PresentationPro

Essential FREE tools for PowerPoint users!

2010-12-30T11:39:00.000-08:00

Here is a short list of Free software and plugins related to PowerPoint to make your life easier. You’ll wonder how you lived without some of these amazing FREE programs for so long. These are all written by Microsoft and are completely free. There are a LOT more where these came from, these are some that I suspect you may not know about yet.

pptPlex

http://www.officelabs.com/projects/pptPlex/Pages/default.aspx

This tool enables you to zoom into and out of your PowerPoint slides, as well as jump between non-sequential ones. Once it's installed, launch PowerPoint and view the video tutorial to find out how to use it.

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923505

This tool enables users of Office 2000, XP and 2003 to open, edit and save documents in the new 2007 formats in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Install it and the functionality is immediately available in Office's File Open and Save As dialogue boxes.

Microsoft Office Viewers

Website

Don't have access to a copy of Office on another computer? You can now install special Viewers for Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, Visio or PowerPoint documents, enabling you to open, look at and print your work without having to download Office.

Microsoft Producer For PowerPoint

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=1B3C76D5-FC75-4F99-94BC-784919468E73&displaylang=en

This free-to-use add-on for PowerPoint makes it incredibly simple to create web-based presentations from existing PowerPoint slides. You can also use it in association with other media sources, such as video, audio and images.

You'll need to use the Microsoft Office Animation Runtime plug-in unless you're running Office 2007 – a handy download link is provided on the Microsoft Producer download page.

Ribbon Hero

http://www.officelabs.com/ribbonhero

The Ribbon interface was a great step forward for Office 2007 and 2010, but if you want to get the most of it, install Ribbon Hero.

It monitors what you do in Office and makes suggestions as to which features you should learn about that could help you do your work more efficiently. It also helps you learn about the Ribbon interface using games and tasks that can be played with your friends and colleagues.

A more comprehensive list can be found here that has a much longer list of 60 fantastic free software downloads essential to any PC user.

Read more: http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/60-best-free-pc-software-downloads-from-microsoft-914749#ixzz19cqeQver

PowerDESIGNS improved with NEW PowerSlides.

2010-11-22T11:50:00.000-08:00

PowerDESIGNS Package now includes PowerSlides; Pre-built animated PowerPoint slides professionally designed to improve presentations.
The PowerDESIGNS Package is now better than ever. Make great presentations with 4 products (templates, graphics, icons and slides) including more than 20,000 designs.
To start, we have pulled our complete powerslide library of over 900 slides plus many new designs to create a new growing library of slide layouts anyone can use for any occasion.
To browse and search through the new PowerSLIDE layouts, click here

166 New PowerPoint templates and designs added October 2010

2010-10-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

Every month, our professional designers add new PowerPoint templates and graphics to the PowerDESIGNS Package at presentationpro.com. PowerDesigns is the ultimate PowerPoint design package; keeping your presentations fresh and up-to-date with monthly content updates for PowerTEMPLATES, PowerGRAPHICS and PowerICONS. March's update focuses on new growth, people in business, concepts, design, puzzles and many individual requests from our customers.

51 New PowerPoint Templates

See ALL new PowerPoint Templates

60 New PowerPoint Graphics

See ALL new PowerPoint Graphics

55 New PowerPoint Icons

See ALL new PowerPoint Icons

Keep the requests and feedback coming! Each month, the content we update is based on selections by our artists as well as requests by our customers. Email us at templatesuggestions@presentationpro.com to let us know what you think about September’s update or give us suggestions for future additions to our PowerDESIGNS library (over 18,000 designs and still growing every month).

What's changed in PowerPoint templates and what are themes?

2010-10-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

So what is a PowerPoint template? What changed in PowerPoint 2007? When did Themes show up and how do I use them??? Joy Miller, a writer on the PowerPoint User Assistance team at Microsoft, has the answers and some useful demonstrations.

"To create color-coordinated slides with matching fonts and backgrounds in your next PowerPoint 2007 presentation, you should understand the difference between PowerPoint 2003 and earlier design templates and PowerPoint 2007 themes.. ..I've noticed that there seems to be some misunderstanding among PowerPoint 2007 users about how to give presentations a designer-quality look..."

Find the full article at (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/office-hours-what-happened-to-powerpoint-design-templates-and-what-are-themes-HA010237110.aspx).

