PowerPoint Notes

Stop Font Sizes from Changing

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2008-02-08T04:56:07-06:00

Question: The problem I am having is that the Arial font size that I save as 32 for visibility, changes to 24 the next time I pull the presentation up. I have looked at the save options and nothing has helped. Do you have any suggestions?

Answer: This might help:

Choose Tools | AutoCorrect Options -- this brings up the AutoCorrect dialog box that you can see in Figure 1. Select the AutoFormat As You Type tab.

Figure 1: Tweak AutoCorrect options
Uncheck these options:

- AutoFit title text to placeholder
- AutoFit body text to placeholder
- Automatic layout for inserted objects
Click OK.

3D Lists in PowerPoint 2007 with Perspector 4.0

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2007-11-21T03:20:39-06:00

This quick tutorial was provided with George McCaskill of Visual Exemplars, a UK based company that creates Perspector, a 3D add-in for PowerPoint.

Starting with a normal slide with around three bullet points:

one
two
three

On the Perspector panel, select "Convert PowerPoint bullet list to a 3D list". Choose the "Simple Flow Across" image to end up with what you can see in Figure 1.

Figure 1: A Perspector 3D list.
Now do some simple Perspector editing like adjusting the angle of the flow in 3D, change font size and color (select all first), and save the Perspector image. As a final flourish, add a PowerPoint 2007 image reflection to the saved Perspector image (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: A Perspector list with PowerPoint 2007 effects.

Use Macros and Scripts in PowerPoint

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2007-11-08T03:51:00-06:00

This article is not about creating your own macros or scripts to automate PowerPoint. However, if you just want to run any macros or scripts that a friend shares, or you just got it from a book or newsgroup, then you are on the right page.

Follow these steps to get started:

Make sure you have a script ready -- you can download some scripts here...
Open an existing presentation, or create a new one in PowerPoint. Then press Alt+F11 to access the Microsoft Visual Basic interface that you can see in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The Visual Basic interface
Choose Insert | Module, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Insert a module
This open a new module window on the right side of the interface, copy your script here, and paste it (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: The pasted script
Now you need to run this script as a macro from within PowerPoint. To do that, first exit the Visual Basic interface by choosing File | Close and Return to PowerPoint.
Now the steps you take differ depending upon which version of PowerPoint you are using.

PowerPoint 2007 users will need to enable the Developer tab on the Ribbon if it is not already visible. To do that, choose Office Button | PowerPoint Options, and select the Popular tab on the left. Then check the option that says Show Developer tab in the Ribbon.

Once you have done that, select the Developer tab of the Ribbon, and click Macro to bring up the Macro dialog box that you can see in Figure 4. Select the script you want to run, and click the Run button.

Figure 4: The Macro dialog box

Versions before PowerPoint 2007: Choose Tools | Macros | Macro to bring up the same dialog box that you saw in Figure 4. Then select the script you want to run, and click the Run button.

Remember, some scripts may do nothing at all unless you have something selected on the slide before you run them!

Paste in Place in PowerPoint

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2007-11-06T09:54:24-06:00

Sometimes, it can be frustrating trying to do the simple things in PowerPoint such as duplicating an object right above the original. PowerPoint insists on placing the duplicated (or copy/pasted) object at an offset and there's no way to fine tune that setting. Maybe there's a registry tweak or something that I'm not aware of?

So why would anyone want to place a duplicated object right above the original? There are many scenarios that require such a placement:

You want to animate one object after the the other.
You want to rotate objects.
You want to make some changes to the duplicated object and then do a trigger animation.
You might want to do something else!

