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Page 095 of PowerPoint tutorials, presentation essentials, personality interviews, and PowerPoint news.
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Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: PowerPoint
February 28, 2012
In the last issue, we discussed about pictures and how you can use them effectively. Talking about pictures, there's a favorite saying: A picture is worth a thousand words. While that can be true often, it can also be untrue in a surprisingly large number of scenarios. I discuss more about when a picture is not worth a thousand words in a blog post released last week -- and mentioned later in this newsletter. Now that we are looking at presenting myths, let me ask you all about a smile. A smile is a very common emotion that works wonders as long as it is flashed for an instant. What do you think about smiles that last for an hour or more -- do such smiling people get on your nerves?
February 28, 2012
When a connector is inserted to link two shapes or slide objects together, it gets attached to a certain point on both objects. For every object, there are several anchor points where you can attach a connector -- for a typical rectangle (or square) shape, you will see four anchor points (red squares) when you are attaching a connector to it. Sometimes you may attach your connector to the wrong anchor point, and may need to detach it from that point, and attach it to some other anchor point. Or, maybe you connected to the wrong slide object altogether, and now want to detach the connector from one slide object and attach it to another. In this tutorial, we will explore ways to detach and attach connectors.
Learn how to detach, re-attach, and delete connectors in PowerPoint 2011.
February 27, 2012
Gavin Wedell is a business educator. He specialises in training business-academics in best-practice educational techniques. During his career he has designed and facilitated management development programmes for leading global corporates. He has received numerous awards for the innovative nature of his learning programmes. In this conversation, Don discusses Doodleslide, a PowerPoint add-in that includes a collection of doodles and over 50 slide templates.
February 27, 2012
A digital signature or ID is more commonly known as a digital certificate. Digital IDs help to validate your identity, and they can be used to sign important documents including PowerPoint presentations. As far as PowerPoint is concerned, a digital certificate is necessary for a digital signature because it provides the key that can be associated with a digital signature. Digital certificates make it possible for digital signatures to be used as a way to authenticate digital information. In this tutorial we will show you how to add a digital signature in PowerPoint 2010.
Learn how to get started with a digital signature in PowerPoint 2010.
February 25, 2012
We set a section of Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers as the slide background –- and then we added several shapes with a slide background fill to create this slide. You can change the background to any other picture, and these animations will still work! Once animated, the background section that shows through in the shapes continues to move within the slide area creating a very different animation effect. Simultaneously, the rest of the background fades out so that the area within the shapes is highlighted.
Download and use this slide for your own presentations.
February 24, 2012
This presentation contains two slides – each slide has two oval shapes that contain a slide background fill. Once animated, the background section that shows through in the ovals continues to move within the slide area creating a very different animation effect. Simultaneously, the rest of the background fades out so that the area within the ovals is highlighted. The background picture was sourced from Microsoft’s Office.com site.
Download and use this slide for your own presentations.
February 24, 2012
Once you create connectors to link slide objects, you can then format the line thickness, dash attributes, etc. of the connectors to match the look of the other shapes in your slide. Connectors work akin to conventional lines in PowerPoint as far as their formatting options are concerned -- so, changing the color attributes of a connector is almost like changing the color of any line, as you will learn in the following steps.
Learn how to change color of connectors in PowerPoint 2011.
February 23, 2012
In previous tutorials you have learned to sign up for Windows Rights Management (WRM), use WRM to set permissions for other users, and how you can set advanced WRM permissions. However, these scenarios only work for those who create and distribute WRM protected files -- how you use WRM if you are a recipient of a protected file is something that we will explore in this tutorial. You will learn how to open a WRM protected file as a permitted user.
Learn how to open Windows Rights Management protected files in PowerPoint 2010.
February 22, 2012
A picture is worth a thousand words -- we've all heard that a thousand times and more. Frankly speaking, that observation may not be true all the time! So what are those scenarios when this is not true? Actually, there are so many scenarios that I had to share an entire list with you! A picture on a slide can certainly tell a story, but that story needs to be retold by the presenter. Many presenters and slide designers take the analogy of a picture being equal to a thousand words quite literally -- and while they believe a message or story has been provided to the audience, it is quite possible that the audience thought of a different story -- especially since the presenter did not explain why he or she had to show a picture of an airplane in a presentation about managing finances!