PDF to PowerPoint converter

2010-09-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

Displaying PDF content in PowerPoint just got easier!

Benefits

PDF to PowerPoint enables you to convert PDF files to PowerPoint (PPT) presentations.

Support Microsoft Office 2010,2007,2003

Convert encrypted PDF to PowerPoint

Preserve original text, images, tables, graphics, hyperlinks, layout and formatting

Support batch, partial and shortcut conversion mode

learn more

158 new PowerPoint templates and graphics added in September 2010

2010-09-21T10:37:00.000-07:00

158 New PowerPoint Templates Added September 2010

40 New PowerPoint Templates

See ALL new PowerPoint Templates

63 New PowerPoint Graphics

See ALL new PowerPoint Graphics

55 New PowerPoint Icons

See ALL new PowerPoint Icons

New PowerPoint templates and graphics added in July 2010

2010-07-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

Come see what's new this month!
Download Whats new this month PowerPoint Templates and PowerPoint Backgrounds

40 new PowerPoint Templates (http://www.presentationpro.com/in/ptwhatsnew)
24 new PowerPoint Graphics (http://www.presentationpro.com/in/pgwhatsnew)
180 new PowerPoint Icons (http://www.presentationpro.com/in/piwhatsnew)

Presenting with PowerPoint: 10 dos and don'ts

2010-07-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

Presenting with PowerPoint: 10 dos and don'ts: "Presenting with PowerPoint: 10 dos and don'ts"

Cherie Kerr knows how PowerPoint can be both provocative and persuasive in a business meeting.

She's also aware that precisely the opposite can occur.

"It can be the very best friend you have," says the Santa Ana, Calif., public relations consultant. "But you have to use it right."

Kerr's two-sided view of Microsoft's popular presentation and graphics program in Office Small Business mirrors a debate coursing through business and academia. While many embrace the values of PowerPoint as a potent business tool, there are others who contend that it's a drag on effective interaction — that it confuses, distorts and even strangles communication.
But, as Kerr points out, any discussion of PowerPoint's merits and miscues merely illustrates the importance of using the program to best advantage. Here are 10 ways to use PowerPoint to help make your business look brilliant, not brainless. ...

Download Whats new this month PowerPoint Templates and PowerPoint Backgrounds

2010-06-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

June 2010 New PowerPoint templates includes widescreen formats and all new PowerPoint 2010 animated templates and PowerPoint 2010 widescreen animated templates.

73 templates added
Download new PowerPoint Templates added this month

19 graphics added
Download new PowerPoint Graphics added this month

180 icons added
Download new PowerPoint Icons added this month

for more on the PowerDESIGNS online package and over 18,000 designs, click here

Free Microsoft Office Web Apps Available

2010-06-16T14:19:00.000-07:00

Microsoft launched its free Windows Live versions of Office Web Apps.

The new service is currently available in English for Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Canadians can access a French version too; a Spanish version is also available for the United States. Microsoft plans to expand the service to other locales and languages in "the coming months," according to the PowerPoint team blog.

Office Web Apps are simplified versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that run in supported Web browsers. These applications use the "Ribbon" user interface menu system that was first introduced in Office 2007, although the menu is far less extensive. For Windows systems, supported browsers include Internet Explorer 7 and 8 and Firefox 3.5. On the Mac operating system, Safari 4 is supported.

Users need to sign up for a Windows Live password to access the service, but it's all free. The service can be accessed anywhere using a supported browser and an Internet connection at http://www.office.live.com. Smartphone users can view Word and PowerPoint files without additional software on most devices, according to Microsoft's announcement. Printing files in Word and PowerPoint Web Apps can be done right from the browser.

read more from the original article here.

PowerPoint 2010 Viewer released

2010-06-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

The new PPT viewer was resently released and I have taken the time to run a series of presentations built in different version of PowerPoint to test it. Here is what I have found...

For starters, this viewer isn't like the previous versions; a light weight, quick download. The new PowerPoint 2010 viewer is 60MB! It also needs to be truly installed vs. the previous versions that could be run directly from a CDROM or USB drive. That is a significant down side for taking PowerPoint presentations with you and planning on playing them on any computer with out installing or needing admin rights. Aside from that, there is nothing but praise for the capabilities of what it can do. It handles ALL animations, transitions, trigger events, media, and everything I've thrown at it from all versions of PowerPoint (I tried PPT, PPTX, PPS, PPSX all from multiple versions and languages of PowerPoint). From what I have tested, it runs everything that the full application runs including password protected presentations. You can play and print slides, you just can't edit anything.