Meanwhile, here are some ideas and observations on how you can work around this limitation:

If you copy and paste a slide object on the same slide, it is placed at an offset. Sometimes, you can press the up arrow key twice, and then press the left arrow key twice to place the copied/duplicated object right above the slide, but even that does not work all the time. That setting only works if the Snap to Grid option is turned on.
If you copy a slide object (anything on a slide) and paste it on another empty slide, it is placed in the exact location as the original.
If some part of the original slide object exceeds the area off the edge of the slide, then the duplicated/pasted object will be pasted within the slide area as far as possible. Of course that only works if the object is not larger than the slide area.
The quickest way to place a duplicated object right above its original is to use a third-party add-in called Toolbox from Shyam Pillai. This includes a menu option called Toolbox | Shapes | Clone Shape(s).
Another way you can place pasted/duplicated objects right on top of the original is to use the Align tools. This works best if you have several duplicated objects. Select them all, and choose Align | Align Left, and Align | Align Top.

If you have found new ways to work around these issues, do add your comments to this post.

Change Case Cycles: How They Work?

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2007-08-22T03:48:35-05:00

Echo Swinford, PowerPoint MVP resolves the mystery of the algorithm behind the changing cases in PowerPoint!

Do you use Shift+F3 to toggle through the change case options on selected text in PowerPoint, and wonder why sometimes only the first word gets a capital letter, but at other times all the words get capitalized?

Here's a more detailed example -- suppose I double-click to select all the words in a text box on the slide: fetal and neonatal disease. I hit Shift+F3. I expected to get Fetal And Neonatal Disease and then, if I hit Shift+F3 again, FETAL AND NEONATAL DISEASE.

Instead, the first time I hit Shift+F3, I get Fetal and neonatal disease. The second time, I get all caps, and the third time I'm back to all lower case as expected. But how do I know when to expect sentence case (e.g., Fetal and neonatal disease) and when to expect title case* (e.g., Fetal And Neonatal Disease)?

*And yes, I know it's not a true title case -- in fact, you'll notice that in 2007 this is now called "Capitalize Every Word," not "Title Case."

I think this has to do with punctuation, or, rather, an invisible paragraph marker at the end of text.

Here's what Beth Melton, Word MVP (thanks, Beth!) and I figured out:

If you select text in a Title Placeholder and Shift+F3, you'll get title case.

If you select text in a manual textbox, which you get depends on what you've selected and also HOW you've selected it. In the case of selecting all text in a textbox, for example, "fetal and neonatal studies"...

If you triple-click the text to select all text in the textbox, Shift+F3 gives you sentence case. (Fetal will begin with a capital letter.)
If you select all the text by dragging the mouse over the text from left to right, Shift+F3 gives you sentence case. (Fetal will begin with a capital letter.)
If you select all the text by dragging them mouse over the text from *right* to *left*, Shift+F3 gives you title case. (All Words Begin With A Capital Letter.)
It's as though triple-clicking or selecting from left to right also selects an invisible marker*, which indicates the text should be a "sentence."
Selecting from right to left does not select that last invisible marker, which indicates the text should act as a title.
If you're selecting just part of the text in a text box, e.g., selecting only "and neonatal," then it doesn't seem to matter if you use left-right or right-left -- you get title case with all words capped. Of course, if the last word of the "paragraph" is included in that partial selection, e.g., "and neonatal disease," you'll need to use a right-to-left selection to avoid that final invisible marker.

Personally, this all seems overly complicated to me. Sure wish we could see the non-printing characters; I probably would have figured this out years ago....

*I'm assuming an invisible paragraph marker because if you try the three ways to select text and then paste the text into a new empty textbox, the first two ways give you an empty "paragraph" below, while the third way (right-to-left) doesn't.

Echo Swinford runs EchosVoice, a site containing many PowerPoint tips. She is also author of Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances and PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit.

Self Closing PowerPoint Presentations

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2007-05-23T05:13:50-05:00

Question: I need a PowerPoint presentation that closes itself soon after the last slide has been shown. How do I make such a presentation?

Answer: Follow these steps (works for PowerPoint 2002 and 2003):

Choose Tools | Options to bring up the Options dialog box. Select the View tab and uncheck the option that reads End with black slide. Remember, this is a machine specific setting -- not a presentation specific one.
Choose Slide Show | Set Up Show, and uncheck Loop continuously until 'Esc' if it is selected.
Get to the last slide of the presentation, and choose Slide Show | Slide Transition to bring up the Slide Transition task pane. Select the Automatically after option, and enter a time value (any time value).
Choose File | Save As..., and change the Save as type to PowerPoint Show (*.pps).

