Figures 1, 4, and 7 use the hanging indent in the ruler shown above Figure 1. This hanging indent is excessive: you don’t need this much space between bullet and text. Sometimes a template designer will add this space as a design element, along with staggered levels of bullets (Figure 4) and spacing between the bullets (Figures 7, 8, and 9). These choices may appeal to your design sensibilities, but will they serve you well as you are adding content to your slides? Be very sure that you are not choosing form over function with the defaults you choose.

Figures 2, 5, and 8 use the hanging indent shown above Figure 2. This is a good hanging indent, and it provides the opportunity to reduce space if you need the bulleted text field to be more compact (like the hanging indent for figures 3, 6, and 9). The bullet levels are left aligned to the text of the previous level – a good choice with no unnecessary waste of space for text. The size of the fonts in the different levels vary, which is not a great technique. It’s better to have the text in the different bullet levels be a consistent font size. If it is important to show many levels of text, then it’s important to read them easily as well. Opt for consistently sized text for the text in bullet hierarchies.

Figures 3, 6, and 9 use the hanging indent shown above Figure 3. This is an acceptable hanging indent for font sizes of 14 points or less. If you plan to increase your font sizes for certain instances, then it’s best to not use this hanging indent as your default. Again, the font size for each level of text should be the same.

The spacing between bullets and the levels of bullets are0.5 line for Figures 3, 6, and 9. This makes the text for the individual bullets easier to read by providing for white space between the lines. If you need to place a lot of text in a small area, reduce the space between the bullets/levels of bullets to 0 or something smaller than 0.5.

Remember, you don’t have to rely solely on increasing font sizes to gain clarity/readability or increase the area occupied by the text; and you don’t have to rely solely on decreasing the font size to reduce the area occupied by bulleted text. You can work with the bullet formatting and line spacing, which is most often the better method. Try to keep font sizes consistent on your slides and use the spacing techniques to improve the layout/space utilization on the slides. Adjust font sizes as a last step/choice.

At the end of many types of presentations, presenter’s acknowledge contributions, provide follow-up resources, list contact information, give credit to important sourcing, acknowledge the efforts of those who provided invaluable services, etc. One of the many ways to do this on one slide and one click is to display all this important information like movie credits.

The credits can be one text field or several text fields and include graphics. Just lay everything out and group it – don’t worry if it hangs over the bottom of the slide or where it begins on your slide. Then format the group to animate as “Credits” in the Entrance animation menu. When in slideshow mode, the group will automatically move below the screen and slide upward until it reaches the end. You can make it as long as you wish and set the speed you wish. This is a really nice way to provide lots of information and have it run passively in the background as you end your presentation and thank your audience.

This method only works for onscreen/projected presentations.

Consider instead using an imported symbol (click Insert, Symbol, and select a font character to insert). The character used below is “25CF” because it is one of the largest circles in the library of symbols (font characters). By using a character, there are no manual alignments needed (as with the Harvey balls/moons) and the cell doesn’t need to be shaded. The circles are much more elegant, even preferred in most cases over checkmarks.

As you can see below, this technique can be used a couple of different ways.

So, the next time you need to develop a slide that shows an inventory, consider this method.

There are two ways to create this type of photo layout. The layout on the left uses technique no. 1 (described below) and the layout on the right uses technique no. 2 (also described below. Both techniques are very simple and can be used with either PowerPoint 2003 or 2007.

The two examples of this photo layout

Technique 1: This technique can be used when you have a template with a white or solid color as a background. It’s a three-step process.

If you are using a solid color as a template background, fill the “blank” squares with the color of the background to blank them out.

Technique no. 2: this technique can be used with white or solid-color backgrounds too, but it is the technique that must be used if your template has a background with a gradient, photograph, or other graphics. It takes a little more time and increases the size of your document slightly since it needs to use multiples of the photographs.

When the techniques are broken down like this, it’s easy to see how doable this type of layout really is. Enjoy experimenting and creating statement slides for your presentations.

