The PowerPoint® Blog

I work with PowerPoint on a daily basis and I am very honored to be a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP. We have a talented team of presentation designers at TLC Creative Services and ThePowerPointBlog is our area to highlight PowerPoint tips, tricks, examples and tutorials. Enjoy! Troy Chollar

Where’s His Arm? Why is Stock Photo Doing That…

Presentations are visual communication and that means lots of images. I maintain a number of subscriptions to online stock photo sites. The one thing I see from all is the selective/artistic cropping that often makes it difficult to use an image.

As example, here is a great image, but where did the rest of his arm go…

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:50:24-07:00August 20th, 2009|Resource/Misc|

Shapes Menu in Different Shapes

I get this question a lot – even from people that have been using PPT 2007 for awhile. “where is my insert shapes?” It is obvious, but we get used to things being a certain way and when it changes we overlook things. This also happens most often when the computer is hooked up to a projector, where the screen resolution is reduced to the projector resolution (eg. my monitor is 1900×1200 but most projectors are lower at 1280×1024 or 1024×768).

Here is what most see on their ribbon:

But with a smaller screen resolution, the ribbon adjusts to smaller options and the shapes library becomes a simple button:

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:54:53-07:00August 18th, 2009|Software/Add-Ins|

PowerPoint + OfficeFX Presenter = Fox TV

I develop PowerPoint presentations for large events that do not look like ‘standard PowerPoint’ with lots of animation, custom images, etc. I have also used the OfficeFX software for lots of events and awards shows because it takes PowerPoint to a new visual level with full motion backgrounds and custom transitions.

Recently a The Lawrence Company used the new Presenter 4 to produce a multi-screen HD show for a Fox TV event that was anything but ‘PowerPoint’ – although the whole thing was PowerPoint.

Here is link to video showing some of the great custom transitions and animations.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:57:03-07:00August 16th, 2009|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|

Video Preview from Bing! Search

Sometimes you just discover things by accident. As example I did a video search using Bing! and discovered that if you roll your mouse over any of the thumbnail images it plays the movie in the thumbnail without going to the webpage – very cool!

Here I did a search for “PowerPoint”, clicked the ‘video’ link at the top and was able to view all by just putting my cursor over it.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:58:23-07:00August 14th, 2009|Software/Add-Ins|

Give Depth To a 3D Shape

PPT 2007 has some create functions for converting even the simplest shape into a 3D element. But there is some interaction of features needed to create the effect.

1. Here is my sample arrow with some stylizing applied.

2. To convert to 3D I like to open the full FORMAT SHAPE dialog. To open, select the shape >> FORMAT tab >> SHAPE STYLES section >> small OPEN dialog in lower right corner

3. Go to the 3-D ROTATION tab

4. From the drop-down menu of preset I choose OFF AXIS 1 TOP

5. Here is my arrow converted to 3D

6. To add some depth to the arrow go to the 3-D FORMAT tab and increase the DEPTH point size

7. This menu has live preview, so as you adjust the shape will update. For my I increased the DEPTH to 20 points for my final image.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T09:59:25-07:00August 12th, 2009|Tutorial|

Using Edit Point Tool on Shapes

With SP2 (Service Pack 2) the Edit Points tool has been updated and become a very useful tool. The Edit Points tool is a simple vector image editor (think Illustrator 1.0). You can create your own custom shapes or modify preset shapes, which is what I am going to show here.

1. Here my sample shape, an arrow with some stylizing applied

2. Select shape >> FORMAT tab >> INSERT SHAPES section >> EDIT SHAPE drop-down menu >> select CONVERT TO FREEFORM

3. Now select shape >> FORMAT tab >> INSERT SHAPES section >> EDIT SHAPE drop-down menu >> select EDIT POINTS

4. Note the bounding box around the shape changes to a series of edit point dots at each intersection

5. By clicking and dragging an adjustment handle the shape is transformed

6. Select on of the edit points and adjustment handles are available

7. After changing the adjustment handles on top of both the left and right edit points I have created a custom arrow

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T10:00:01-07:00August 10th, 2009|Tutorial|

Vector Images From ShutterStock.com

Just a quick note. For a specific project I have been searching many of the popular royalty free image sites for some needed vector (eg. Illustrator) art that will be used to develop a custom background. I have been really impressed with the image variety, selection and quality from ShutterStock.com.

Guess in the past I have searched for photo images (eg. raster) and this was first time specifically looking at vector art. Here I searched ‘Background’ with ‘Vector Only’ and came up with 3,185 pages of 25 images each – good stuff!

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T10:00:23-07:00August 8th, 2009|Resource/Misc|

Tools On My QAT

With PPT 2007 we are very limited in how to customize the application. The one customizable “toolbar” is the QAT – Quick Access Toolbar. So here is what I have mine:

1. Save
2. Open Slide Master
3. Subscript
4. Superscript
5. Insert Symbol
6. Align to objects (works with #23-24)
7. Align to Slide (works with #23-24)
8. Text Color
9. Fill Color
10. Line Color
11. Insert Shape
12. Crop
13. Pickup Style
14. Apply Style
15. Format Painter
16. Change Shape
17. Align Left
18. Align Right
19. Align Center
20. Align Top
21. Align Bottom
22. Align Middle
23. Distribute Horizontally
24. Distribute Vertically
25. Bring to Front
26. Send to Back
27. Rotate Left 90′
28. Rotate Right 90′
29. Flip Horizontally
30. Flip Vertically

What do you have on your QAT?

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T10:00:55-07:00August 6th, 2009|Software/Add-Ins|

IE8 Compatibility Mode

I like IE8 and it is my default browser. But it, like many new versions of software, does not play nice with some website coding. As example here is www.GEOLadders.com, a website I use to log my mountain bike rides and have some fun seeing my ride in its map overlay view.

The problem is the two red boxes are where some playback controls should be, and were before upgrading.

The solution for this website and many that have display or control issues is the Compatibility View option built in to IE8. The compatibility is only for webpages it is activated for (not global) and is a simple 2 click process to turn on.

Now when I view my course I have the playback controls expected – now if I could just get some more time away from the computer and on the trails….

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T10:01:12-07:00August 4th, 2009|Software/Add-Ins|
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