You're done.

Add Multiple Guides

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2007-05-17T02:10:18-05:00

Question: How do I add multiple horizontal and vertical guides to my PowerPoint slides.

Answer: Follow these steps:

Make your guides visible if they are not already visible.
Select one of the guides, and press Ctrl as you drag the guide. You'll see the guide coordinates as you Ctrl-drag them to create new guides if your Ruler is visible (View | Ruler).
You can add up to 8 horizontal and 8 vertical guides using this process.

If you need more guides, follow this process to create a mock guide-map:

You can create guide lines with PowerPoint's line tool -- and then add a dash style to those lines.
Create variations of thick and thin lines to create major and minor guides.
These lines can then be grouped -- and cut, copied, and pasted over any slide you want to use the same "guide-map" for.
You can also copy the guide-map between presentations -- delete this guide-map when done.

Ungroup Charts in PowerPoint 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2007-02-19T04:47:11-06:00

Here's a question that I received from someone who once sent me an animated Christmas game! He's probably got a lot of other animated stuff that might get you either mad or mesmerized (or both!) -- but for now, here's his question: I'll spare you the details but can you now no longer ungroup charts in PowerPoint 2007?

The answer is yes, you can -- but the route to ungroup nirvana might be new -- but fear not, let me get you there:

First of all, create your chart -- and just to be on the safe side, duplicate the slide that contains the chart. That's because once you ungroup your chart, you can no longer edit the values within the chart.
Make sure you do not double-click the chart -- just select it, right-click the edge of the chart, and choose the Save as Picture option.
This brings up a dialog box of the same name -- now choose EMF within the Save as type dropdown box, provide a name and location, and save the chart as an EMF graphic.
Insert a new slide within the presentation, and then insert a graphic by first selecting the Insert tab of the Ribbon, and then clicking the Picture button.
In the resulting Insert Picture dialog box, navigate and choose the EMF graphic you saved previously, and click Insert to get back to your slide with the graphic inserted.
Next, select the graphic on the slide, right-click and choose Group | Ungroup. PowerPoint might warn you that this is an inserted picture, not a group. Disregard this warning and click Yes. Right-click the graphic again, and choose Group | Ungroup.
This should ungroup all the elements of the chart so that you can recolor them, add effects, or animate them individually of each other.

Cannot Insert Flash EXE Files

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2007-01-22T22:36:12-06:00

Question: I am looking for help inserting a Flash movie into my PowerPoint slide. My client sent me a movie with an EXE file extention and I have followed your directions correctly but I can not get it to play. Is there any way you can help me with this or point me in the right direction?

Answer: You need to ask your client to send you a SWF file -- SWF files are actual Flash animation movies -- the EXE file you received is most probably a Flash Projector file that includes the Flash runtime to run the movie and is essentially used for CD distribution. The original creator of the Flash movie can most certainly create a SWF output and send it to you so that you can insert it within a PowerPoint slide.

Categories: powerpoint, powerpoint_flash

FlashPaper Documents in PowerPoint

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2006-09-04T01:25:36-05:00

Question: I have these Acrobat PDFs, Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets that I need to be part of my PowerPoint presentation with all their formatting. But to do that I need to embed or link to those files -- and most of the time I get the irritating security warning when I access them from within a PowerPoint show! Any better options or ideas?

Answer: That can be so irritating -- and I do have an easy solution although it's not free.

Look at Adobe's FlashPaper program that allows you to print anything to a Flash SWF file -- then insert those Flash SWFs inside PowerPoint slides. Since these are embedded within the slide, there are no warning dialog boxes -- and you can even scroll, zoom, and pan these documents!

