review

Review of FreeVectors.net

Free Vectors .net is an online resource to find a large variety of professional and free vector graphics (click here to open).

Navigating the site is not easy as the images are not organized into categories, but there is a good search bar at the very top that helps find the image type needed.

Once an image is found, click the download button. The Free Vectors.net website is an aggregator of images from lots of other small sites, so clicking the download button sends you to another web page. Each webpage has different download processes, but all images are assured to be free (of cost and use rights).

Because PowerPoint does not do well with .eps images, after downloading the image, it is best to open in Illustrator. Then use the “Save for web and devices” to create a PNG. image or “Export” as a .emf for a scalable vector image (Saving files from Adobe Illustrator will be next set of posts).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T09:57:21-07:00August 17th, 2011|Personal, Resource/Misc|

Hmmm, SlideRocket’s latest promo seems off track to me

Last week, SlideRocket, which I like a lot, announced their “It’s ‘Say No To PowerPoint’ Week” promo. But the tagline really got me wondering how they define a presentation.

“SlideRocket is celebrating national “Say No to PowerPoint Week” by challenging people to say “yes” to stunning presentations. It’s time to say rest in peace to presentations 1.0 and embrace a new way of presenting that engages the mind and senses. To help drive a stake through the heart of “Death by PowerPoint,”…”

In the now famous Edward Tufte statement about “Death By PowerPoint,” a huge generalization was made – that all PowerPoint created presentations are bad. Definitely not a true statement, as presentations developed by applications other than PowerPoint can be bad too. The reality is, not all presentations are bad – not all presentation good. Not all presenters are bad, and not all presenters are good.

The SlideRocket promotion bothers me in that it also wants to generalize that all PowerPoint created presentations are bad (wrong) and that all SlideRocket created presentations are good (wrong).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T10:27:29-07:00February 20th, 2011|Personal, Resource/Misc|

iPad for PowerPoint Presentations

Recently, I read an article that talked about various approaches and issues with presenting a PowerPoint presentation from an iPad. The general information on technologies and ultimately issues to be aware of when importing a PowerPoint presentation into Keynote were all good. Also, I think the iPad is fantastic and one gets used daily here at TLC.

But the conclusions should definitely make everyone concerned with the ability to present anything visually dynamic at this point on the iPad:

“While the iPad is a credible candidate for road warrior presenting, content authors need to take care with the content they generate. The golden rules can be summarized as:
1. Keep it simple – don’t use advanced features of PowerPoint as it’s likely Keynote will not support them.
2. Fonts – make sure you are only using one or more of the 7 common fonts (see appendix below).
3. Transitions – use fade and wipe only.
4. Video – don’t use it unless you’re a video formats wizard!
5. Aspect Ratio – Design for 4:3 aspect ratio before you start doing anything.
6. Graphics Engine – Don’t manipulate images in any way in PowerPoint. Do it externally and then import the finished image or use the copy/paste special trick.”

Based on expert opinion, a presentation should not use animation, transitions, any image effects, any text effects, video or specialty fonts… I think that describes presentations developed with PowerPoint 95.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T10:29:55-07:00February 8th, 2011|Personal|

Everyone Knows How To Use PowerPoint, But Using It Well…

I like the Brainshark application. And I like the presentation philosophy of Andy Zimmerman, Brainshark’s VP of Product Marketing. On the last day of 2010 Bloomberg Businessweek’s tip was by Mr. Zimmerman and I could not say the opening line any better:

“[Everyone] knows how to use PowerPoint software. Using it well can be a different story.”

Read the full story, which is brief and has good presentation recomendations, here.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T10:40:53-07:00January 7th, 2011|Personal, Resource/Misc|

Free PowerPoint Files.com Review

The Free PowerPoint Files website is a collection of PowerPoint templates. It looks to be a companion site to the “PowerPoint Styles” website I reviewed back in June offering the same template designs. Free PowerPoint Files offers several hundred PowerPoint templates that are image based with stock images for the background and text placeholders formatted to coordinate with the background image.

The templates are all the legacy .ppt format. But they are free. What you download is a nice background image, but not a very functional template. The images used for the template backgrounds are very modern and work well for templates. When I opened the template I downloaded it looked good from the thumbnail view with multiple layouts and PowerPoint placeholders positioned well on the background image.

But the Title slide (viewed in edit view, not master slide view) showed a single text box vs. separate text boxes for the title and subtitle text, which have different formatting. And the background was a placed .jpg (eg. not from a preset master slide).

The Master Slides revealed no formatting, just a placed .jpg for the background. No text placeholders, named master, title slide master, etc.

If you are familiar with the basics of setting up templates with default placeholders, color scheme and transitions the PowerPoint Styles templates offer nice backgrounds to start with.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T11:06:16-07:00September 12th, 2010|Resource/Misc|

Review: ToolsToo PPT Add-in

ToolsToo is a productivity add-in for PowerPoint 2007 and 2010. It is a collection of incredibly valuable tools used when designing slides. It adds a full tab full of 20+ tools that I first tested on a test computer and quickly installed on my main computer and have integrated it into my daily production.

Some tools can be found in other add-ins and I cannot function without, such as:
Equal – width, height, size

And there are a number of tools that I am amazed have not been thought of before as they are so incredibly useful. Here are a few of my favorites:

Adjoin

and make line straight (veritical or horizontal)

AND any tool can be added individually to the QAT! As example: make equal width, make equal height and make same size buttons have been added to my QAT.

There is a free version offered called “ToolsToo Lite” that offeres a limited set of tools. The full tool set reviewed is $20 and is highly recommend.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T11:14:33-07:00August 12th, 2010|Software/Add-Ins|

PPTStyles Templates Review

The PowerPoint Styles website had over 200 PowerPoint templates when I reviewed it recently. The templates are image based with stock images for the background and text placeholders formatted to coordinate with the background image.

I have not yet reviewed a stock template resource that I have found worth the expense. In this case all templates are free – and that gives you a nice background image, but not a very functional template (you get what you pay for). The images used for the template backgrounds are very nice, modern and work well for templates. I also appreciated that each image has a credit to its source/photographer. All templates I looked at where the legacy .ppt format.

When I first opened the template I downloaded, all looked good from the thumbnail view. Multiple layouts, PowerPoint placeholders positioned well within the background image, etc.

But the Title slide (viewed in edit view, not master slide view) showed a single text box vs. separate text boxes for the title and subtitle text, which have different formatting. And the background was a placed .jpg (eg. not from a preset master slide).

The Master Slides revealed no formatting, just a placed .jpg for the background. No text placeholders, named master, title slide master, etc.

If you are familiar with the basics of setting up templates with default placeholders, color scheme and transitions the PowerPoint Styles templates offer nice backgrounds to start with.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-16T11:24:13-07:00June 29th, 2010|Resource/Misc|

CNET review of Office 2007

Just this week CNET has posted a very good review of PowerPoint 2007. It is in a quick read format that is comprised of 12 topics, each with a screen capture and few paragraph description.

Take a few minutes and click through this informative overview here.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T14:12:35-07:00August 20th, 2006|PowerPoint|
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