Tutorial Archives - Page 47 of 52

Make a Hidden Slide Seen

The ‘hidden slide’ feature is great. It can be used to design a master presentation that contains a couple of versions of key slides – just hide the ones that do not apply to that audience. Or you want to edit a slide, but keep the original for that ‘just in case’ scenario.

No matter what the use, the one constant is that it is difficult to identify which slides are hidden. You have to look for the small hash mark here:

Not only is small, put the is no way to identify hidden slides on a printout. This poses a large problem when supplying printouts to clients for review. What I have done is create a semi-transparent, slide-sized “hidden” graphic in PhotoShop that is inserted on hidden slides. Easy to see in the slide sorter and very obvious in printouts.

– Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-11-17T14:20:53-07:00September 13th, 2006|Tutorial|

What is the File Name of that Image?

You carefully label all of the layers and saved out images from Photoshop with descriptive names. But once imported into PowerPoint you lose all reference to what image it is… Take this example:

You have a dozen very similiar images in the presentation, but you need to verify what model this one is. Is it a 300, 350, 430… You know the file name says exactly what it is, but where is the file name to be found?

If you have an animation applied, open the CUSTOM ANIMATION PANE, click on the image and reference the animation, it contains the file name! If you do not have an animation applied – temporarily apply one so you can read the info. Here I quickly applied the first animation in my list, APPEAR. Now I can read the file name, verify what model vehicle it is, delete the animation and move on.

Note: Hovering over the animation will let the pop-up info appear, which is helpful for reading long file names that become cut off in the animation bar.

– Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-11-17T14:19:35-07:00September 5th, 2006|Tutorial|

Use PowerPoint Presenter View

After activating Extended Desktop (Oct. 1 post) and setting up PowerPoint to display the presentation on the secondary monitor (Oct. 3 post), you have the option of displaying the Presenter View on your local monitor.

In PowerPoint go to: SLIDE SHOW >> SET UP SHOW. In the Multiple Monitors section check “Show Presenter View.”

When you go into show mode your computer will display this view:

– Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-11-17T14:19:16-07:00September 5th, 2006|Tutorial|

Pro’s and Con’s of Webcast Formats

I have been doing a lot of webcast projects lately. Most involve syncing a PowerPoint presentation with video of the presenter. One client’s IT department needed more information to determine which format fit their needs best so I provided this quick run down on the pro’s and con’s of the formats we were discussing:

Flash Legacy (.swf)
Pro: This format is virtually guaranteed to work on all computers, through firewall settings and has an install rating of over 98% of all computers worldwide.
Con: It is not optimized for live video, so it produces larger files and does not stream as well as an .flv

Flash Video/Flash 8 (.flv)
Pro: This format is optimized specifically for video. It produces good size files and streams extremely well (even if file is larger than a .swf it streams much smoother and faster).
Con: Still requires many computers to do the free upgrade, which is permitted through most corporate firewall systems (although it can be problematic in a tightly controlled corporate IT setting).

Windows Media Video (.wmv)
Pro: Optimized to playback on Windows PCs and now works on all Macs that have the Flip4Mac QuickTime add-in (included in a free auto update, so installed on majority of Mac systems). Can be embedded in webpage or forced to launch player application on computer.
Con: Larger file sizes than .flv (similar to .swf), fewer pre-load options (eg: a status bar before playing).

All of this is very simplified information, but it provides a quick overview of some common formats. Stay tuned for a very detailed set of posts on Streaming Media formats I have been working on.

– Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-11-17T14:15:05-07:00September 1st, 2006|Resource/Misc, Tutorial|

Find the RECOLOR button

I like to setup PowerPoint so I can get edit accomplished in the fewest clicks. If you find a need to use the RECOLOR function (see Saturday’s post), you can add the RECOLOR button to your PICTURE toolbar.

Click the far right edge of the picture toolbar, choose ADD OR REMOVE BUTTONS >> PICTURE >> RECOLOR PICTURE. Now select the Excel table (that does not have data with it), click the recolor button, adjust colors, done.

– Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-11-17T14:14:47-07:00August 30th, 2006|Tutorial|

Use the RECOLOR tool

So you have a slide like this with an imported Excel table:

And you need to adjust the colors of the excel chart to coordinate with the presentation template. You double-click the table and get the image format box, not the Excel data:

But all is not lost! Some information is still there. On the PICTURE tab, click the RECOLOR button to access this “secret” data.

In the RECOLOR PICTURE dialog you can see the original colors formatted in Excel and have the ability to change to any other color in a few easy clicks.

This is an invaluable tool within PowerPoint to know of and use when faced with pasted in Excel tables.

-Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-11-17T14:14:01-07:00August 26th, 2006|Tutorial|

Great “PhotoShop” Shadows Inside PowerPoint

Often you have a nice, well designed slide such as this title slide. It does not really need any images or animation, but it would be nice to give it a bit of depth.

Adding a soft, PhotoShop, drop shadow to the title text helps the slide differentiate itself from the “standard” PowerPoint content and add some depth and appeal.

This effect was created in less than 4 seconds using PPTXtreme‘s SoftShadow add-in. I selected the text box and clicked on the QuickShadow button.

Looking closer you can see the smooth feathered black shadow that was applied to each letter. Something that helps the text float above the background artwork.

– Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-11-17T14:12:17-07:00August 18th, 2006|Software/Add-Ins, Tutorial|

How Long Was Each Slide Displayed?

Turning PowerPoint presentations into webcasts has become a fairly routine request. One of the more difficult aspects of recreating a presentation is knowing when the presenter advances the slide. This is critical in syncing video of the presenter with the slides. Here is one method I have used – and best of all it is built into PowerPoint!

A few points about this process:
1 – This is at larger conferences where I am backstage running the presentations.
2 – I am running a backup computer and I run this timer on it.
3 – I use a remote system so both computers advance simulataneously.

(1) With the presentation open go to SLIDESHOW >> REHEARSE TIMINGS

(2) The slide show begins and a pop-up timer is visible.

TIP 1: As soon as the Timer window is visible click the PAUSE button. When the meeting begins click the PLAY button (the last thing I want is to have to many things distract me at the beginning of a meeting!).

TIP 2: Even though the timer is running on the backup computer, drag the timer to the very bottom so it is virtually invisible – just in case you have to switch to it!

(3) When the presentation is done click YES to the save the timings.

(4) Each slides time onscreen is seen next to the slide thumbnail. Be sure to do a SAVE AS to keep these timings for reference when building the webcast.

– Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-11-17T14:11:56-07:00August 16th, 2006|Tutorial|

Ugly Hyperlinks in Your Presentation?

For reference you add a URL to a slide. But the text changes color, an underline is added, and in general is ugly!

You have options to bring back the aesthetics of your slide – here is the easiest. Select the text box and right click on the hyperlink and choose REMOVE HYPERLINK.

This strips out the active link programming and changes the URL into plain text. It will not be able to be clicked as an active link after this. The result is happy, beautiful, text once again!

– Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-11-17T14:09:45-07:00August 6th, 2006|Tutorial|

Use “Blank” for Your Browser Home Page

My preference when it comes to a browser Home Page is to have the browser open with nothing (zip, nada, white space). It takes time to load a page, which is usually not the one I want to see. Here is how to setup Internet Explorer:

(1) Go to TOOLS >> INTERNET OPTIONS

(2) On the General tab, click USE BLANK button.

-Troy @ TLC

By TLC Creative Services, Inc.|2016-11-17T14:09:25-07:00August 4th, 2006|Tutorial|