Resource/Misc

Outstanding Presentations Workshops – Starting Next Week

Microsoft PowerPoint MVP, Ellen Finkelstein, has organized the Outstanding Presentations Workshops again and they begin next week. These online webcasts are beyond a good value (all 7 workshops for $7!). The presenters cover a wide range of presentation topics, and the webcasts can be viewed any time (by paid attendees) after if you cannot make the live broadcast time.

Next Tuesday, Sept. 10th is the first of the workshops and I am very happy to be the presenter – “Multimedia in PowerPoint.” Join me for an hour of video in PowerPoint tips and tricks!

Info and details here.
– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T10:19:56-07:00September 2nd, 2013|Personal, Resource/Misc|

Do I have MSI or CTR Installed?

The previous post defined the two Microsoft install methods. But determining if your install of PowerPoint 2013 is from an MSI (full standalone installer) or CTR (streaming download installer) is not easy to determine. Microsoft has not given its end users any useful information in determining this. Here is one method that will tell you.

Open PowerPoint 2013.
Go to FILE >> ACCOUNT.
In the far right pane under PRODUCT INFORMATION.

If the computer has a CTR install, there will be an UPDATES option.

If the computer has an MSI install, the UPDATES option is not available.

At this point, that is the only easy to access information piece within the application that I have found (thanks Glenna!) that indicates which version is being run. And lets not get into which Service Packs and Updates are installed! Office 2013 has taken away all of the familiar information to help troubleshoot issues…

For more info on CTR and MSI, the PPTFAQ has this page with a great overview and links to more details.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T10:20:51-07:00August 30th, 2013|Resource/Misc|

What is MSI and CTR?

MSI and CTR are both install methods for Microsoft Office.

MSI is “Microsoft Installer.” It is an installer file that has the full product in it. So it is a large file and most commonly used when installing from a DVD, but with high bandwidth internet, it has become more common to download the large installer file and then install the software.

CTR is “Click to Run.” It is a streaming installer that downloads the installation files during the install process. One of the key traits is the core application is installed, and can be used, while the additional features continue to install in the background. In general, a high bandwidth internet connection is needed (or lots of time to wait for the installer to stream the data needed to install). The technology was introduced with Office 2010, but with poor results. Today, CTR is most commonly used when installing Office 2013 as part of an Office 365 subscription or Office 365 Home Premium subscription.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T10:21:25-07:00August 28th, 2013|Resource/Misc|

Staffing a Live Event

For the past 2 weeks, the TLC Creative office has been virtually empty (thanks Josh and Kristen for staying on top of everything!) as 5 of us were onsite designing presentations, handling rehearsals and running show presentations with the AV crew(s).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T10:25:33-07:00August 16th, 2013|Resource/Misc|

New TLC Website is Live!

It is busy here at TLC Creative, but thanks to a lot of super HTML coding and Word Press design over the past few months (great job making sense of all my notes and requests Amber!) the new TLC Creative Services website is finally ready for use! Okay, 90% of the site is ready, so just ignore any lorem ipsum text or “coming soon” sections…

The previous TLC Creative Services website was developed almost 9 years ago (a lifetime on the web!) and this is a wonderful step forward in design, coding and information. Check back as this is phase 1, with another big phase being finished in a few months with lots of PowerPoint tutorials and information being added, then integrating ThePowerPointBlog.com directly into the site by the end of the year, and ongoing updates to the portfolio samples.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T10:26:13-07:00August 9th, 2013|Portfolio, Resource/Misc|

Microsoft MVPs – How Many Are Out There???

All of the current Microsoft MVPs, for every application and from every part of the world are listed here: https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/find-an-mvp.aspx

Microsoft’s description of the MVPs is something I like:
“Being an MVP – MVPs represent the best and brightest in technical communities, generously sharing their deep knowledge and hands-on expertise with people around the world.”