Tim Wilson sent me a couple of gotchas for this tip:

Set up the printing properties for FlashPaper to use a custom paper size. In Windows, you do this through Control Panel > Printers and Faxes. Make the paper size slightly larger than your image. If you don't do this, FlashPaper will chop your image up into separate pages!
Leave space on your PowerPoint slide for users to click, to advance the slide show away from your Flashpaper slide. Perhaps include a 'Continue' label people can click on. If your FlashPaper object covers the whole slide, your users won't be able to navigate away from the slide.

If you need to know how you can insert Flash SWFs in PowerPoint, look here...
Categories: powerpoint, powerpoint_flash, pdf, tutorials

Graphic Elements for PowerPoint

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2006-06-20T23:19:59-05:00

Question: Can you suggest any good software to create a stunning graphic element for my PowerPoint. I would like to try using 3D shapes instead of PowerPoint shapes.

Answer: Look at PowerPoint's 3D engine -- it is surprisingly powerful although not in the class of a 3D program. Another option is to download the public beta of Office 2007 -- the graphic engine is stunning.

Alternatively, do what professional presentation designers do all the time -- use Photoshop as a companion to PowerPoint!

Output Notes from PowerPoint

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2006-04-08T02:42:53-05:00

I'm looking for a way to output my PowerPoint notes alone, or a presentation without the metafile overhead. I need the slides plus the notes - or even a way to get the notes without anything else.

You'll need to have Microsoft Word installed on your system in addition to Microsoft PowerPoint for this trick to work:

Open your presentation and choose File Send to Microsoft (Office) Word.
Select the Notes next to slides option, and click OK.
Microsoft Word creates a table with slide thumbnails and notes. Delete the unnecessary column in the resulting Word table that includes the thumbnails - to do that, select the entire column, right-click and choose Delete Columns.
Choose Table Convert Table to Text... Choose your text separator (or choose a custom separator).

Pause Slides, Sounds, and Movies - and Resume!

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2006-04-08T02:44:18-05:00

Is it possible to pause the slide show AND the music simultaneously? I want to be able to stop on a particular slide and talk about it with the music OFF, then start the next slide and have the music resume playing. If there is a way to do this Microsoft sure doesn't make it clear how. Thanks.

That's certainly possible - and this also works with any movies in the presentation. Most laptops (and even keyboards these days) have a Mute button or hotkey - press that to mute the sound. To resume, you'll have to press the Mute button or hotkey again.

To pause both the presentation and sound at the same time, press the Pause key on your keyboard - to resume, press Pause again.

In the same way if you don't want the slide to be visible while playing press W or B to see a white or black screen that also pause music and video - to resume from that point onwards, press W or B again!

7 Key Tips to Using PowerPoint

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2006-02-22T04:05:04-06:00

Kevin Lerner of the Presentation Team shares some tips that will allow you to use PowerPoint more effectively.

It may be the leading presentation program on the market, but PowerPoint is rarely used to its most complete functionality. Here are seven tips to help make your next PowerPoint experience a bit fulfilling and simpler:

1. Content First...Then Visuals: When starting a new presentation, try not to become distracted by the desire to make it look good. Rather, focus on creating the content first. Use the outline view to get your bullets and main points in place. Also, the auto content wizard in newer versions of PowerPoint is helpful in getting the key messages in place.

2. Use Keyboard Shortcuts and Right Mouse: To improve efficiency and shave hours off your presentation development time, it's helpful to learn the keyboard shortcuts. Copy=Control+C, Paste=Control+V. A list of these shortcuts can be found in the help menu. Also, the right mouse button will present an array of additional options, depending on where it's clicked.

3. Make Alternate and Hidden Versions of Slides: Not sure how an effect will look? Want to have some extra detail on a slide that you may or may not use? By making duplicate versions (copy and paste your slides in the slide sorter) you can experiment with alternative versions. Select "hide slide" so it doesn't show when you're presenting.

4. Align and Grid are Your Friends: Graphics that are misaligned can subconsciously send the message of disorganization, and detract from your presentation. By using Guides and Grids (view menu or right click), you can get your text and graphics perfectly straight.

