tutorial

Solving PPT 2003 & Vista Problems

Here are the steps to solve the two usability problems with Vista and PPT 2003 described in the previous two posts:

1. Locate the actual .exe for PowerPoint 2003 (C: >> Program Files >> Microsoft Office >> Office 11)

2. Right click the POWERPNT.EXE

3. Go to the COMPATABILITY tab

4. Check the DISABLE VISUAL THEMES option

5. Click OKAY and launch PowerPoint 2003

So I can pass along others experiences with Vista, send me an email (link is on the right) letting me know if things do, or do not, work on your computer – or if things work with earlier versions (PPT 2000, XP, etc.).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-05-11T11:25:02-07:00May 15th, 2007|Software/Add-Ins, Tutorial|

VIsta & PPT 2003 Adv. Animation Pane

This one almost had me uninstalling Vista. this one invovles the Custom Animation pane open and set to view the Advanced Animation view (where the animations are shown on the timeline).

The problem (seen on multiple computers) is when you click and drag the animation bar to a new position, it basically disapears until you unclick. The result is loosing all ability to easily and accurately fine tune animations.

Again, there is a solution which is in the next post 🙂

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T15:57:58-07:00May 11th, 2007|Tutorial|

Existing Presentation to Widescreen (pt 2)

For the best quality layout and graphics when converting an existing presentation to widescreen I go through several steps. Note: 1-4 assure that new widescreen presentation maintains all formatting such as fonts, custom bullets, default color scheme, header/footer, etc.

1. Open existing presentation

2. Save As (name)_WideScreen.ppt

3. Delete all slides

4. Change page size to needed widescreen size

2. If background artwork is developed in Photoshop, modify in Photoshop to create new version of artwork that is setup for new widescreen aspect ratio

3. Update the master slide(s) with modified artwork and adjust formatting to fit widescreen layout

Now I have a widescreen template of my presentation.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T15:54:14-07:00April 6th, 2007|Tutorial|

Going Wide Screen

The era of the wide screen presentation is here. Computer monitors are wide screen, plasma and lcd TVs are wide screen, and wide screen projectors have dropped in price. So how do you create a widescreen presentation to use all of this great “realestate”?

1) Open a new presentation

2) Go to FILE >> PAGE SETUP

3) Here is the standard, 4×3 aspect ratio, presentation

4) Change the 10″ x 7.5″ to 16″ x 9″

Now you have a wide screen presentation set to fit the industry standard 16×9 aspect ratio.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T15:52:25-07:00March 31st, 2007|Tutorial|

PowerPoint Gets The Blame with Full Screen Videos

PowerPoint seems to cause the problem, but it is really video card settings that make your movie playback at full screen.

(on pre-Vista OS) go to START >> DISPLAYS >> SETTINGS tab >> ADVANCED button >> depending on graphics card find the settings for THEATER MODE (usually buried a few buttons down). If it says play movies full screen, that is what PowerPoint looks at and does… I recomend changing THEATER MODE to ‘standard’ so there are no surprises.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T15:39:44-07:00February 15th, 2007|Tutorial|

PowerPoint Gets The Blame with Widescreens

There are times when it looks like PowerPoint is to blame, but in reality it is a computer OS setting that is making PowerPoint appear to behave badly. An example of this that comes up often is running a presentation on a widescreen monitor.

Recent Post on the PowerPoint Forum:
I have a widescreen monitor powerpoint distorts graphs. The font becomes much larger and squished together. How do I stop the powerpoint from changing things?

My Response:
(on a pre-Vista OS) Go to START >> CONTROL PANEL >> DISPLAY >> SETTINGS tab >> ADVANCED button >> depending on which video card, find setting for MAINTAIN ASPECT RATIO. Now 4×3 presentations will display with black bars on the left/right so nothing is distorted on a widescreen monitor.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T15:38:48-07:00February 13th, 2007|Tutorial|

What’s Wrong With It? (Alignment!)

In working through many, many presentations this week a large part of my time was spent not only improving the overall visual content and layout, but giving the small, but professional, tweaks to elements. As example:


Here are two elements, as provided. They screamed out to me, but what was the problem…


Zooming in we can see that the two equal size boxes are not aligned.


The solution is very easy in PowerPoint.
Select both boxes.
Go to DRAW >> ALIGN OR DISTRIBUTE >> ALIGN LEFT.


Now both boxes are perfectly aligned! (and all is good with in my world… just 200-300 more slides to go).

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T15:31:46-07:00January 20th, 2007|Tutorial|

Why Do My Slides Start at Zero?

Had a client call with this situation – which is frustrating if you don’t know where to look.

You look at your slides in Slide Sorter view, or on a printout, and the first slide is not labeled as #1, but as #0.

To “fix” go to FILE >> PAGE SETUP

In the Page Setup Dialog note the NUMBER SLIDES FROM option. Change the “0” to “1” and all is back to normal.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T15:31:00-07:00January 16th, 2007|Tutorial|

Should I use Hardware Acceleration?

If your computer has dedicated graphics memory – yes.
If the computer has a shared memory graphics processor – no.

To check what you have, go to:
(1) START >> CONTROL PANEL >> DISPLAY >> SETTINGS tab
(2) Select “Monitor 1”
(3) Click the ADVANCED button

(4) Go to the ADAPTOR tab. Here you can see the manufacturer, model and amount of memory of the graphics card.

TIP: if the computer uses an Intel graphics processor, it is shared memory. ATI and NVidia manufacture both shared memory and dedicated memory cards.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T15:05:58-07:00November 27th, 2006|Tutorial|

Smoother Animation with Hardware Acceleration

If you notice some of your animations are not playing smooth, check to assure you are using all of your graphic processor’s power. Go to SLIDE SHOW >> SETUP SHOW >> check the USE COMPUTER HARDWARE ACCELERATION.

Now run the presentation and things should be running much smoother.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T15:05:01-07:00November 25th, 2006|Tutorial|
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