audience could then investigate, at individual computer terminals, after the presentation.

In my second example let me take you into the world of the competitive public relations pitch (A world where, in reality, it is virtually impossible to avoid use of the bullet point – despite the zen of Garr Reynolds). Often I’m working with up to 8 or 10 people giving me copy. At this stage the presentation can become ‘swamped’ in bullet points. This is for two reasons:

1. the presenters are extracting their words from a written document and
2. presenters are all too often scared to leave out any point.

This creates a PowerPoint presentation where every slide is desperately trying to breath – imagine what the audience might be doing. To avoid this problem and to focus the presenter’s needs I (try to) negotiate a maximum of three bullets per slide and if possible a picture or graphic to illustrate their key point(s). Once you have people working to this concept it is possible to give the presentation a little more ‘air’ and hopefully a chance for the audience to really understand the points under discussion.

I hope both the examples illustrate my first response to your question namely, simplify it. There is a good chance that a well-designed simple slide will do its job; that is, to help the presenter communicate his or her idea to the audience clearly.

Geetesh: How is the PowerPoint design scene in the UK and Europe compared to the rest of the world.

Simon: While I’ve worked around the world creating presentations, I would not consider myself a comparison expert. What I can comment upon is some of the UK trends which might or might not be present in other parts of the world.

Let me be blunt. Within the (professional) UK design community PowerPoint is not liked. The design community tends to favour A & A – Apple and Adobe. If, for every time I’ve heard: “We do not like PowerPoint” I received one pound I would, by now, be a very rich man!

The problem for the design community is that while they favour A & A the majority of their clients are PC based and want the final product in a form that they can both open and adjust on their desktops (The latter point also being a reason the design community does not like PC applications!).

So, you find an inbuilt grudge against PowerPoint and if possible designers advocate Keynote as their presentation program of choice. (For the Über-cool agencies Prezi is getting a look-in but I have seen it rejected by clients who are not yet comfortable with it)

The way to win the design community over is to work-up some slides and then (hopefully) enjoy their reaction when they say: “is that really PowerPoint?” I should say that one of my specialities is animation which I consider to be the cinematic quality of PowerPoint. I believe that good animation can help to give your presentation sophistication, and a tool to aid audience navigation to your key messages. However, great care has to be taken not to over-animate presentations.

Complete PowerPoint design No-Nos: Clip art and Word art! Amateur beyond words; go for photo realism – I love the PNG file format. Equally bad are PowerPoint textures – have they ever changed?

Another tendency in the UK is to avoid any kind of patterned or fancy background. I see a lot of patterned sets of backgrounds for sale and wonder who buys them. PowerPoint graphs and charts (c/o Excel) again are frowned upon and work in Illustrator or InDesign is often utilised. Smart Art is also on the No-No list – why does Microsoft have to control everything is the polite way to express some of the sentiments that I’ve heard about this feature. Finally, the use of drop-shadow for text is long gone.

A major design consideration is the fact that presenters are now keen to keep the overall presentation time down i.e. shorter presentations. This, in design terms, means that each slide has to work harder and perhaps ironically this is leading to the use of less copy with presenters now prepared to speak to a single key message/statement and not a raft of bullet points. This key point is nearly always presented over or beside a strong image.

In conclusion I don’t think the PowerPoint design scene in the UK is either behind or ahead of the rest of the world but it is certainly a strong adopter of the points mentioned in a now increasing visual world or one that tweets in no more than 140 characters.

Finally, a whiff of worldwide controversy! So many religious, academic and educational PowerPoint presentations look as though they have been created while pressing all the keys on the keyboard at the same time. It seems to me that communities setting out to inspire, educate and inform often destroy their case with presentations that just do not work. These are the communities, around the world, who I for one would be prepared to help.

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: Case Studies, Design, Interviews, PowerPoint

Zinali slideboxx 2.0: The Indezine Review

If you create presentations, it doesn’t matter if you have few or many slides — or even if you end up with ten or more variations of the same slide over a period of time. What matters at that point of time is whether you can locate the exact slide you want or not — and what do you do with the exact slide you found. These sort of capabilities are somewhat beyond the scope of PowerPoint’s native capabilities — so we are looking at a third party product called slideboxx (yes, the folks who create this product insist on all small letters and italics!) that claims to help you become more organized with your slides.

Read more to know how it fare.

Filed Under: Reviews
Tagged as: Add-in, Digital Asset Management, PowerPoint, Review, Slide Management

Learn PowerPoint 2003: Change Major Unit of Y Axis

Working with charts in PowerPoint involves a deep knowledge — hidden beneath the surface are umpteen options that many PowerPoint users are simply not aware of. Through these series of chart tutorials, I have already taught you how you can change chart types, or change fills and outlines for chart data series. You also learned how you can play with fonts and other text options of charts — and yet, all this is just the tip of the iceberg. One of my pet peeves is how PowerPoint adds so many major units to the Y axis by default.

Learn how to resolve this issue

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2003
Tagged as: Charting, PowerPoint 2003, Tutorials

Presentation Summit Template Contest 2010: Conversation with Rick Altman

Rick Altman, a presentation consultant based out of Pleasanton, CA, USA is well known as the host of the annual Presentation Summit and has a strong sense of the needs of the presentation community. He has also authored books on PowerPoint.

In this conversation, Rick discusses the Template Contest for the upcoming Presentation Summit being held in San Diego this October.

Geetesh: For how many years have you been holding a template contest for the Presentation Summit (or PowerPoint Live)?

Rick: We have been doing this since 2005 and every year we have had a totally unique design. We are blessed to have incredibly creative people participating in the contest.

Geetesh: What does the winner receive?

Rick: The winner receives a full conference passport, providing total access to all parts of the Summit, from Oct 18-20. We waive the $995 conference fee in its entirety.

Geetesh: Do you know what you are looking for, or are you open to surprises?

Rick: I have no clue and I love that type of ignorance. It has become impossible to anticipate or even make wild guesses. The year that we were in New Orleans, Liane Fuji from San Francisco created wonderful sketches of typical French Quarter scenes. Previous entries for years when we were in San Diego have incorporated beach scenes, animals from the San Diego Zoo, Shamu the whale at Sea World.

Geetesh: Is it required that there be a local angle?

Rick: No, we do not require it, but we appreciate when contestants think creatively, and that is often the result of creative thinking. Above all, we look for a good clean design that will wear well across four days of heavy use.

Geetesh: I see that entries can be in any version of PowerPoint. Do you expect them to work with PowerPoint 2007 and 2010 themes?

Rick: We do not require that they show expertise with the software, but I’d be lying if I said that it hasn’t had an impact on the judges in the past. Again, what we seek first is a great design; we’ll take care of all of the software plumbing to ensure that the template functions properly. If there were two designs that were both fantastic, and one of them showed expert use of a Version 2007 theme and the other just included elements on a slide, perhaps the first one might resonate better with the judges, perhaps even on a subconscious level.

Geetesh: Who are the judges?

Rick: We will go with the usual cast of characters — Nancy Duarte, Julie Terberg, Garr Reynolds, Echo Swinford, somebody from India named Geetesh, and Ric Bretschneider of Microsoft.

You May Also Like: PowerPoint Live Template Contest 2009: Conversation with Rick Altman | PowerPoint Live Template Contest 2008: Conversation with Rick Altman | PowerPoint Live Template Contest 2008: Entries

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: Events
Tagged as: Interviews, PowerPoint, PowerPoint Live, Presentation Summit