You can download the viewer from Microsoft.com here.

Improve Your PowerPoint Presentations with Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 Rule

2010-05-21T11:50:00.001-07:00

Do PowerPoint presentations put you to sleep — or at least put your
brain’s higher reasoning facilities to sleep? Sure, it can happen,
especially during presentations which are especially bad.

Earlier today, I told you about how some senior military
leaders are starting to believe that PowerPoint is eating our brains.
If you really must build a PowerPoint presentation, here’s one
antidote.

Internet
guru Guy Kawasaki has long advocated something called the 10/20/30 Rule,
designed to encourage you to make smarter, sharper, more effective
presentations. Here’s what you need to know:

10 slides. Guy says this is the optimal number of
slides because humans cant process more than ten concepts in a single
sitting.

20 minutes. The whole pitch should take no more than
20 minutes. If you book an hour, that gives you nearly 40 minutes for
questions.

30-point font. That’s the smallest your text should
appear anywhere in the deck. If you make the text smaller, you’re going
to be tempted to just pour your whole narrative onto the slides and read
from the deck — which is a fatal error which will cost you your
audience’s respect and attention. [via ReadWrite]

Deliver Better Presentations by Understanding PowerPoint's Top 3 Myths

2010-05-21T11:49:00.001-07:00

I don’t hate PowerPoint. I use it frequently, and the honest truth is
that I actually like it quite a bit. But my caveat is that I believe
I’m an excellent public speaker. I am a comfortable extemporaneous
speaker, and I know how to use PowerPoint as a tool to enhance my
presentation.

But what if speaking in public is not a natural skill for you? You
might fall prey to many of the problems that afflict the military’s
use of PowerPoint. More to the point, you should be wary of the 3
key myths that cause the worst PowerPoint abuse.

In last week’s Harvard
Business Review, David Silverman picked up on the same New York
Times article I told you about yesterday, and he reminded us why he
thinks that “PowerPoint has consumed the best years of too many young
lives.”

But again, let’s be clear: PowerPoint is a pretty good tool, if used
properly. And the complaints I’m reading about these days aren’t
confined to PowerPoint. There’s nothing inherently evil about
PowerPoint. I spent some time in the Air Force, and I can assure you
that I had to make 3-bullet slides on overhead transparencies all the
way back in 1992, long before PowerPoint was on every desktop.
PowerPoint simply made it easier to make those presentations look more
polished and authoritative.

All that said, here are 3 PowerPoint myths which lead to the terrible
presentation experiences we see today:

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words. The ease of
creating graphics has led to people making dense, incomprehensible
charts and diagrams which detract, rather than add to,
understandability. They take longer to make, longer to suss out, and can
often be replaced more effectively with a few words.

PowerPoint Is for Reading. Whenever someone requests
(or demands) that you send the PowerPoint deck ahead of time — so it
can be reviewed the day before the presentation — a kitten dies. It
forces you to build long, dense presentations which stand alone, rather
than support your verbal presentation. Try to follow Guy Kawasaki’s
10/20/30 Rule. If you don’t, you might as well just write a report in
Word.

Brevity Above All Else. You can go too far in the
other direction, as well. Single word slides are completely inscrutable a
week after your presentation.

Broadcasting, Co-Authoring in PowerPoint 2010

2010-05-21T11:46:00.001-07:00

Key Features in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 – Broadcasting, Co-Authoring [Collaboration]

Key Features in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 – Broadcasting, Co-Authoring [Collaboration]

Microsoft Office 2010 is targeted towards enterprise collaboration and like any other Office 2010 product, it does take inspiration from the existing products.

We earlier reviewed the key features in Outlook 2010 and today, we will tell you some of the interesting stuff in PowerPoint 2010.
Co-authoring

Multiple people will be able to work on the same presentation and add to this, integration with office communicator makes the collaboration more interactive.