This Chart of the Month uses a concept similar to the child’s game of marbles: where “marbles” are tossed into view and either bump an existing “marble” out of view or land next to another “marble.” The slide concept shows how preliminary ideas are replaced by better, more refined ideas and then expanded upon by adding other ideas.

Be sure the download the animated example for this Chart of the Month to see how the different animation effects are employed. There are combinations of motion paths and spins used to introduce the “marbles.” Unfortunately there is no formula for creating these animations. Simply apply the motion path and spin and then fine tune the start/stop points, speeds, and delays. Be sure to remove the smooth starts and smooth stops for each object in the Effects Options menu. Smooth stops might be okay to use, but it’s difficult to synchronize the spin and motion path timing. It’s a trial-and-error process of getting the right speeds and/or delays set for each rolling object. Don’t get discouraged because you are spending a few minutes on each.

This Chart of the Month is an example of a technique that can convey very simple or very complex illustrations of gaps (as in this example) or “sweet-spots.” Gaps can be unoccupied areas on the chart, and sweet spots can be a spot on the chart where overlaid sections have created a highly concentrated sweet spot.

You can use the X and Y axes format (as shown here) or you can use the matrix frameworks in PowerFrameworks as starting points for this type of chart. If your message is simple, you shouldn’t need to animate the sections as reveals (the example shown here isn’t necessary to animate – but we did). If, however, the concept you’re conveying is complex, it will probably be clearer to animate the sections in sequential reveals, particularly with the sweet-spot concept (wipes are a good animation choice). View the second flash for an example of a sweet spot.

The sections should be semitransparent so that underlying sections can still be seen. Sweet spots will automatically become dark as more and more transparent sections are layered onto the chart.

You can also use this technique with data-driven line charts if you draw a semitransparent area that coincides with each line. Remember this technique the next time you need to illustrate these concepts. It just might be the visual concept that illustrates your message best.

This month’s Chart of the Month is unique because of the technique used to create it. Multiple objects in a circular pattern are difficult to connect in a manner that is balanced and symmetrical. Most connectors attach to one of the several points on the perimeter of the circle, which is fine in some cases, but looks awkward in others. The lines should appear to flow from the center of a circle to the center of then connected circle, which is vastly more visually appealing. The technique shown in the video for this Chart of the Month will make creating these connections easy and fast.

Helpful tips:

• To create these layouts, begin with a framework in the RE076 series. The connections in these frameworks provide the starting point for adding your own connections.
• Once you have created your own connections, you may wish to reduce the size of the circles so that they do not interfere with the connections.

Text should always be contained within a circle, not as a separate field placed over the circle. However, it is sometimes difficult to get text to appear correctly within a circle. The following adjustments should be tried in order – they are ordered by most preferred formatting to least preferred. Keep applying the fixes until they work, which may only require 1, 1 and 2, 1 through 3, or all of the fixes:

1. Remove the space between the text and the edges of the circle by making the internal margins 0 on top and bottom and on left and right – go to the Format AutoShape menu and click on the Text Box tab to make these adjustments
2. Word wrap text in AutoShape should be unchecked – break the line with shift-returns instead of having PowerPoint do it for you
3. Reduce the line spacing to 0.85 or 0.9 instead of 1 point
4. Reduce the amount of text and/or the font size if you still can’t fit the text in the circle.

Review the video to see how these steps work. All four of the steps were used in the video.

It’s usually not a good idea to force line breaks with shift-returns; but in this case, the superior visual appearance of the text in the circle justifies this type of formatting. The video below shows you how to make the adjustments.

Make the lines prominent. We used a 3-point line, but they can be a larger point size if you wish. The focal point of this concept is the connectivity, so make sure the lines are distinct and easily seen.

Be sure to download the animated example for a possible animation scheme. Enjoy this technique and the superior results it will produce for you.