5. Tame Your Transitions: Just because PowerPoint has some really cool transitions, doesn't mean they should be used. Too much can detract from your presentation. And most of the time, a simple wipe or dissolve will suffice. Also, it's good to make the transitions consistent throughout your entire presentation.

6. Save Often, Locally, and with Backups: By saving every 30 minutes and with different versions (draft1.ppt, draft 2.ppt, etc.) you can save yourself headaches when the inevitable computer crash comes. Also, don't trust the networks. Save your presentation to your local PC and copy it later to the network.

7. Allow Enough Time for Output and Practice: Don·t get caught by the clock! By stopping even 20 minutes before your actually deadline, or showtime, you can significantly enhance your message by taking time to practice and rehearse. Also, consider the time needed to print/copy/email the file.

Zoom Objects in PowerPoint

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2006-02-17T02:01:17-06:00

I recently saw a PowerPoint presentation in which the presenter showed a slide, then with a mouse click zoomed in to a part of it. I can't figure out how to do this.

You'll need either PowerPoint 2002 or 2003 to do this:

1. Select the object you want to zoom.

2. Choose Slide Show | Custom Animation to activate the Custom Animation
task pane.

3. In the Custom Animation task pane, choose Add Effect | Emphasis | Grow/Shrink - if the Grow/Shrink option is not available, choose Add Effect | Emphasis | More Effects | Basic | Grow/Shrink.

To finetune the Grow/Shrink effect, select the animation from the listing on
the task pane, and click the downward pointing arrow next to the listing to
reveal a fly-out menu. Choose Effect Options to summon a dialog box that
lets you play with the settings.

Scrolling Credits in PowerPoint

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2006-02-17T01:56:46-06:00

Creating scrolling credits works differently depending on which version of PowerPoint you are using.

PowerPoint 2002 or 2003:

1. Type some text in a text box or placeholder, or choose an existing text box or placeholder on a slide.

2. Select the text box or placeholder, and choose Slide Show | Custom Animation. This will activate the Custom Animation task pane.

3. In the Custom Animation task pane, click on the Add Effect button to reveal a fly-out menu. In this fly-out menu, choose Entrance | Credits. If the Credits option is not available, choose Entrance | More Effects to summon the Add Entrance Effect dialog box. Choose the Credits option in the Exciting category, and click OK.

4. You might want to change the speed to Medium in the Custom Animation task pane, and the Start option to With Previous (default is On Click).

To create a Star Wars style credits screen, look here...

PowerPoint 97 and 2000:

1. Create a text box - a regular rectangle or any AutoShape. Start inputting your text straightaway - for example:

Goodness God
Amazing Ants
Helpless Haunted House
PowerPoint Perils
Monday Merits

2. Now that you've entered all the names or any other text you need, deselect the text box. Click on the periphery of the text box to select the text box, not the text inside the box!

3. Press the Alt key on the keyboard - with the Alt key still pressed, drag and move the entire text box above the area off your slide. Right click your text box, and choose 'Custom Animation' from the options in the flyout menu.

4. In the 'Effects' tab of the Custom Animation dialog box, choose 'Crawl From Bottom' in the 'Entry Animation' drop down menu.

5. Proceed to the 'Order and Timing' tab and select the radio button representing 'Automatically' and change the value to 00:00 seconds. Preview your animation - tweak settings again in the 'Custom Animation' box if required.

Menu To Run Multiple Presentations

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2006-02-05T23:13:21-06:00

I have seen a PowerPoint presentation set up as a menu from which to run a number of seperate presentations from different speakers at a seminar. I cant find this in the help files - can someone please direct me to where I can find help to do this.

This is quite simple - follow these steps.

1. Create a new folder and copy all the presentations that you need to link from the menu presentation.

2. Create a single slide presentation, and save it in the same folder. This single slide is going to be the menu slide.

3. Create a text box for the first presentation you want to link from this menu slide, and type something descriptive that allows you to identify which presentation you're going to link to from a particular text box.

