Resource/Misc

It Takes A Lot to Develop A “Real” PowerPoint Template – This Is The Best Resource Available To Know How To Do It!

“Building PowerPoint Templates – step by step with the experts” is one of the best resources available for anyone that creates PowerPoint templates (based on PPT 2007/2010). Outside of a small group of professional designers, and some of the developers at Microsoft, it would be difficult to find this information condensed into a single place. The authors are good friends, Microsoft MVPs for PowerPoint and two designers that I trust to know the real how-to’s, and why, of developing PowerPoint templates.

It can be found here at Amazon.com.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T08:50:35-07:00January 7th, 2013|Resource/Misc|

What I Learned from “Present It So They Get It” – Book Review

I ended the year with some reading and “Present It So They Get It” is on my recommendation list! I was happy to spend some time with the author, Dave Paradi, earlier in the year at The Presentation Summit where he was also a presenter. I learned we have a lot of similar presentation design goals, but Dave is the first to admit he is not a presentation designer. What he brings is the audience perspective, the executive/presenter understanding, and works on crafting the message, both spoken and visual, into a professional package.

The books subtitle, “Create and Deliver Effective PowerPoint Presentations Your Audience Will Understand” reinforces all of this perfectly. Topics cover everything from explaining that PowerPoint (or any presentation software) is not the problem with boring presentations (chapter 1) to detailing what charts and graphs should contain to carry a message to the audience (chapter 14) and lots more.

Read more about it, and Dave Paradi, at his site here.
The book is also available at Amazon.com here.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T08:51:09-07:00January 3rd, 2013|Resource/Misc|

Tineye – Find Images Online (3)

TinEye has a web browser plug-in, so you can right click any image on a page and search the database directly. The free plug-in is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera. To use, pick any online image.

1. For this image, we want to find a higher resolution version. Right-click the image and select “Search Image on TinEye.”

2. TinEye found 121 results, and using the Biggest Image sorter, there is a 800x635px version available*.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T08:53:28-07:00December 21st, 2012|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

Tineye – Find Images Online (2)

TinEye, the reverse image search site can also be used for some detective work.

Let’s use TinEye to check if an image is being used by another website without permission. Here is a beautiful photo by my friend and incredibly talented photographer, Rikk Flohr, from his webpage.

1. To do a quick web search for non-permitted use of this photo, I loaded it into TinEye using the drag and drop feature.

2. TinEye’s search only found 1 result, which is actually Rikk’s Flickr account.

3. Of course, no search engine covers the entire internet. TinEye is constantly crawling webpages and updating the image database. And this image search proves it is possible other instances of an image exists online. The test image was found on Rikk’s Flickr account, but missed it on his actual webpage. I assume TinEye hasn’t yet crawled Rikk’s site or it is possible the site is already protected in which case TinEye can’t get the image information.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T08:53:47-07:00December 19th, 2012|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

Tineye – Find Images Online (1)

TinEye is a reverse image search engine. It can be a great resource for presentation design.

TinEye lets you upload, or link to an online image, and see where it came from, find higher resolution versions, how/where it’s being used and if there are modified versions. It is the first image search engine to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks. When you upload an image to be searched, TinEye creates a unique digital signature for it, and then compares this signature to every other image in their index to find matches. In our tests, TinEye did not generally find similar images, but exact matches – including those that have been cropped, edited, or resized.

The free service allows 50 searches per day, up to 150 searches a week. There is a paid version of TinEye which allows for more searches.

TinEye is easy to use. Here is our sample image and the goal is to find a high res version.

1. On the TinEye webpage, click “Browse” to upload the image. The sample image is fairly small at 350×520 pixels.

2. TinEye search of its database for this image found 80 matches.

3. The default search result is set to Best Match.

4. Changing the sort by Biggest Image, I find a link to the same image that is 1600×1200 pixels!

Note: Most images found online are protected by copyright. If you would like to use any image found through TinEye for commercial purposes, you should confirm it is available under Creative Commons, or contact the image owner for permission.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T08:54:05-07:00December 17th, 2012|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

Sample Video of 4×3 and 16×9 Aspect Ratios

“What is the aspect ratio?” It has become one of the first questions for presentation and video projects. It is still a very confusing concept for many people. We use a simple video of each aspect ratio for clients to see the difference. It is the same video footage, which makes it easier to see the 4×3 aspect ratio is taller and the 16×9 aspect ratio is wider.

4×3 aspect ratio
[youtube src=”https://youtube.com/embed/gQaXbSPQoDQ?rel=0″]

16×9 aspect ratio
[youtube src=”https://youtube.com/embed/NTRV8ISqE1A?rel=0″]

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T08:55:56-07:00December 3rd, 2012|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

Auto Scaling Charts and Font Issues

Sometimes features go missing in newer versions of software. In PowerPoint, the “AUTO SCALE” feature for chart text disappeared after PPT 2003.

Charts in PPT 2003 have an Auto Scale font feature for chart axis’ (checked on by default) that allows the font to scale to the chart when the chart is resized.

The font stays in scale to the chart when the chart is enlarged or reduced in size.

Charts in PPT 2010 do not have the auto scale font feature. When the charts are resized, the fonts stay the same size and get cut off or removed. You have to select the axis and increase or decrease the font manually.

In PPT 2003, however, when the lock aspect ratio for the chart is turned off, and the chart is stretched, the chart becomes distorted.

But in PPT 2010, when the charts are stretched horizontally or vertically, they do not distort.

AUTO SCALE, we miss you!