As far as MS’s biggest competitor is concerned, this feature will be available in the next release.
Video Files

You will be able to edit/trim/select relevant sections in the video, all using the new version of PowerPoint. You can also set the video to fade in and out at specified intervals and apply a variety of video styles and effects. We played with this feature a lot and while it worked perfectly with Youtube videos, we faced issues while embedding videos from sites like blip.tv.
Broadcast

Power2010 will enable you to instantly broadcast your presentations by sending out a URL (public/private access) so that people can view your presentation on the Web (requires Windows Live). Your audience can see your slides in high fidelity, even if they don’t have PowerPoint installed.

Think of this as a real time Slideshare feature, and perfect for collaborative meetings.
Device Access

Post your presentations online and then access, view, and edit them from the Web or your Windows phone. With PowerPoint 2010, you can get things done according to your schedule across multiple locations and devices.

* Microsoft PowerPoint Web App. Extend your PowerPoint experience to the Web and enjoy full-screen, high-quality viewing of our presentations. Store your presentations online and edit your work through the PowerPoint Web App when you’re away from your office, home, or school.

What is important to note here is that Office 2010 web apps are far richer in functionality that Google Docs and as we mentioned earlier, can be accessed via Facebook as well [Docs.com].

Other interesting features include the ability to work on multiple presentations/multiple monitors, a lot better image editing, better implementation of slide transition features etc makes PowerPoint 2010 a much better product than the earlier version.

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Advice on Taking an Audience to the Pictures

2010-05-21T11:43:00.001-07:00

The two main aims when delivering a presentation are; firstly, to
persuade the audience to the correct point of view by imparting
information; and secondly, to make that information memorable. This is
because the audience will only act on the information they can remember.

"When used correctly, a relevant video clip can strengthen a point already touched on in the slides, for example by providing case study evidence from a satisfied customer in a corporate presentation. This also adds a human dimension which makes the proposition easier for the audience to relate to."

To read more: m62
Offers Advice on Taking an Audience to the Pictures

Download 2007 Optimized PowerPoint Templates and PowerPoint Backgrounds

2010-05-19T12:59:00.001-07:00

Download 2007 Optimized PowerPoint Templates and PowerPoint Backgrounds

The U.S. Military's War On PowerPoint

2010-05-12T11:13:00.001-07:00

There's an insidious force plaguing our nation's military. It's vaster than any insurgent network, though much closer to home. It confounds our commanders and keeps our generals up at night. And it's included with every copy of Microsoft Office.

Today's New York Times gives top billing to the story, in which PowerPoint is shown to be a foe that our military just can't finish off. The software's used for conveying just about everything that the military needs to convey on a daily basis, and what that means for the armed forces is a generally mind-numbing volume of slides. Here's are some of the ways in which our armed forces are becoming increasingly mired in the swamps of PowerPoint:

• It oversimplifies things

The complexities of war simply cannot be represented in a PowerPoint slide, detractors explain. One such commander, Brigadier General H.R. McMaster, suggests that bullet points take "no account of interconnected political, economic and ethnic forces." "If you divorce war from all of that," he explains, "it becomes a targeting exercise."

• It doesn't simplify things enough

As evidenced by the slide pictured above, shown to General Stanley A. McChrystal last summer, charts and graphs don't make sense for the big picture of war. Faced with the "bowl of spaghetti," the General remarked: "When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war."

• It wastes time

PowerPoint presentations are a pain in the ass to make, and many service members are charged with making them all the time. When asked what takes up most of his day, platoon leader Lt. Sam Nuxoll said, "making PowerPoint slides." He wasn't kidding. But, as any college graduate will attest, even worse than making PowerPoint presentations is sitting through them—General David Petraeus describes it as "just agony." Our military is getting hammered on both fronts with this one.

• It dissolves accountability

The idea that our nation's armed forces are fighting a war against PowerPoint is amusing, but relying on the software for important militaristic communication can have serious consequences. The Times describes one situation in the run up to the Iraq war in which PowerPoint slides were passed around like a hot potato as the chain of command tried to discern details of an invasion. When PowerPoint creeps from the illustrative peripheries to the center of our military's campaigns, well, that's no good.

