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Page 084 of PowerPoint tutorials, presentation essentials, personality interviews, and PowerPoint news.
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Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: PowerPoint
October 21, 2011
All SmartArt layouts include text boxes -- you can click within these text boxes, and start typing to add text. You need not know much about some related concepts to follow this tutorial -- but just in case, we have already showed how you can insert SmartArt and convert bulleted text to SmartArt. Having said that, let us now explore the ways to format text within SmartArt graphics.
Learn how to format the text in SmartArt graphics in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
October 20, 2011
Joy Miller, a technical writer for more than 16 years (12 at Microsoft), lives in the Seattle area of the state of Washington. She writes help documentation and produces how-to videos for Microsoft Office PowerPoint. You can find her industry-related posts on a regular basis at the PowerPoint Blog. In this conversation, Joy discusses the just concluded Presentation Summit.
October 20, 2011
Whenever you launch PowerPoint, you may typically see a single slide with a white background. Or if you open any of your existing presentations, the background of your slides may be in a different color depending upon the Theme that the presentation is based upon. You can always change this slide background to a picture, a solid color, a pattern, or even a gradient. However, before you think of all those options, do explore the twelve background styles that PowerPoint offers for every presentation by default. These styles are all coordinated and also designed to work well as a set of complementary backgrounds.
Learn about different slide background styles available in PowerPoint 2010.
October 20, 2011
One of the reasons why PowerPoint's implementation of the SmartArt feature is considered so good is because customizations are so doable. We have already shown you how to change colors of the entire SmartArt graphic, or apply cool SmartArt styles. In addition, you can format at the individual shape level within the SmartArt graphic -- change individual shapes or move them within the area occupied by the SmartArt.
October 19, 2011
The fact that the SmartArt allows so much customization in PowerPoint 2011 by applying new colors or styles means that your SmartArt graphic may be not quite the same as PowerPoint's default offering -- in addition, you may have resized or moved individual shapes within the SmartArt graphic, and there's no real undo for any of these options once you save and close your presentation file. If you do have the need to undo all of the customizations, you can do so by restoring the default layout and colors of the entire SmartArt graphic using the Reset option, and get rid of any customizations.
October 18, 2011
Jay Wilder is director of product marketing at Brainshark, Inc. Brainshark’s cloud-based software lets users create online and mobile video presentations – using simple business tools like PowerPoint and the telephone – and then share and track their content. Thousands of companies use Brainshark to improve the reach and results of their business communications, while dramatically reducing costs. In this conversation, Jay discusses Brainshark’s SlideShark app, which the company unveiled today.
October 18, 2011
When you insert a new chart in your PowerPoint presentation, you will find that it takes the fills and border types based on the Theme of your presentation. You can change the fills and borders of charts without much effort. But, have you seen charts with picture fills? For example, imagine a chart that shows fruit exports and each column of the chart is filled with pictures of a particular fruit type rather than the conventional solid color fills or geometric patterns? Also, if you wanted to show how the export of grapes has increased over the years, your column chart would have all columns filled with pictures of grapes stacked one over the other?
Learn how to stack or scale a picture as a fill for your chart series in PowerPoint 2010.
October 17, 2011
Jessica Athey is Global Marketing Manager of Trivantis, a world leader in e-Learning software, where she works in all facets of marketing such as content creation, promotion, public relations and online marketing. Jessica holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Journalism from the University of Cincinnati and is an active member of the Public Relations Society of America. In this discussion, Jessica discusses Snap! By Lectora, a PowerPoint add-in that lets you create engaging Flash content.
October 17, 2011
One of the best options to create new SmartArt is by converting your existing bulleted text to a SmartArt graphic. Sometimes though, you might want to do the reverse -- that is converting a SmartArt into bulleted text. Follow these steps to explore more -- do note though that you will be left with just plain text rather than any shapes or visuals.
Learn how to convert a SmartArt graphic to bulleted text in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
October 14, 2011
BrainStorm QuickHelp is an online resource that provides many video tutorials on using Microsoft Office programs. To use BrainStorm, you subscribe to their services -- in addition to viewing the tutorials online in a web browser, subscribers can download a Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010 compatible add-in. This BrainStorm add-in provides a new QuickHelp tab on the Ribbon within Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010 applications which enables you to access BrainStorm help videos off the cloud without leaving your application.
Read the Indezine review of BrainStorm QuickHelp.
October 14, 2011
Even though charts are a visual medium, they still contain plenty of text in the form of data labels, titles, legend, axis labels, etc. Whenever you insert a new chart (or any other slide element), the default colors and fonts that are used are based on the active Theme of the presentation. In this tutorial you are going to learn how you can change the font and use other text options for charts in PowerPoint 2010.
Learn about formatting fonts within charts in PowerPoint 2010.
October 13, 2011
SmartArt is a readymade infographic that typically places common PowerPoint shapes in relation to each other so that they can represent some logic or hierarchy. You can of course change individual shapes within SmartArt, as in changing a square to a circle or anything else -- but, what many users don't realize is that you can do much more. You can actually move some shapes around within the SmartArt graphic if you want -- this sort of creative freedom lets you customize existing SmartArt layouts to your liking.
Learn how to move individual shapes comprised within a SmartArt graphic in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
October 12, 2011
Jim Endicott's keynote speech at the 2011 Presentation Summit was aptly named "We're all presenters today!" Jim did the afternoon keynote session on Tuesday, September 20th. He started with his experiences as a presentation coach after he quit InFocus Systems in 1998. He then started Distinction Communication, as a presentation design firm. Jim soon discovered that even the best slides do not necessarily result in successful presentations. So he added messaging support for his clients so that they were equipped with a proper message along with their slides. That worked well to some extent, but there was one missing facet -- the storyteller, the flesh and blood conduit for the message.
Read about Jim's session at the Presentation Summit.
October 12, 2011
Although the default fill and border (outline) that PowerPoint 2010 applies to charts may be perfectly adequate, you might want to play with Chart Styles found in the Chart Tools Design tab of the Ribbon -- all these Styles are based on the Office Theme you apply to your active presentation. While this works great most of the time, there will be occasions when you may want to use a color for any of your data series that's not part of the Theme palette in your presentation. In times like these, you can control the fill and border of chart elements using the techniques explained on this page.
October 11, 2011
Most of the time, SmartArt graphics work great with their default looks -- and that's something to credit Microsoft with. In addition you can change one SmartArt graphics to another and you can also change colors or apply a new SmartArt Style to make your SmartArt appear distinct and unique. What many users don't realize though is that they can change the individual shapes within a SmartArt graphic to another shape -- for instance, you can change some circles in your SmartArt graphic to squares with a mere click or two!
Learn how to change shapes within a SmartArt graphic in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
October 10, 2011
All CRTX chart templates you save within PowerPoint 2010 are saved to a default location. You really do not have to worry about the default location where PowerPoint saves and expects to find these CTRX chart templates if you are using these templates on just one computer. However if you need to share these CRTX chart templates with other users -- or if you received a CRTX chart template from someone else -- then you need to make sure that these CRTX files are placed in a distinct folder where PowerPoint expects to find them.
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