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T09:02:23-07:00October 19th, 2012|PowerPoint, Resource/Misc|

Color (RGB-CMYK-Pantone-Hex-etc.) Defined!

What is RGB – CMYK – Hex – and all the other names for colors. Aren’t colors, just colors?

Through the course of print design, web and flash design, and of course PowerPoint design, we have used all of these, and a few more. Here is a quick summary of each of the main color formats/models:

1. RGB – An additive color model in which red, green, and blue light are added together to reproduce colors. RGB Color is the color model used for all electronically displayed documents. RGB is a device dependent color model: different devices detect or reproduce a given RGB value differently.

2. CMYK – A subtractive color model used in color printing. CMYK refers to the four inks used in color printing: cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black). The CMYK model works by partially or entirely masking colors on a lighter, usually white, background. The ink reduces the light that would otherwise be reflective. Such a model is called subtractive because inks “subtract” brightness from white.

3. Pantone and Spot – The Pantone Color Matching System is largely a standardized color reproduction system. By standardizing the colors, different manufacturers in different locations can all refer to the Pantone system to make sure colors match without direct contact with one another. There is a special subset of Pantone colors that can be reproduced using CMYK. Those that are possible to simulate through the CMYK process are labeled as such within the company’s guides.

However, most of the Pantone system’s 1,114 spot colors cannot be simulated with CMYK but with 13 base pigments (15 including white and black) mixed in specified amounts. The Pantone system also allows for many special colors to be produced, such as metallics and fluorescents.

4. Hex – A hex triplet is a six-digit, three-byte hexadecimal number used in HTML, CSS, and other computing applications, to represent colors. The bytes represent the red, green and blue components of the color. One byte represents a number in the range 00 to FF (in hexadecimal notation), or 0 to 255 in decimal notation. This represents the least (0) to the most (255) intensity of each of the color components. Thus, web colors specify colors in the Truecolor (24-bit RGB) color scheme. The hex triplet is formed by concatenating three bytes in hexadecimal notation, in the following order:
• Byte 1: red value (color type red)
• Byte 2: green value (color type green)
• Byte 3: blue value (color type blue)

5. HSV and HSL – Recognizing that the geometry of the RGB model is poorly aligned with the color-making attributes recognized by human vision, computer graphics researchers developed two alternate representations of RGB, HSV and HSL (hue, saturation, value and hue, saturation, lightness). HSV and HSL improve on the color cube representation of RGB by arranging colors of each hue in a radial slice, around a central axis of neutral colors which ranges from black at the bottom to white at the top. The fully saturated colors of each hue then lie in a circle, a color wheel.

HSV models itself on paint mixture, with its saturation and value dimensions resembling mixtures of a brightly colored paint with, respectively, white and black. HSL places the fully saturated colors in a circle of lightness ½, so that lightness 1 always implies white, and lightness 0 always implies black.

HSV and HSL are both widely used in computer graphics, particularly as color pickers in image editing software.

Note: All definitions sourced from Wikipedia.com.
– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T09:02:46-07:00October 17th, 2012|Resource/Misc|

MS Office 2013 Is Official (Release to RTM)

The irony is I spent this week at the largest gathering of PowerPoint professionals in the country at The Presentation Summit. The day after the Summit ends, Microsoft announces Office 2013 has reached RTM (Release To Manufacturing) – which means it is locked in and ready for distribution (no more development). Below is the official announcement, but look for Office 2013 at the beginning of the year.

(Presenting PPT 2013 Features at The 2012 Presentation Summit)

– Troy @ TLC

————————————————————
Office Reaches RTM!
By Kirk Koenigsbauer on October 11

Today we reached an important milestone in the development of the new Office.

Moments ago, the Office engineering team signed off on the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) build. This milestone means the coding and testing phase of the project is complete and we are now focused on releasing the new Office via multiple distribution channels to our consumer and business customers.

This is the most ambitious release of Office we’ve ever done. It spans the full family of Office applications, servers and cloud services. The new Office has a fresh, touch friendly design that works beautifully on Windows 8 and unlocks modern scenarios in social, reading, note-taking, meetings and communications. We are proud to achieve this milestone and are eager to deliver this exciting release to our customers.

General availability is planned for the first quarter of 2013. Starting October 19, customers purchasing Office 2010 from local retailers or resellers will receive the new Office for free upon availability. Customers will also see a preview version of the new Office on Windows RT devices, beginning with the Windows 8 launch on October 26.

Additionally, we have a number of programs that provide business customers with early access so they can begin testing, piloting and adopting Office within their organizations:

We will begin rolling out new capabilities to Office 365 Enterprise customers in our next service update, starting in November through general availability. Volume Licensing customers with Software Assurance will be able to download the Office 2013 applications as well as other Office products including SharePoint 2013, Lync 2013 and Exchange 2013 through the Volume Licensing Service Center by mid-November. These products will be available on the Volume Licensing price list on December 1. IT professionals and developers will be able to download the final version via their TechNet or MSDN subscriptions by mid-November. Please stay tuned for more specifics on general availability dates and other Office launch news. In the meantime, if you’d like to give the pre-release version a try, you can visit office.com/preview.

Thank you to the millions of people who have been testing early releases of the new Office. We are grateful for your support. Your invaluable feedback has helped us make the new Office the best Office ever.

Kirk Koenigsbauer
Corporate Vice President
Microsoft Office Division

By |2016-08-16T09:03:21-07:00October 13th, 2012|Personal, Resource/Misc|
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