One General warns that PowerPoint creates "the illusion of control," and that really gets to the heart of the matter. It's easy to overlook the spaces that exist in between PowerPoint bullets. And even though we're keenly aware of that fact, it's still hard to break the spell. PowerPoint isn't only a resource for bureaucracies but is, in a sense, a reflection of them, and it's for that reason that many commanders think we might be too deeply engaged with PowerPoint to pull out any time soon. [NYTimes]

What to expect in PowerPoint 2010: Part 2

2010-04-26T05:57:00.000-07:00

55 New features in PowerPoint10 worth discussing.
PowerPoint has been in the back seat of the office wagon for a long time. It get’s updated but I’ve always felt that its updates have always been at the expense of keeping it looking like the rest of the office suite. This time however I think Microsoft realized how important PowerPoint is to the online community and how to use PowerPoint to share ideas and collaborate in business or personal settings in a whole new way.

11. Backstage: This is the name for all of the options that appear when you click the File button. Lots of new stuff here, not all of it is easy to find.

12. Automatic Layout: If you have an empty content placeholder available when you Insert | Chart, the chart is automatically inserted into that placeholder. Actually, it’s not just charts, it’s almost anything – tables, charts, SmartArt, pictures, clipart, video and sound (media) – anything that has an icon in that content placeholder! I hate hate hate this, and I don’t know how to turn it off. (Actually, PPT 2007 has the same behavior.)

13. Accessibility Checker: Found under File | Info | Check for Issues, this is a great tool that gives you advice for making your specific file easier for people with disabilities to read. This is where PowerPoint is trying to be 508 compliant.

14. Dynamic Print Preview: File | Print now has an integrated print preview. All the various options (scale to fit paper, high quality, etc.) are buried in the dropdowns, and the Print button is at the top left.

15. Print Overflow Speaker Notes: Those speaker notes that just go on and on for pages? Now those overflow notes will print! Just type a bunch of text in the notes area (first make sure to go to File | Options | Proofing | AutoCorrect Options and turn off Autofit Body Text to Placeholder) until it falls off the end of the page. Now choose File | Print and look at that slide and the next one in the preview on the right.

16. Send to Word in Black and White: For those of us who remember this feature, it’s back. Finally! First go to View | Black and White (or Grayscale) so you’re in Black and White View. Then go to File | Save & Send | Create Handouts | Create Handouts to perform what used to be called Send to Word.

In the Send to Word dialog box, choose Paste Link, and if you’re in Black and White View when you perform this task, the slide thumbnails will be in black and white in Word.

Break the links in Word to maintain the black-and-white images. To break the links, right-click a slide thumbnail in Word and choose Linked Slide Object | Links. Select all the links in the dialog and click the Break Link button.

This feature was available in PowerPoint 97 and 2000, but it did not work in PowerPoint 2002, 2003 and 2007. I’m very happy to have it back!

17. Save as Video: Turn your presentation into a video with one click, complete with sounds, narration, animation, transitions, slide timings, etc.

18. Save to Web (SkyDrive): This lets you upload your file directly to SkyDrive, where you (or others who have access to your folder) can view it in a browser using the PowerPoint Web App. You can also do some minor editing in the Web App (or you can launch the file in PowerPoint itself and edit there).

19. Package for CD: you may recognize this but trust me; it’s new. Package for CD still gathers your presentations and linked files and lets you add more files to the CD, but it doesn’t include a Viewer any more. This is because the Viewer that supports 2010 PPTX-format files won’t run from a CD – it must actually be installed on the computer. The new HTML splash screen has a link so the recipient can easily download and install the Viewer.

20. Edit Links: The Edit Links to Files option that shows up in File | Info when you have linked files in your presentation also includes multimedia links now. (You have to save the file before you’ll see the Edit Links option.)

21. Optimize Media Compatibility: This tool adapts the encoding of embedded media to help improve playback quality on other machines. You will see File | Optimize Media Compatibility enabled only when there are non-optimized media objects embedded in the file. (It won't be enabled for WMA, WMV or MIDI because those are already optimized. It also won't be enabled for SWF files or Online Video because those cannot be embedded.)

22. Insert Screenshot: Lets you insert a screenshot of an open Window or a screen clipping (where you select a portion of the window to copy).

23. Equation Editor: has been improved. PowerPoint 2010 is now using the same one as Word.

24. SDI: PowerPoint 2010 finally has a true Single Document Interface. That means that if you have more than one PPT file open, each one has its own window and Ribbon. This makes working on multiple monitors, for example, much, much easier – you can put one file on each monitor and the editing tools will be right there for each one.

