2015 4th of July PowerPoint Template (Free Download!)
To everyone in the U.S.A. – Happy 4th of July! Here is a full featured Americana themed PowerPoint template (designed by staff designer: Cara), that features animated fireworks layouts. This template is free for all to download and use!
Download (4.2MB)
– Troy @ TLC
TLC Creative Services Receives “Best Of” Award
It is small and for local businesses. But not that small of an area, TLC Creative Services is in a small city of 100k, bordered by cities of another 200k. I know there are not a lot of graphic design companies in our area, but we are very proud to receive one of the BEST OF 2015 awards!
– Troy @ TLC
PowerPoint vs. Word vs. InDesign – Which Should I Use?
Every program has strengths and weaknesses. Below is what the TLC Creative Services design team views as the strengths and weaknesses of designing for print among the 3 major applications we use. So here is how Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign and Microsoft PowerPoint fight it out in the boxing ring:
Adobe InDesign 
– PRO: Professional desktop publishing software that has the highest level of control of layouts, print specific output, multipage control, unlimited master layouts with finite control, and no size or resolution constraints. Excellent image control and color use tools (in RGB, CMYK, Spot, etc.).
– CON: large learning curve, specialty software that costs more (and usually not provided across corporate users).
Microsoft Word
– PRO: Installed on virtually every computer (and many tablets & Smartphones). Very good control over text flow, line wraps, and text across multiple pages. Good output to print needs. Easy and professional table and chart creation. Very good color use tools (if setup in document template correctly).
– CON: No bleed or printer crop marks, limited (or difficult to setup/use) multiple master layouts, difficult working with inserted graphics/tables/charts that do not align to column layout.
Microsoft PowerPoint
– PRO: Installed on virtually every computer (and many tablets & Smartphones). Great multiple master layout capabilities, great layout customization per page, excellent image control. Easy and professional table and chart creation. Very good color use tools (if setup in document template correctly).
– CON: Limited to low resolution output (it does not matter if you have a high res 300DPI image, it is output the same as lower res images). No bleed or printer crop marks (although, there are tricks to manually adding – but it is not like InDesign’s automatic features).
AND THE WINNER IS…. 
There is no clear winner. Everything depends on what application you use most, what application you have installed and what the final print document is going to be used for. But for TLC Creative Services, the order is:
1. InDesign: This is the industry standard, the best option for print layout projects, and we have a professional team of designers that know this application. This is our go-to application when we are working with print-houses, publishers, etc.
2. PowerPoint: We are presentation design focused, so we know PowerPoint. PowerPoint’s multiple master layouts and flexible per page layout options are wins for us in developing custom layouts, similar to how we approach layouts in Adobe InDesign. We use PowerPoint for print-to-PDF (where a PDF document is the final “print” piece) because it allows clients the flexibility to update documents on their own.
3. Word: The few advantages Word offers (multipage text flow, image wrap, etc.), do not win over the flexible nature of PowerPoint – unless it is client request.
Up next, some examples of PowerPoint-to-Print projects.
– Troy @ TLC
PowerPoint for Print Document Design (Really!?)
PowerPoint is designed for visual presentation design and projection. I clearly remember several meetings and discussions with Microsoft as they worked on PowerPoint 2007 about improving the print capabilities of PowerPoint – the laser printer, handout, PDF capabilities. Fast forward to Office 365 and PowerPoint 2013 and I am seeing a significant number of project requests and forum questions on how to use PowerPoint to design print documents. For this full month, ThePowerPointBlog is focusing all posts on using PowerPoint for print document design.
Before we dive in with showing examples of PowerPoint for Print projects TLC Creative has done or providing tutorials on how to setup PowerPoint for print, let me establish a few technical terms and perspective:
- Quick Print and Laser Print: This is printing a document on a black/white or color laser printer, it can be sitting on your desk or a large system at a Kinkos. They all have the same traits, digital printing and not capable of printing to the edge of the paper.
- Offset Printing: This is “real” printing. Print design files are output to separated film and each plate is applied as individual passes of ink. From the printer, the paper needs to go to finish cutting to have a ready-to-use print document. Note: Offset printing can have the print image go to the edge of the paper.
- Resolution: Web and presentation images are 72DPI – or low resolution (and this is a big generalization for the sake of an easy conversation). Print (eg. offset press) is 300DPI – or high resolution.
