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Page 126 of PowerPoint tutorials, presentation essentials, personality interviews, and PowerPoint news.
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Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: PowerPoint
January 18, 2013
Shape fills such as solid color, gradients, pictures, and textures can have a transparency attribute that lets you reduce the opacity of a fill so that the slide object or background behind shows through. Transparency is calculated in percentages and you can change its value all the way from 0 to 100%. Some fill options, such as pattern and slide background have no transparency options.
Learn how to apply transparency to shape fills in PowerPoint 2011.
January 15, 2013
In this issue, we start with exploring the different types of axes that you see in PowerPoint's charts. Then Jamie Garroch explains how you can color your maps using dynamic colors right inside PowerPoint -- learn more about vMaps' Auto Color feature. If you plan to upgrade to PowerPoint 2013, do read our tutorials explaining this new version's interface options. PowerPoint 2011 for Mac users can learn about advanced charting concepts -- and PowerPoint 2010 users continue working with Slide Layouts.
Read all this and more in Indezine News.
January 17, 2013
Shape fills such as solid colors, gradients, pictures, and textures can have a transparency attribute that lets you reduce the opacity of a fill so that the slide object or background behind shows through. Transparency is calculated in percentages and you can change its value all the way from 0 to 100%. Some fill options, such as pattern and slide background have no transparency options.
Learn how to apply transparency to shape fills in PowerPoint 2010.
January 17, 2013
Let's imagine that you need to create a chart fom data where values are not too different. Our sample data explores how people of different age brackets choose their favorite colors. If you look closely at the data, you will realize that all values span from between 285 and 365. Essentially, it makes no sense to even discuss any value lower than 250 or above 370 for this data set. Yet when you create sample column and bar charts from this data using PowerPoint's defaults, you'll end up with a column chart that shows columns that are very similar in their heights -- there really is no contrast highlighting the findings of our data. It's the same story with bar charts where the bars look almost similar.
Learn how to set the Minimum and Maximum values on Value Axis of Charts in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
January 16, 2013
Soon after a power user installs a new application, he or she wants to customize their menus and toolbars so that their most often used features are accessible with fewer clicks -- or even custom keyboard shortcuts. And even if you are not a power user, you should explore this very useful option that we explain in this tutorial -- this will make your tasks easier, and quicker. While PowerPoint's recent versions, including the new PowerPoint 2013 on Windows have almost no menus and toolbars, they do have a single toolbar called the Quick Access Toolbar.
Learn about the Quick Access Toolbar in PowerPoint 2013.
January 16, 2013
There are times when you want a different picture on each slide -- yet although the pictures need to be different, their position, formatting, and size may be required to be the same in successive slides. While you can achieve this manually, you will spend an inordinate amount of time making sure that the pictures look consistent slide after slide -- and even then, you may not be too happy with the results or the time it takes to make changes. You can get over this problem by using a new slide layout with a picture placeholder. As we learnt in previous tutorials, a placeholder is a boilerplate container that you can use to fill in with all sorts of content types such as text, pictures, charts, SmartArt graphics, etc. In this tutorial we'll explore how to work with a picture placeholder you add to a new slide layout.
Learn how to format picture placeholder in PowerPoint 2010.
January 15, 2013
Axis Title is the text used to label the axis of a chart. All chart types other than Pie and Doughnut have axes -- and although Radar charts have an axis, there is no provision to add axis title for them. In all other chart types such as Column, Line, etc., axis titles don't show up by default. You have to make them visible first, and then edit them as required -- that's exactly what you are going to learn in this tutorial.
Learn how to add and edit axis titles in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
January 14, 2013
Before we get into how you can add a placeholder within individual slide layouts, let us first explore what a placeholder is. A placeholder is a boilerplate container that you can use to fill in with some sort of content. When you launch PowerPoint, you will see those distinctive boxes that invite you to add some content -- haven't you noticed the "Click to add title" suggestions? All these boxes are placeholders -- when selected, these boxes have a dotted border around them.
Learn how to add new placeholders within slide layouts in PowerPoint 2010.