25. Customize Ribbon: We can now customize the Ribbon. Yay! You can add custom groups to the existing tabs on the Ribbon and then add commands to the custom groups. You can also make your own tabs. This is Office-wide, not just PowerPoint.

26. Smart Guides: These look like little whiskers that appear when you’re dragging objects around on the slide to align them. Flash has had them for years – I’m excited that PPT finally does, too!

27. Lorem Ipsum Text: If you make templates and sample slides like I do, this tip will be handy: type =lorem() in the placeholder, and you’ll get Lorem Ipsum text! (This is dummy text used to so the viewer can concentrate on the formatting and not be distracted by the text.)

28. Dynamic Paste with Live Preview: Instead of getting a Paste button on the right-click menu (or on the Paste button dropdown from the Ribbon), you now get a variety of Paste options with Live Preview (so you can see what that paste option will do) as you hover over each. This is an Office-wide feature, not just PowerPoint.

29. Reading View: Plays presentation in a different window. A new easy way to check animations quickly because PowerPoint 2010 is SDI, Reading View gives you an easy way to run multiple slide shows in individual windows.

30. Trigger to Bookmark: This is actually very cool, but it’s not obvious. You can add a bookmark to video or sound on your slide. Then you can animate an object and set it to Trigger to Bookmark. This makes the animation occur when you come to that point in the video. Finally we can synch animations to the multimedia! It's perfect for adding captions to video, for example. Find this on the Animations tab.

31. Embedded Video: Video can now be embedded! This includes WMV, MOV (yes, MOV!), AVI, MPEG, almost any video file type you can think of. (Note: SWF files can be inserted, but they cannot be embedded -- they are linked. Online video is not embedded. MOV and SWF cannot be inserted into 64-bit PowerPoint because there is no 64-bit Flash Player.)

32. Embedded Audio: Audio can now be embedded! This includes WAV, MP3, MIDI, WMA, MP4, M4a, almost any sound file type you can think of. (PowerPoint 2007 and prior would only embed WAV files.)

33. Show Media Controls: Multimedia files now have a media control slider that appears when you move your mouse toward the video. This lets you move around easily in the video during your presentation. Turn this off or on on the Slide Show tab. The bad: this is a presentation-wide setting, so the media controls are either on or off for all videos in your file; you can’t set this for each individual video.

34. Bookmarks: You can add bookmarks to the videos, further helping you jump around in the video using the Media Controls. See also Trigger to Bookmark. With this, you can now set markers to automatically jump into a time marker of the video.

35. Trim Video and Audio: In-place editing: trim time off the beginning and end of a video or sound file.

36. Multimedia Fade In / Fade Out: Tell PowerPoint to fade the audio or video file in or out. You no longer have to take the file to an outside editing program to do this.

37. Video Corrections, Brightness and Contrast: modify the brightness and contrast of the video right there on the slide in PowerPoint.

38. Video Color: Add a duotone color wash to your video.

39. Poster Frame: Specify the video’s preview image. Now in PowerPoint when you see a static image of the video place holder, you can choose what to see in its place.

40. Video Styles: These are like the picture styles, but for video.

41. Video Shape: Changes the shape of the video. Need the video to play inside a circular frame? No problem.

42. Video Effects: Add effects like reflections and bevels and soft edges to your videos.

43. Video Crop: Crop the video on the slide. The same crop options to hide areas in pictures is now available for all the video formats.

44. Compress Media: The various editing options (trim, crop, etc.) are non-destructive. That is, the entire media clip is still there in the file. Use the Compress Media options to permanently delete the trimmed and cropped media information and make the PowerPoint file smaller. (Find Compress Media on the File menu.)

45. New SmartArt Diagrams: There are a number of new SmartArt diagrams.

46. Convert SmartArt to Shapes: You can do this in PPT 2007 after applying SP2, but it’s built in already in PPT 2010.

47. Convert SmartArt to Text: We’ve always been able to convert text to SmartArt, but now we can go the other way.

48. Resize Individual SmartArt Shapes: We’re no longer limited to sizing the entire SmartArt diagram using the size chunk on the Ribbon.

49. Remove Background: New tool for pictures, lets you drop out the background of an image. You don’t need an outside image editing program to do this! If you insert a square JPEG and it covers other designs or text, you can quickly remove the square around the shape you want.