But how many MVPs are there, and for how many specialties? Here is the current break down (and I am one of the 10 MVPs (35 worldwide) for PowerPoint):

USA
– Access (36)
– Consumer Security (28)
– Excel (25)
– Info Path (4)
– Internet Explorer (8)
– Office for Mac (5)
– Office Systems (4)
– OneNote (2)
– Outlook (7)
– PowerPoint (10)
– Project (13)
– Publisher (1)
– Visio (3)
– Windows Phone Consumer (6)
– Windows Phone Development (7)
– Word (4)
– Xbox (21)

Worldwide
– Access (58)
– Consumer Security (76)
– Excel (118)
– Info Path (9)
– Internet Explorer (45)
– Office for Mac (9)
– Office Systems (35)
– OneNote (3)
– Outlook (16)
– PowerPoint (35)
– Project (56)
– Publisher (1)
– Visio (15)
– Windows Phone Consumer (16)
– Windows Phone Development (37)
– Word (22)
– Xbox (44)

Countries:
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States

By |2016-08-10T10:26:57-07:00August 5th, 2013|Resource/Misc|

Infographic on Car Forecast

Here is another example of an infographic TLC developed. The overall goal was to pull the information from a written piece and put it into a visual format.

Truecar.com published new statistics regarding the market share forecast for automotive sales growth over the past year. The story lists the statistics; however, they do it in a way that requires you to read the entire article to understand the numbers. Using the article for our source, we created an infographic and pulled out the key data from the article to create a visual representation of the data. Using icons, bars, and charts the data can be displayed in a variety of ways that are interesting as well as informative.

(infographic of information)

(original written story format)

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T10:27:31-07:00July 29th, 2013|Portfolio, Resource/Misc|

Does PowerPoint Know I Need a Font?

There are dozens, actually 1,000s, of ways to display your ABC’s. Font styles are created to display each letter in unique ways. Microsoft supplies a set of fonts with Office. Adobe supplies many fonts with the Creative Suite (now Creative Cloud) software packages. And there are many ways to download and add custom fonts to your computer.

If you use a custom font in a presentation, and that custom font is not installed on the computer that is viewing the presentation, a font default – or substitution – is used. We cannot control which font is used as the default and we cannot guarantee what the slide will look like with the default font in use.

PowerPoint has a few tools to help with this situation. The tools are not extensive, and definitely do not do enough to aid us users in identifying font issues and resolving font issues.

The first step is to identify if PowerPoint is using fonts on the computer or substituting fonts. The tool is very simple, and simplistic. Select a text box, then on the home tab click the font selection drop down. In this menu, each font has 1 of 3 icon options to the left of the font name.

1. The Open Type icon is a large stylized “O.”
2. The True Type icon is two letter “T”s overlapping.
3. NO ICON, just blank space, lets you know PowerPoint recognizes a font is needed, but it is not installed on this computer. When there is no icon, PowerPoint is substituting that font with a default font (of its choice).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T10:28:04-07:00July 22nd, 2013|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

PowerPoint Animation Jitters Update

This is a quick (and great!) update to last week’s post “Stop PowerPoint from Getting the Animation Jitters!

The incredibly talented coder, Chirag, quickly put together (in his words) “a very simple and small utility… that toggles the (regedit) setting when you execute it. When it states that sprite clipping is disabled, you get smooth animations. Ensure that PowerPoint is not running when you execute this utility.”

I have not tested, partly because I have manually updated all computers at TLC with the registry update. Download the free utility – https://www.officeoneonline.com/download/SpriteClipping.exe (61KB).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T10:29:11-07:00July 17th, 2013|Resource/Misc, Templates/Assets|

Add Twitter Feed To Slides

We were recently at a show to handle the presentations, and the presenter encouraged the audience to tweet about the conference daily events. During the break, we were asked to show the twitter feed. Advanced planning is great – this was not it.

We used Visibletweets.com to provide a solution. Visibletweets.com is a Flash based website with no download (other than the Flash player if not installed). On the website, you are prompted to type in a hash hag, search a term, or use someone’s twitter id.

Then one tweet at a time fills the page, each animates to the next. There are 3 types of animation to choose from: Letter by Letter (which is our favorite), Rotation, and Tag Cloud.

If you use the option to run the show in the web browser full screen, the background automatically changes colors.

There are 3 options for using visibletweets.com during a presentation.
Option 1: Run the website from a backup computer (with internet access) and toggle it to the screen.
Option 2: Have a link to the website on a slide and use it to switch from presentation to web browser (going back to the presentation requires using ALT+Tab or closing the web browser – so not as seamless and elegant).
Option 3: Use Shyam’s LiveWeb add-in to display a webpage directly on your presentation slide (this is a FREE add-in that can be downloaded here).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T10:31:07-07:00July 10th, 2013|Resource/Misc, Software/Add-Ins, Tutorial|
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