Make it so

"Here's a Power User column for teachers. Want to involve your students more in a presentation? Set up "triggers" for them to click as they go through the show. Triggers (related to animations) lets you add surprise to your slides while inviting your viewer to take part and have fun."

Labels: Animation, General, Graphics, Instructional, Presentation, Reference, Shortcuts, Tips, Tutorials

Free Holiday templates

Labels: General, Graphics, Presentation, Reference, Templates, Tips, Tutorials

Suggestions

• Writing Skills
  
• Research and Documentation St yles
  
• Grammar and Mechanics
  
• Business/ Professional Writing
  
• Agricultural Economics/Cooperative Extension

Cross-referencing: Using MLA Format

This presentation teaches your students the purposes of MLA documentation, as well as methods for using parenthetical citations and a Works Cited page. This presentation is an important addition for the beginning of a research unit in a humanities course or any assignment that requires MLA documentation. (Writer and Designer: Jennifer Liethen Kunka)

Documenting Sources: Using APA Format

This presentation reviews the purposes of APA documentation, as well as methods for effectively using parenthetical citations and a reference page. This presentation is ideal for the begin ning of a research unit in a science course or any assignment that requires APA documentation. (Writer and Designer: Jennifer Liethen Kunka).

Labels: General, Instructional, Presentation, Reference, Tutorials

Choose your own location

Word

you can change the default location by going to Tools>Options. On the "File Locations" tab you can modify the storage location.

Excel

Tools>Options. On the "General" tab change the default location.

PowerPoint

uses Tools>Options and the "Save" tab.

Access

Tools>Options and the "General" tab for Databases and Projects

Publisher

Tools>Options "General".

Outlook

will make you take an underground tour into the Registry to change the location to save e-mail attachments.

FrontPage/Expression Web

appears to require the same sort of spelunking.

Labels: Customize, General, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

By Cliff Atkinson

"But what might not be evident in the simplicity of this slide is what happens when the audience experiences it along with your verbal explanation. Because the slide design is simple, the audience can quickly scan the headline and visual and understand the idea. Then their attention turns to the place you want it. — to you, the words you're saying, and the way the information relates to them. Instead of making everything explicit and obvious on the slides, you can leave the slides open to interpretation so the audience is dependent on you, and you on them.

What (the experts are) saying, basically, is that slides filled with bullet points create obstacles between presenters and audiences. You might want to be natural and relaxed when you present, but people say that bullet points make the atmosphere formal and stiff. You might aim to be clear and concise, but people often walk away from these presentations feeling confused and unclear. And you might intend to display the best of your critical thinking on a screen, but people say that bullet points "dumb down" the important discourse that needs to happen for our society to function well.

Somewhere in our collective presentation experience, we're not connecting the dots between presenters and audiences by using the conventional bullet points approach. This issue is of rising concern not only to individuals and audiences - even the major players of large organizations are taking notice of the problem. It seems that in every location where people meet, from small meeting rooms to board rooms to conference halls, people want a change."

Labels: Customize, General, Reference, Shortcuts, Tips, Tutorials

Noise and motion

• Animate text or objects
  
  
• Add sound effects to an animation or hyperlink
  
  
• Use sample animations in your presentation
  

Labels: Animation, General, Presentation, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

An easier read

MsgBox(prompt[, buttons] [, title] [, helpfile, context])

MsgBox "Hello World!", , "My Message Box"

MsgBox Title:="My Message Box", _
Prompt:="Hello World!"

Labels: VBA

How big should you go?

"For example, if you're using a 60 inch screen and have 32 point text on your slides, the furthest someone should be is 57 feet from the screen."

Labels: Fonts, General, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

Hearing and vision enhanced

With PowerPoint presentations becoming more of a standard way to communicate information of all types, we need to keep in mind that our first responsibility is to our audience. We need to use the ideas above to make sure that we make our presentation accessible for everyone.

Labels: General, Instructional, Presentation, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

A type change

Labels: Customize, Fonts, General, Reference, Shortcuts, Tips, Tutorials

Copy/Paste formatting in Word, PowerPoint or Excel

Labels: Formats, General, Reference, Shortcuts, Tips, Tutorials

Connect with other PowerPoint users

Labels: General, Instructional, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

Portable PowerPoint

Labels: General, Instructional, Presentation, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

Video + Free code

"Learn tips and use sample code for several Office applications. These tips can help you to be more productive and can also be a starting point for developing your own tools, utilities and techniques."

• Update Word Document Statistics in the Title Bar
  
• Create Outlook Rules Programmatically
  
• Delete Repeated Text Throughout a Word Document
  
• Run Macros Based on the Value of One or More Excel Spreadsheet Cells
  
• Disable Related Controls on a PowerPoint Slide After a User Clicks an Input Control
  
• Display Reminder Information When a User Opens an Office Document
  
• Synchronize an Access Main Form to a Subform and Vice Versa
  
• Log Worksheet Changes to an XML File
  
• Merge Body Text from Multiple Outlook E-mail Messages to a Word Document
  
• Use the Office Assistant as an Alternative to Displaying and Retrieving User Input

Labels: Reference, Tips, Tutorials, VBA

Fresh material

Labels: Customize, General, Instructional, Reference, Templates, Tips, Tutorials

Imbedded videos

"Use this to insert YouTube videos into a PowerPoint slide. All you need to do is to provide the YouTube video URL that appears in the browser address bar, the rest is taken care of by the YTV Wizard.

Note: YouTube videos are streamed so a live internet connection is required to playback the video during the slideshow. Use the free FlashBack add-in to play/rewind the YouTube video automatically."

Labels: Addin, General, Graphics, Presentation, Reference, Shortcuts, Tips, Tutorials

Bigger and better (?)

