Microsoft’s Office Online has a collection of additional Smart Art objects that can be downloaded and added to the PPT 07 library!

These work in PowerPoint, Excel, Word and Outlook. All are FREE. click here to go to the download page.

– Troy @ TLC

Here is my process for adding a YouTube (google, metacafe, soapbox, etc) video to a PowerPoint presentation:

1. Find the movie online and copy the URL

2. Go to www.techcrunch.com/get-youtube-movie

3. Paste in the YouTube URL

4. Follow instructions to download to your computer.
Note: the video is in .flv format, which need to be converted for use in PowerPoint

5. Go to www.media-convert.com

6. Be sure you are in the ‘Local File Conversion’ tab

7: Click the BROWSE button and find the video on your computer

8: Convert the .FLV video to a PowerPoint friendly .WMV format.
Note: there are lots of options, but I recomend
– No Video Preset
– Windows Media Video (.wmv)

9: Click OK and following instructions to convert and have file emailed you.

10: Move newly created .wmv video to same folder as presenation and use PowerPoint’s INSERT >> MOVIE FROM FILE wizard

11: Done!

– Troy @ TLC

So you have found the perfect video for you analogy – on Youtube. The question I get a lot, is how to play that video in a presentation.

There are a few issues that make this a bit complex. In this post I’ll overview the issues and in the next post show my process for making it all work.

Issue 1:
– YouTube (Google, Soapbox, Metacafe, and almost all other online video sites) is an online video, not on your computer.

Issue 2:
– If you download the video, it is an .flv (Flash Video), which a format PowerPoint does not support.

Issue 3:
– Nearly all online video sites automatically run a compression filter to make the file size smaller (they are storing ALL of these videos on their servers, so the smaller the file the more they can store and the less bandwidth needed to playback). Highly compressed videos mean lower playback quality.

– Troy @ TLC

Merry Christmas to everyone (a day early)!! As a small gift to everyone who visits ThePowerPointBlog.com here is a custom PowerPoint template for your use.

This is a full featured template with all master slide elements (text box position, text style – color – size, line spacing, slide transitions, default color scheme, etc.) pre-formatted. Template was setup in PPT 2003, the theme is ‘white christmas’ and it will hopefully find many wonderful uses. Click here to download.

Note: you can search ‘christmas’ to find templates from previous years too.

– Troy @ TLC

In all Office Online has 8 incredible example templates – each with step-by-step instructions on how to recreate each effect!
– Static Text Effects
– Static Picture Effects
– Animated Text Effects
– Animated Picture Effects
– Combined Picture and Text Effects
– Animated Hierarchy and Process Graphics
– Backgrounds
– 3D Shapes and Objects

Click here to access them all (note: downloads from Microsofts Office Online site must be done with Internet Explorer). All are the work of fellow PPT MVP Julie Terberg of Terberg Design.

(Note: I am grabbing this image from Ric B’s PPT Team Blog)

– Troy @ TLC

More animations! This time 20 slides of image animations with thorough step-by-step instructions. Click here to go to the MS Office Online page to download.

– Troy @ TLC

Animation is one of my strong points and this template presentation has some great ones!

The Text Animations deck on Office Online has 20 slides of text animations – each with step-by-step instructions on how to recreate these great effects.

It is also good to note that most of the animation effects can also be applied to other objects such as autoshapes or inserted images!

Click here to go to the MS Office Online page to download.

– Troy @ TLC

Click here to go to the Office Online page with the download link for this great, and free, PPT 2007 presentation that has 15 picture effects. All effects are created entirely in PPT 2007 and the speaker notes have detailed step-by-step instructions on how to recreate the effects in your presentaitons.

Here are a few samples of the picture effects in this deck:

– Troy @ TLC

Click here to go to office online and download this fantastic free presentation with 19 great text effects all created in PPT 2007.

What makes this presentation especially great is that not only is everything created within PPT 2007, but a detailed how-to set of instructions included!

– Troy @ TLC

Sometimes it is difficult to keep a secret – this is one of those items I was excited about when I previewed them (yeah!) and then was told not to talk about them until Microsoft posted them (ohhh…). Well this week Microsoft Office Online has officially posted a series of PPT 2007 visual elements templates.

These really great ‘presentations’ are a series of incredible visual elements, animations and layouts – all created with PPT 2007 tools. As example one of the template decks shows how to make this graphic entirely within PowerPoint 2007!

Julie Terberg is the designer responsible for all of these effects (also a MS PowerPoint MVP). Check back as each day next week I highlight a different template deck (there are 8 in total).

– Troy @ TLC