50. Picture Corrections: Adjust brightness and contrast, sharpen and soften images.

51. Artistic Effects: New filters, add effects to your images to make them look like pencil sketches or plastic or paintings or textured objects.

52. Improved Crop: The crop tool now shows the entire image behind the crop marks even while you’re cropping it, which makes it much easier to crop precisely. There’s also a “crop to aspect ratio” option which makes it easy to crop a picture to a specific dimension. (We can’t set the dimension – PPT gives us these to choose from: 1:1, 2:3, 3:4, 3:5, 4:5, 3:2, 4:3, 5:3, 5:4, 16:9, 16:10)

53. Edit Points Improvements: Edit Points are much better now. The adjustment handles like I expect, the points themselves are easy to select and move. Press Shift while grabbing an adjustment handle and the point becomes a Smooth Point. Press Ctrl while grabbing and dragging an adjustment handle and the point becomes a Straight Point. Press Alt and the point becomes a Corner point.

54. Direct Edit Points: Right-click a shape and choose Edit Points. No need to convert it to a freeform first.

55. Translation: Translate words or paragraphs using machine translation or dictionaries.

56. Compare Presentations: It’s not Track Changes, but it’s a very nice tool that lets you compare two versions of a presentation to see (and accept or reject) changes.

57. Broadcast Slide Show: This is a simple built in online presenter for PowerPoint 2010. Perfect for internal conference calls and on-the-fly slide presentations over the Internet. Start the broadcast, and your audience can view the presentation in a web browser. You control the presentation. You need a Windows Live ID to initiate a Broadcast. Video and sound in your presentation don't play in the broadcasted file.

58. Rehearse Timings, Record Slide Show (Record Narrations): These have been improved. They’re easier to use and don’t seem to fight with each other quite so much.

59. Pattern Fills: Pattern Fills are back!

60. Nudge: When you need to push a shape just that tiny bit.

61. Laser Pointer: In Slide Show View, press CTRL then press the left mouse button. Behold the big fat pointer!

62. Combine Shapes: These work like the Pathfinder tools in Illustrator, allowing you to build your own shapes. Unfortunately, they're not anywhere in the PowerPoint 2010 interface, so you have to add them to the QAT or Ribbon. Right-click and choose Customize QAT (or Ribbon). Choose commands from Commands Not in the Ribbon, and add Shape Combine, Shape Intersect, Shape Subtract and Shape Union. Now draw two overlapping shapes and use one of those tools.

63. Save as Picture Presentation: This saves your slides as a series of images and puts them into a new, blank presentation. It's a quick and dirty way to "protect" slides from editing but still allow someone to use the slide itself. Choose File | Save As and select PowerPoint Picture Presentation near the bottom of the Save as Type dropdown list. It's also found under File | Save & Send | Change File Type.

64. Co-Authoring: Two (or more) people can edit a presentation simultaneously. Requires SkyDrive or Sharepoint Foundation 2010.

65. Shift + Freeform: Pressing Shift while creating a freeform object now constrains you to vertical and horizontal lines.

I’m sure I’ve left a few things out. As a long time user of PowerPoint (15 years and counting), I use PowerPoint as a method to an end point. Anything that gets me to that end point faster and with fewer headaches is good. I definitely put a lot of these items into that category of good for my head and sanity. Over the past 15 years I really can’t count how many times I’ve cursed and screamed and pulled my hair out because of PowerPoint. Hopefully some of our prayers have been answered by this false idol and we can start to lower our blood pressure medication back to normal.

What to expect in PowerPoint 2010! Part 1

2010-04-26T05:53:00.000-07:00

Get ready for a few surprises. Microsoft PowerPoint team set some pretty high goals and I think they may have achieved a good number of them. We’ve waited for features that are available in other applications and should have been available in PowerPoint for SO long. Just to name a few, having groupings of slide that you can collapse, z-index for videos, advanced filters for images and video, embedded video… On top of this, PowerPoint finally added new transitions! How long has it been with the same set of transitions?

Here is a link to the PPT and Office Art blog. This is where you can go to discuss PowerPoint (any version) at length with Microsoft professionals. A lot of the information gathered in this list was found in the MSDN PowerPoint blog above.

So let’s get started, here's a list of new features and tools in PowerPoint.

The top 10 biggest improvements to PowerPoint 2010!