"In this release, we have increased that maximum to 75x75 within the UI.

We were able to do this because we made the decision to move away from the metaphor of a table simply being a group of shapes, as it was in previous versions.
This has been one of the largest enabling factors in our performance gains, and as a result, tables are workable at sizes much greater than that of 25x25.

A tradeoff made in order to obtain these gains in performance was the ability to "ungroup" a table.

While this tradeoff means that there are a set of scenarios no longer present, specifically the ability to ungroup a table to animate individual pieces, we feel that the performance gains (not to mention all the other aspects talked about in this section of the blog) along with the ability to use multiple tables and/or shapes in these scenarios will benefit users in a much greater way."

1. Right-click the table, choose Save as Picture
   
   
2. Save as EMF (choose EMF from the "save as type dropdown list)
   
   
3. InsertPicture, insert the EMF
   
   
4. Ungroup the EMF twice
   
   
5. Now regroup the parts you need to animate -- rows, columns, or whatever

Labels: General, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

Portable hints

• Recipients who don't have PowerPoint
• PowerPoint version compatibility
• Links - to images, sounds, movies and OLE content (graphs, charts, spreadsheets, Word pages etc.)
• Sound and movie compatibility
• Fonts
• Timing/Synchronization
• VBA code and Controls
• Recipients using assistive technology

Labels: General, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

Send outline to PowerPoint

For Microsoft Office 2007+

Word 2007+ doesn't allow you to publish to PowerPoint 2007 by default.

Here's the solution:

After you are done in Word 2007+, save it as a Word document.

Now open PowerPoint 2007+.

Click on the Office Button at the top left hand corner.

Click Open.

Under Files of type, select All Outlines.

Now select the Word document and click Open.

Alternately,

In Word 2007+, right click on the ribbon.

Select Customize Quick Access Toolbar.

Under "Choose commands from:", select Commands not in the ribbon.

Look for "Send to Microsoft Office PowerPoint".

Click OK.

The command will then be added onto the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT).

Labels: General, Reference, Shortcuts, Tips, Tutorials

Presentation alternative

Labels: General, Presentation, Reference, Shortcuts, Tips

It's mouse and keyboard quick!

"At the bottom left hand corner of PowerPoint (bottom right for PowerPoint 2007), you will see 3 mini buttons. They are: Normal View, Slide Sorter View, and Slide Show. Now here's a quick trick:

When you hover over these 3 mini buttons, hold down the Shift key. The mini buttons will now become Slide Master view, Handout Master view, and Set Up Show respectively."

Labels: Customize, General, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

Exchange the future and the past

"Microsoft has added new file formats to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007+. To help ensure that you can exchange documents between Microsoft Office releases, Microsoft has developed a Compatibility Pack for the Office Word, Office Excel, and Office PowerPoint 2007+ File Formats"

Labels: General, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

Animate charts

This tutorial is an example of making PowerPoint do things that can't normally be done. In this case, we will tweak some chart animations that don't exist under normal circumstances.

1. Create a chart with data,
   
2. Ungroup the chart into individual pieces,
   
3. Insert pictures that relate to the data,
   
4. Do some grouping + animation.

Labels: Animation, General, Presentation, Reference, Shortcuts, Tips, Tutorials

How to disable hyperlink warning messages in 2007+ Office programs

Opening "path/filename".
Hyperlinks can be harmful to your computer and data. To protect your computer, click only those hyperlinks from trusted sources.
Do you want to continue?

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
   
   
2. In the Open dialog box, type regedit, and then click OK.
   
   
3. In Registry Editor, locate one of the following registry subkeys:
   
   

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common 

   
   

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common

   
   Note You only have to modify one of these registry subkeys. You do not have to modify both of them.
   
   
4. Click the registry subkey, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click Key.
   
   
5. Type Security, and then press ENTER to name the key.
   
   
6. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
   
   
7. Type DisableHyperlinkWarning, and then press ENTER to name the entry.
   
   
8. In the right pane, right-click DisableHyperlinkWarning, and then click Modify.
   
   
9. In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, click Decimal, and then type 1 under Value data.
   
   Note A value of 0 enables the hyperlink warning message. A value of 1 disables the hyperlink warning message.
   
   
10. Click OK.
    
    
11. Exit Registry Editor.

Labels: General, Reference, Tips, Troubleshoot, Tutorials

Get a close up

"Often when doing a presentation, you may want to enlarge an image using Emphasis: Grow.

You probably want to show a clearer view of a photograph. But enlarging with the Grow effect often ends up getting the image blurry/jagged.

Now it looks ugly, you wouldn't want to show others an enlarged but poor quality picture, do you?

Labels: General, Graphics, Presentation, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

Hold that note

Labels: Customize, General, Notes, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

2007+ choices

Labels: General, Graphics, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

Cruel tips

" Don McMillan is "Technically Funny". Before he became a nationally known stand-up comedian, Don spent 10 years as an engineer at IBM, AT&T, and VLSI Technology. He knows what corporate life is all about. His show is funny, smart, clean, AND he is the ONLY comedian working in PowerPoint.

Labels: General, Performance, Reference, Tips

Animation tip

Labels: Addin, Animation, General, Graphics, Presentation, Reference, Tips, Tutorials

Stop the breakout

A User can exit out of a show accidentally/intentionally by pressing the ESC key. This add-in disables the functionality of the ESC key.

Note: If the show is set to run in Kiosk mode, disabling the ESC key will provide no way of getting out of a slide show, hence please ensure that you have provided an escape route (e.g an invisible shape set to End show) to exit the show.

Labels: General, Performance, Presentation, Reference, Shortcuts, Tips, Tutorials

Presentation alternative

Labels: General, Presentation, Reference, Tips, Tutorials