February 22, 2012
After you explore connectors, you may believe that they are indeed different from mere lines in certain ways because they are linked to the shapes or slide objects they connect with. Move the object linked to any connector, and the connector itself repositions itself to adjust to the new position of the object. However, when you explore formatting options for connectors, you will discover that they work just like conventional PowerPoint lines. You can add arrowheads to your connectors (or remove them), make your connector a dashed line rather than an undashed one, and also change the thickness of the connector in the same way as you do for lines.
Learn how to format connectors in PowerPoint 2011.
February 21, 2012
This month we will talk about pictures and how you can effectively use them in your slides. With a camera on every phone, it's easier than ever before to click pictures that you can add to your PowerPoint and Keynote slides. And the presentation pundits have been saying it for years now that you should use more visuals and less text. Finally, it's easy to heed to their advice since pictures are aplenty -- and when you cannot find the perfect picture, chances are you can go ahead and click one! Or two, three or many more. If you end up with 5 pictures that are suitable for a slide, how do you choose just one of them? Or do you go ahead and add at least 3 of them to the same slide? There's no clear and obvious answer to that question -- you have to decide what works best in any given scenario. As a rule of the thumb, try to use just one picture -- and also add a second picture only if it adds some extra value to the first picture. For example, you may show a famous building in one picture, and a close-up of some carving on its exterior in another picture.
February 21, 2012
You have learned to sign up for Windows Rights Management (WRM) in a previous tutorial. Once you are signed up, you can provide permissions using WRM from within PowerPoint 2010. In this tutorial you will learn how to revoke permissions, add new permissions, and also create custom permission levels. For any of the permissions to work, users need to be connected online so that the WRM servers can be accessed for authentication. So, make sure you are connected online, and thereafter follow these steps.
Learn about advanced Windows Rights Management permissions in PowerPoint 2010.
February 20, 2012
It's always good to be different -- and canned slides with Calibri or Arial text over those same template or Theme backgrounds can look so monotonous! Doodleslide is a PowerPoint add-in that enables you to add a human touch by inserting hand-drawn images and organic looking slide templates. The Doodleslide add-in consists a library of around 350 high-resolution doodle images with transparent backgrounds. These are divided into 25 categories. In addition, it also comprises over 50 slide templates that match the look of the doodles. Both these elements: the doodles and the slide templates can be accessed by two buttons that are integrated into the Insert tab of the Ribbon in PowerPoint.
Read the Indezine review of Doodleslide.
February 20, 2012
You have already learned that there are essentially three types of connectors that you can use to link shapes or other slide objects in PowerPoint 2011 -- also you can add any of these three connectors (straight, elbow, or curved) as per your requirements. However, what if you add a connector of one type and later realize that you should have used a different type? You need not delete that connector, and place another type of connector in its place because PowerPoint 2011 allows you to change from one connector type to another very easily.
Learn how to change between connector types in PowerPoint 2011.
February 18, 2012
This blueprint slide essentially is not an architectural blueprint, but it could have been! This slide is more of a lesson in how you can slowly introduce slide objects one after the other so that they animated almost like performing in sync – in a ballet or concert. Every shape is a native PowerPoint shape that either has a white fill or outline, or even both. Then we used the Spin animation to primarily get all shapes rotating together. We used PowerPoint 2010 to create this presentation, and it works best in either that version or in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
Download and use this slide for your own presentations.
February 17, 2012
One of my clients' major issues is the time, or lack of it, they have to prepare between presentations. Needless to say, this causes stress. Consider the following scenario. Ginger has a presentation to give to new customers. She was told about it last week. She worked on it to the detriment of a key project, even practicing out loud the night before the talk. She gives it and feels successful. But she has some revisions to make before she sends it to the customer. At the same time, she has to prepare a talk next week to division managers about her project (the one she has been neglecting). Now she has two presentations to work on simultaneously, one to revise and the other to create from scratch.
Read more in this guest post by Claudyne Wilder.
February 17, 2012
We already explored how you can get started with Information Rights Management (IRM) in PowerPoint 2010 by first signing up for the Windows Rights Management (WRM) service. This service implements Microsoft's access controls for documents across Office 2010 applications such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel, etc. Once you have signed up for WRM, you can set permissions for all presentations that you need to share as long as you and all other recipients for your files fulfil these two requirements: All users have a Windows Live ID, and all users have signed up for WRM using their Windows Live IDs.
Learn how to use Windows Rights Management in PowerPoint 2010.
You May Also Like: Learn PowerPoint 2011 for Mac: Reroute Connectors | Learn PowerPoint 2010: Acquire or Create a Digital Signature
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