January 11, 2013
The Developer tab of the Ribbon is typically not visible -- and you have to enable it within the PowerPoint Options dialog box. This tab provides options that most PowerPoint users don't use. However, if you are a programmer or developer -- or even someone who wants to explore options that let you take PowerPoint further -- then you will love the advanced options within the Developer tab that let you work with VBA content and macros. Additionally you can use this tab to access options that allow you to insert ActiveX controls on your slides. Follow these steps to enable the Developer tab of the Ribbon.
Learn how to enable the Developer tab in PowerPoint 2013.
January 11, 2013
When you save CRTX chart templates, PowerPoint saves them into a default folder location. As long as you are using these templates only on the computer where they are saved, there is no need to worry about this default location. 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 saved in the designated folder where PowerPoint expects them to be placed.
Learn about the default location to save chart templates in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
January 10, 2013
Jamie Garroch, CEO of GMARK Ltd., founded the company in 2009 to provide presentation professionals with PowerPoint software, content and training. Jamie uses PowerPoint for most of his graphic needs -- for everything from designing logos to creating web banners and even printed marketing collaterals. He also uses PowerPoint as a programming environment to create custom programming procedures and PowerPoint add-ins. In this conversation, Jamie discusses the new Auto Color option in his vMaps add-in for PowerPoint.
January 10, 2013
The Ribbon is the long strip comprising tabs with buttons across the top of the main window within the PowerPoint interface. Since PowerPoint 2007, the Ribbon has replaced all the menus and toolbars that were found in PowerPoint 2003 and older versions. The Ribbon contains almost all the commands you need to work with your slides, and is designed in a way that helps you quickly find the commands that you need to complete a task. You no longer have to search commands endlessly through many menus and sub-menus.
Learn about the Ribbon in PowerPoint 2013.
January 10, 2013
The various Slide Layouts in PowerPoint help you choose placeholder arrangements for your slide. Using these layouts, it's easy to create good looking slides. There are ready-made layouts available for slides that contain pictures or charts, and even a separate layout for your opening slide. These layouts can be edited (or duplicated / renamed) within Slide Master view to create even more Slide Layouts. While duplicating and editing Slide Layouts is a great way to make small changes, it's not the best way to create a Slide Layout from scratch. As an analogy, duplicating and editing a Slide Layout is more like using a coloring book to fill color between the lines of pre-drawn art -- but creating your Slide Layout from scratch is more like starting with a blank sheet of paper and drawing your art before you start coloring between the lines. You can decide which of these approaches works best for you.
Learn how to add a new slide layout with placeholders in PowerPoint 2010.
January 9, 2013
How people use PowerPoint is entirely dependent on how intuitive and easy-to-discover the interface elements are -- in this respect, Microsoft has fine-tuned and improved the interface further in PowerPoint 2013. Introduced in PowerPoint 2010, the Backstage view has had its own share of improvements in PowerPoint 2013 -- we will explore the new and existing features in this series of tutorials. You access Backstage view from the File menu. The File menu is actually a tab (highlighted in red) that's placed at the left extreme of the Ribbon.
Explore the Backstage view in PowerPoint 2013.
January 9, 2013
Yes, you insert a chart on your slide, and then you spend an hour slaving over this chart to get it just perfect! You really do not want to spend a few more hours creating more charts just like the one you created. It's only fair to have to do this task once -- and then easily replicate your chart formatting thereafter for any new charts you may want to create. You can actually attain this objective by saving your chart's formatting attributes as a chart template. Saving a chart template saves all the tweaks and formatting you made -- thereafter you can use the chart template as a starting point to create a new chart. And you can make multiple chart templates and save them to use later.
Learn how to save chart templates in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac.
January 8, 2013
In this issue, we explore how you can search for Creative Commons pictures that you can download and use in your PowerPoint slides and elsewhere without breaking any laws -- you get free images that you can legally use. We then look at why it's a good idea to buy a license for Office 2010 or 2011 now, even if you want to upgrade to the new Office 2013 when it is released this quarter -- that's because you get the newer version free! Our usual series of PowerPoint tutorials for both Windows and Mac looks at charts and Slide Masters this time.
Read all this and more in Indezine News.
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