4. Right click one of the text boxes, choose the Action Settings option to open a dialog box of the same name.

5. In the Mouse Click tab, select the Hyperlink to dropdown list and choose the Other PowerPoint Presentation option - and navigate to and choose the other presentation.

6. Repeat steps 3, 4, and 5 as often as required.

7. Save and test your menu presentation.

PowerPoint Narrations show up as Unix Executables!

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2005-11-16T00:37:10-06:00

If some narrations in your PowerPoint:mac presentations don't play, that might be because they somehow ended up being Unix executable files! Yesterday, I got this client presentation that had all the narrations, but PowerPoint would not play them because they were not the AIFFs that PowerPoint was expecting. So what is the solution? It's not too difficult - you'll need to download a free copy of Audacity...

1. Open Audacity and choose Project | Import Raw Data.
2. This will bring up the Finder - navigate to your Unix Executable file and click Open.
3. Audacity will bring up the Import Raw Data sheet - make sure you select the Two channels (stereo) option and set the sample rate to 44100 Hz. Then click Import.
4. Audacity will recreate your sound from the raw data - hear it to confirm that this is exactly what you need, then proceed to save it.
5. Choose File | Export as WAV and overwrite the existing Unix Executable file (do make a backup of that file first as a precaution).
6. Audacity will add the WAV extension anyway - you might want to remove the extension in Finder and check if the narration plays well inside PowerPoint. If it doesn't, just delete the sound icon on the slide that contained the narration, and re-insert the narration using the Inserts | Movies & Sounds | Sound from File option.

PowerPoint for Windows Versions

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2005-11-16T00:20:02-06:00

Can you please provide me with a list of PowerPoint versions with their corresponding version numbers - for example Version 10 = PowerPoint 2002?

Here are the corresponding versons:

Version 11 - PowerPoint 2003
Version 10 - PowerPoint 2002
Version 9 - PowerPoint 2000
Version 8 - PowerPoint 97
Version 7 - PowerPoint 95
Version 4 - PowerPoint 4
Version 3 - PowerPoint 3
Version 2 - PowerPoint 2

There were no versions 5 and 6 of PowerPoint since Microsoft wanted all components of Office 95 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access) to share the same version. Since the last version of Word before that was 6, all Office applications included in Office 95 became version 7.

And PowerPoint was a Mac product ported to Windows only after version 2 - so there was no version 1.

Anyway, most of this is historic - you'll rarely stumble across a presentation created in anything older than PowerPoint 97 (i.e. version 8).

Start Presentation Sans Clicks

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2005-06-26T00:03:23-05:00

Is it possible to make a presentation start on space bar only - but without unplugging the mouse?

PowerPoint MVP David Marcovitz provides a solution.

1. You can virtually unplug the mouse by removing the check next to Advance on Mouse Click under the Slide Transition.

2. Do this for all the slides by going to Slide Sorter View (View | Slide Sorter) and selecting all the slides. Then choose Slide Show | Slide Transition to activate the Slide Transition task pane or dialog box depending upon which version of PowerPoint you are using.

3. Uncheck the On Mouse Click option under Advance Slide.

Note that this only disables the mouse advancement; it does not disable any keystrokes (space, arrows, page up, etc.), and it does not disable the other mouse functions including the little menu in the lower left of the screen and the menu that comes up with right click.

Thank you, David.

David Marcovitz, a PowerPoint MVP is also Associate Professor in the Education Department and Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology at Loyola College. David has also authored a book called PowerPoint for Educators.

Windows Media Player, Ripping and DRM

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2005-06-24T01:58:26-05:00

Many times, you want to rip some tracks off a music CD and play it within your PowerPoint presentation, maybe as a background score that plays throughout the presentation. However, you might find that PowerPoint refuses to play those tracks! What is happening here?

Especially if you use Windows Media Player to rip the CDs, the real culprit might be DRM, which stands for Digital Rights Management and is a concept promoted by the music industry to prevent illegal distribution of their content. So, what's DRM doing inside PowerPoint? That's a good question - and DRM fits right into the PowerPoint world since most PowerPoint presentations are intended to be shown and distributed anyway.