1. Sections: These let you add sections to your presentations. Basically grouping slides like chapters, you can name them, collapse them, move them around, etc. This works similar to the groupings in Adobe Photoshop. When you are working on a larger PowerPoint presentation and you have sections that you need to keep together, you can group each section and name them, then collapse it down for easier editing.

2. New Themes: There are a bunch of new themes pre-installed from Microsoft, which also means we have a bunch of new color sets, font sets and effects sets to choose from on the Design tab. Also available with PowerPoint 2010 is a new launch of office Live to browse free templates and graphics.

3. New Transitions: New transitions!!! Reveal, Flash, Ripple, Honeycomb, Glitter, Vortex, Shred, Switch, Flip, Gallery, Cube, Doors, Box, Pan, Ferris Wheel, Conveyor, Rotate, Window, Orbit, Fly Through. We have been watching the same transition effects since 1997. This has been a LONG time coming. I hope we don’t have to wait more than a decade each time we want new transitions.

4. Old Transitions Improved: Even the old transitions look much better than they used to: Cut, Fade, Push, Wipe, Split, Random Bars, Shape, Uncover, Cover, Dissolve, Checkerboard, Blinds, Clock (Wheel).

5. Transition Duration: We can now control transition duration by inputting a specific number of seconds duration – we’re no longer limited to slow, medium and fast. This may not seem that important but to those of us who often add voice narration or music to a presentation, this means so much more control.

6. Video Respects Z-Order: This means video doesn’t always play on top anymore! You can put anything you want on top of the video now – callouts, arrows, thought bubbles, slide content, whatever. This (coupled with Trigger to Bookmark) is perfect for captions. This is great for having an animated background. Microsoft recognizes how important video has become and has dramatically enhanced video playback in PowerPoint. Lots of video improvements but this one is pretty big.

7. Insert Video from Online Site: Easily insert videos from web sites such as YouTube. For training presentations or product demonstrations, you can keep your audience in PowerPoint. Instead of adding a hyperlink in your presentation to ‘click here for video’, you can load the video right into the slide. You don’t have to worry about a web browser and the clunky visual transition as the web page loads while your audience starts to lose interest. They stay focused and in your presentation the whole time. (Note: this video is not embedded in the PowerPoint file. You must have an Internet connection during the presentation. Also, if the video is deleted from the web site, it will no longer work in PowerPoint.)

8. Animation Painter: We can apply animations from one object to another using the Animation Painter tool. (It works like the Format Painter, but for animations.) You don’t have to draw every animation for each item you want to animate. This can save hours or days of design time when building a long presentation!

9. Animation Effect Enhancements: When you add an animation and then double-click it in the Animation Pane to access more Effect Options, well, these Effect Options are now more granular. We can now specify timings for a smooth start, smooth end and a bounce end on a Motion Path or a Fly In animation, for example.

10. Save Unsaved Documents: PowerPoint 2010 now saves your files even if you close the file without saving it. Manage Versions lets you recover these. Don’t be fooled – this is not a substitute for properly saving your files! BUT it might just save your butt…

That’s just the start.

Part 2: 55 New features in PowerPoint10 worth discussing.

New PowerPoint Templates added March 2010

2010-04-07T08:46:00.000-07:00

50 New PowerPoint Templates

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150 New PowerPoint Graphics

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People In Business Icons

People Icons

Technology & Computers Icons

New 8GB PowerDrive for PowerPoint Templates and Graphics

2010-04-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

New to the PowerDESIGNS family! PowerDESIGNS PowerDrive is an 8GB USB Flash Drive that comes with the COMPLETE library of templates, graphics and icons as well as a 1 year subscription to download content from the web! Get all of the templates, graphics and icons on this hot new item. PowerDesigns is the ultimate PowerPoint design package; keeping your presentations fresh and up-to-date with monthly content updates for PowerTEMPLATES , PowerGRAPHICS and PowerICONS. The PowerDESIGNS library (over 18,000 designs) is one of the largest collections of professional PowerPoint templates and designs available. The high quality images that go into our designs make downloading for some users troublesome and now the content no longer fits on 1 DVD. Rather than moving to a multi-disk system, we decided to lead the market once again and offer a product like no one else can. The PowerDrive uses the 1-Click Express tool to browse the templates and graphics categories and makes finding the right design quick and painless. PowerDESIGNS is also Windows 7 and Office 10 compatible. For more information, click here

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