Incoming faxes

PowerFrameworks is a virtual company, so we needed a method of receiving and distributing faxes in a meaningful way. The fax services – and there are several reliable options out there – receive the fax and email it to up to five email addresses as a .tif. This solved our distribution problem, but each recipient would then have to print the fax out, which is costly in terms of printer ink and paper stock. To get around this, we installed a second monitor to each computer and view the email .tifs onscreen instead of on paper. Companies that are not virtual should realize the benefits associated with this method, as well.

If email distribution is not an issue with you or your company but you’d still like to go Greener, many printers digitize the faxes before printing. You can “print” the faxes to PDF documents and view those PDF documents onscreen instead of on paper. Savings: expensive printer ink, paper stock, time delivering hard-copy faxes.

It’s true that you will still have the cost of your fax line to receive the faxes and/or the cost of the fax service, but you can take steps to reduce the number of faxes you receive by requesting those with whom you do business often consider “printing” their scanned or electronic documents to PDF documents and send them to you via email. It’s easier to monitor the completeness of a scanned document than it is a faxed document. If pages are missing, you know before you send it out, which saves time in the long run. Fax services usually base their rates on numbers of fax pages, which will enable you to choose a small-volume fax service option.

Outgoing faxes

There are a couple of approaches available to you, but we believe the best to be a combination of the two.

1. There are times when signed hard-copy pages need to be faxed. Since many offices are equipped with all-in-one printers, it is easy to scan a signed hard-copy document and save it as a PDF or other electronic format, which can be sent via email instead of fax, Postal Service mail, or delivery services. Savings: delivery fees, paper stock, printer ink.
2. Edits to documents are typically hand written on hard copies of documents. A great alternative is installing a tablet with a writing stylus on your computer. You can digitally sign documents, mark up drafts, highlight and eliminate sections of text easily. Do some research to make sure you make a suitable purchase that will work with your workstation. Savings: paper stock; printer ink, time saved putting the document through the fax machine, possible cost of long-distance phone charges.

There are also a number of fax/printers on the market that include the option to print your document as a fax, how this would operate varies from printer to printer though.

Adobe Acrobat users can create a digital signature within Acrobat. This is a good method, but can be confusing to the average user. For more information: http://www.acrobatusers.com/tutorials/digital-signatures-pdf-acrobat. This method does not require a tablet. Though you can add a graphic of your signature to the Acrobat signature that you create.

If you are a Mac OS X user, you can can print directly to PDF (or fax if your computer is attached to a phone line) from any program – it will be a print option. This also comes up as an option if you have Adobe Acrobat (full NOT the free reader) installed on PC or Mac, however this is not a standard option for all PC users. There are a number of options out there including a free open source one named PDFCreator that can be downloaded here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

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There are It’s true that there are expenses associated with purchasing a second monitor and tablet/stylus, but the savings will pay for them shortly. Printer ink has become ridiculously expensive, paper is costly, it takes time distributing and processing hard copies of faxes and documents, and it takes time and effort to recycle used paper. But beside the ultimate cost savings, the reduction in office consumable goods is a good Green decision for any company. Let us know if you have any Green office practices that you’d like to share.

Take a look at the graphic below. The graphic on the right shows a much more pleasing and professional way to overlay the circles. The overlaying circles don’t hang over the edges of the image, which makes placing and aligning text next to the image easier and eliminates any wasted space caused by the circles extending beyond the edges of the image.

It’s very easy to create circles that can be cropped in this manner, and it will only add a few quick steps.

• Create the circles and apply the fill color, line color, and percentage of transparency.
• Place the circles over the the appropriate sections of your image
• Resize the circles individually if you wish
• One by one, select a circle that extends beyond the boundary of the image
• Right click on the circle and select “Save as Picture”
• Select .png format for the picture and route the newly created picture (i.e., PNG image) to a place on your computer where you can find it
• Drag the newly created PNG image onto your PowerPoint slide
• Align the PNG image with the circle from which it was created
• Delete the drawn circle (you don’t need it any longer)
• Crop the portion of the PNG image so that it doesn’t overhang the edges of the image beneath it.

Repeat the process above for each circle that extends beyond the edges of the image beneath. You can add the shadow (PowerPoint 2007) or not. Enjoy using this technique.