Tutorial Blog » Presentations

Easy Keys to Great Graphics in PowerPoint

Cynthia Giles — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:00:40 +0000

PowerPoint is all about making information interesting — and visuals have to do a lot of the heavy lifting. So incorporating graphics is one of the most important aspects of presentation development.

Creating a great graphic is the result of two obvious steps, plus one that people often forget . . .

1. Make it or find it
2. Insert it AND
3. Polish it!

Step 1 is outside the scope of this tutorial. But choosing the right images is crucial to success, so here are a few reminders: (...)
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Get Motion-Vated! Animate PowerPoint Charts

Cynthia Giles — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:00:02 +0000

So, you’ve worked hard to create an interesting, informative PowerPoint show. It looks good! Your presentation is well-organized, visually effective, and nicely paced.

But on presentation day, some people in the audience are still looking at their watches, staring out the window, or sneaking in some email responses. What’s missing?

Maybe it’s motion. Humans are actually programmed to pay attention when something moves, in case it might be something fierce. So take advantage of that fact by adding animation to your presentation. (...)
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Three Ways to Spark PowerPoint Creativity

Cynthia Giles — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:00:42 +0000

It’s really easy to get in a rut with PowerPoint, especially if you have to make presentations often. And if you don’t work with PowerPoint very much, it may be equally challenging to find a creative approach, instead of just getting some slides made as best you can.

Either way, it helps to be prepared! Don’t wait until deadline pressure is on top of you — keep some inspirations stashed away for the moment of need. And practice some techniques that can produce quick breakthroughs when you need a creativity boost.

Here are three sample sparks: (...)
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Working with Background Graphics in PowerPoint

Cynthia Giles — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:00:41 +0000

Why does one PowerPoint presentation grab attention while another one puts viewers to sleep? Content counts, of course—but really, the whole reason for developing a Powerpoint presentation rather than writing a plain Word document is (usually) to incorporate visual interest. If there’s nothing interesting to look at, the audience is likely to wonder why they should bother watching!

Fortunately, there are several easy ways to create visual variety in PowerPoint. One way is to tweak the theme so that it is more effective and doesn’t look like “just another” PPT. How to Customize a PowerPoint Template provided some basic information and easy techniques for altering background styles and color schemes. Now let’s go a step further, and see how to change the graphic elements that are part of the theme. (...)
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Eight Great Ways to Share Slides Online

Cynthia Giles — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:00:02 +0000

The slideshow has become an indispensable tool for sharing information in a compelling way—and fortunately, there are lots of ways to get your excellent work in front of viewers!

Here are eight top choices, divided into two groups: one group of sites where you can upload and share existing PowerPoint presentations, and another group featuring sites that combine presentation development with sharing functionality. All are free, except as noted.

These apps vary widely in focus–some stressing integration with social media, others providing a robust business environment. Which one to use will depend on the requirements of a particular presentation situation. So let’s take a look. (...)
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Dynamic Duo: SnagIt and PowerPoint

Cynthia Giles — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:00:00 +0000

Amazing but true—once upon a time screenshots on the PC were made with the PrtScn key, which just takes a picture of whatever is on the monitor at that moment. Then along came several screen capture programs, and after a while, SnagIt became a standard tool for many of us. Now we can slice up the screen into segments or capture specific windows or snapshot menus, all with just a couple of clicks.

And the latest versions of SnagIt for PC provide such good editing tools that you can usually finish a shot (including everything from borders to balloons) without ever leaving the program. Since one requirement for great presentations is a strong visual component, SnagIt and PowerPoint make a terrific team — especially for creating courseware, tutorials, user manuals, and demos. (...)
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How to Use Hyperlinks in a PowerPoint Presentation

Cynthia Giles — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:00:58 +0000

Hyperlinks are hard workers in the world of PowerPoint. They can be used for the obvious reason (i.e., to link to a web address), and that’s a great tool when using PowerPoint to create documentation, training materials, sales presentations, or other materials meant to be interactive.

In a typical speaker presentation, jumping out to a live website is not done that frequently—it’s more likely that web content will be shown as screenshots if included. So the heavy-lifting for hyperlinks here is usually in constructing navigation. You can create interactive menus, branching paths, and optional pop-ups using hyperlinks within your presentation.

Either way, PowerPoint makes hyperlinking very easy. Let’s look at two examples(...)
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PowerPoint Distribution: How to Share a PowerPoint Presentation

Cynthia Giles — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:00:10 +0000

PowerPoint is a fact of life for most folks trying to communicate ideas in a corporate environment. And it’s a pretty good tool for practical purposes. But there are a few areas where it fails miserably, and distribution is one of them. Sharing a PowerPoint presentation can be a real headache.

In a corporate setting, PowerPoints are typically made to support a meeting or a speaker, and the slides are printed for handout. If the presentation is sent to attendees or others, it’s usually emailed as a PowerPoint file or put on a server somewhere for access. Recipients will be known to have PowerPoint, so that’s not a bother. Plus the presentation is probably self-contained—i.e., everything in it (text, objects, charts) is made with PowerPoint or can be embedded in the PowerPoint file—so it can be sent as a single file.

But what if you want to(...)
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4 Tips for Great Presentations & Slide Composition

Cynthia Giles — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:38:00 +0000

When it comes to creating awesome slideshows — whether you use PowerPoint, Keynote or other slideshow presentation software — there are some basic tips to keep in mind. Have a consistent overall template design. Animate with a purpose. Have excellent content and strong organization. Speak with bullet points and keep on message.

All these tips are great. But in the end, it’s important to remember that a well-designed slideshow presentation is the sum of its parts. So to make an good-looking presentation, start with a good slide.

Previous posts have offered tips for template design and basic slideshow animation. Now here are some considerations for creating well-composed slides.(...)
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How to Animate a PowerPoint Presentation

Cynthia Giles — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:00:53 +0000

We all want to create more dynamic PowerPoint presentations. You know the kind, presentations that draw the audience in and hold their attention. One way to bring more life to your presentations is through the use of movement or animation.

Yes, it is definitely possible to make a PowerPoint presentation look impressively animated. All you have to do is spend MANY hours skillfully applying custom animation to every element on every slide, timing every animation exactly, then weaving the slides together with transitions. And actually, there are a few reasons why you might want to go to this much trouble — but I’ll save that for another post.

Meanwhile . . . most of the time, most of us just want to add some tasteful, functional visual effects to a presentation. So let’s start with very simple steps that can introduce movement into your PowerPoint presentation — easily and quickly.(...)
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