However, I've ripped MP3s from music CDs using the new Windows Media Player 10 and no DRM is added to that - so why do some tracks get controlled by DMA and other don't?

PowerPoint MVP Austin Myers throws some insight into whatever is happening behind the scenes:

Windows Media Player doesn't add anything to it unless you tell it to. There are several "levels" of DRM built on newer music CDs and Windows Media Player simply passes them along into the ripped file. What can or cannot be done with it after that point depends upon how the content creator set DRM in the original file. In most cases you can rip to your machine for private use, but you cannot use it in a distribution application like PowerPoint (or BitTorrent).

Thank you, Austin.

Austin Myers creates a PowerPoint add-in that helps you shoo away your multimedia woes in PowerPoint. It is called PFCMedia and you can download a trial copy from his site...

Change Alignment of Numbers in a Chart

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2005-06-21T04:35:18-05:00

How can I change the alignment of all the numbers in a PowerPoint chart, i.e., the numbers (values) that are above the columns? I know how to change one individually, but how do you change the alignment (for example, from 0 degrees to 45 degrees) of all the values in just one or two steps?

PowerPoint MVP Echo Swinford provides a solution.

1. The values are called data labels. Click the chart area so that they're not selected.

2. Then click one data label *once* so that you see black squares around *all* the data labels in a data series.

3. Now right-click and choose Format Data Labels. If the right-click is difficult and makes you select just the one individual data label, then choose Format on the menu at the top of the screen and from there, choose Selected Data Labels.

4. Then head to the alignment tab and type in 45.

Echo, thank you for allowing me to reproduce this content here.

Tip: You can find tons of hard-to-find chart related ideas on Echo's chart page...

Save Sound Clips from the Clip Art Gallery & Task Pane

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2005-06-20T11:37:59-05:00

Is it possible to save sound clips within the Clip Art Gallery and Task Pane onto a CD or hard drive?

If you are using PowerPoint 97 or 2000, you can drag the clips you need from Clip Gallery to the desktop.

PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 users can drag the clips off the Clip Art task pane to the desktop.

Once the clips are on the desktop, you can burn them on a CD.

Fake it with multiple text boxes

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2005-06-19T12:03:01-05:00

I am bringing a text placeholder onto a slide one bullet point at a time. However, my slides are pictures so I need to fill the text placeholder background with white fill. Is there a way to bring in the fill color with the bullet points so the audience sees only the unobstructed picture first then the text and white fill background for the text in the placeholder as I bring it in?

1. Create a new text box for every bullet you require. Make sure your text boxes have white fills and black text as you need. You might even want to experiment with the transparency of the fill if you are using PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 - you'll find all these options in the Format dialog box - to access this dialog box, just double-click the text box.

2. Then line up all the text boxes so that they appear to be a single text placeholder.

3. Animate each text box in succession so that the bullets build one after the other.

Text Shadows In AutoShapes

noreply@blogger.com (Geetesh) — 2005-05-26T22:45:45-05:00

Here's a real stumper. I've been trying to figure this one out for a while. How can you edit the text shadow inside of a 'callout'. It seems to be locked. I've tried dropping text inside, highlighting text, changing the slide design settings, replacing all fonts in the presentation, you name it. Once again a problem that seems to be simple but is rather perplexing. I can't figure out why callouts don't have the same level of editing control that a simple text box has.

Shadows are influenced by two options:

1. Select the text and click the Shadow icon on the Drawing toolbar. Then click Shadow Settings to open the Shadow Settings toolbar. The last icon on this toolbar lets you change the shadow color.

2. Select the text and then choose Format | Font - if the Shadow option is selected, deselect it and work with the option 1.

It looks like text in an AutoShape (such as a callout) can only have shadows using option 2 though unless:

The base shadow settings give you a default background color. Remove the background color (i.e. no fill in the format autoshape window) and the callout text will perform just like any other textual text box.