- Vector Graphics: Images, or text, that are based on geometric shapes and mathematical equations (see that high school geometry class was important after all!). Note: Vector graphics can be enlarged to any size without quality loss.
- Raster Graphics: Images that are created from dots or pixels. Note: The image is at a set size and enlarging lowers the visual quality.
- Bleed, Printer vs. Reader spreads, CMYK vs. RGB, and many other print industry terms need to be understood by those using PowerPoint to create print documents.
So, why am I qualified to lead a discussion on PowerPoint-for-Print? Because before digital printers had quality output, and before PowerPoint (Flash, Director, and Harvard Graphics) made it easy enough for virtually anyone to create layouts, I worked in the print industry turning design files into separated film plates for the printing press operators. I am not saying I am old, but as a youngster I was lucky enough to enter the design industry as the digital revolution was in process. I experienced the true printing process and learned the classics of visual design – all great things that carry over into the wonderful world of PowerPoint presentations.
Because now, everyone has a computer – tablet – and smartphone that has PowerPoint (thanks Microsoft for making Office available everywhere!), everyone can now use PowerPoint to design more than slides. In addition, the ease of sourcing images, video, custom fonts, design accent graphics and low cost printing all have created an environment in just the past few years for PowerPoint to become the default print design application – if only it did not have so many limitations!
Next post is “PowerPoint vs. Word vs. InDesign – which should I use?“
– Troy @ TLC
Set An Angle In PowerPoint
As everyone that has worked in PowerPoint knows, matching rotated items to the same angle can be a challenge. This is especially true when using the rotation handle (the click and drag method). To take the frustration out of this task, let us walk you through manually setting the angle and easily getting multiple items exactly aligned with the same rotation!
Here is our sample slide being created. It has a green rectangle (not a triangle, so we can know the exact angle), and a text box matched to the same rotation as the green rectangle.
1. First add a rectangle.
2. Next, bring up the Format Options Dialogue Box either by going to Format tab on the tool bar or by right clicking the shape.
– Select SIZE AND POSITION from the right-click pop up menu.
– The Format Shape pane opens to Size and Properties tab.
3. In the SIZE section is the ROTATION box.
4. Enter any angle needed (this has a live update, so you can see the angle applied to selected item). For this sample, we used -26 degrees.
5. Add a text box and type (we added TLC CREATIVE SERVICES).
6. With the text selected, we followed the same steps above to rotate the text. Using the Format tab on the tool bar, or by right clicking the text, bring up the Format Options Dialogue Box.
– Select SIZE AND POSITION from the right-click pop up menu.
– In the ROTATION box, enter the angle as the rectangle (-26 degrees in our sample).
7. Position the angled text box above the rectangle.
8. Select both the rectangle and text box and move to the lower right of the slide for a great visual layout using perfectly aligned and angled elements for your design!
– Troy @ TLC
Design Idea – Group Text Into A Visual Layout
Slide design is usually thought of as making the content professional and visual – which it is. It is also about understanding the message and purpose of the presentation and each slide – something TLC Creative Services enjoys working with clients to uncover. For this slide from a recent project our design team developed a new layout that grouped the paragraphs of text into information chunks, and created a visual styling that coordinates with the clients overall visual branding.
This slide is a handout provided to everyone in the training, so large font size was not a primary need. The ability to identify sections of text within the 3 paragraphs was important for the group discussion. Working with the client we identified 5 topics and added subheads to each, then the full text from the provided paragraph. The end result is a slide that would not be ideal if just presented on a screen (too much small text), but a slide that works as a handout and aids the trainers group discussion.
– Troy @ TLC
Design Idea – Image Fill Text (Part 2)
As a continuation of the previous post, we are looking at some of the advanced image sizing and placement options for Image Fill Text. Thanks to TLC staff designer, Christie, for this step-by-step tutorial and examples.
We are working from the same sample text.
1. Select the text to add an image fill too.
2. Open the FORMAT SHAPE pane to the text options.
– How to…
3. Select TEXTURE OR PICTURE FILL.
4. Click FILE.
5. Select an image. For this example, I am using a nice flower image that has lots of vibrant colors.
6. The auto fill position and size do not really do much for the overall visual.
7. Select TILE PICTURE AS TEXTURE. This will allow access to additional formatting options.
8. Adjust the OFFSET (X and Y), SCALE (X and Y) and ALIGNMENT options to size and position the image for the best visual.
8. Now the image fill adds a lot of the pink tones and a bit of the green on the edges.
