Ooops. I just closed the PPTX file I was working on that I hadn't saved in a few hours. (c) iStockphoto / Thinkstock

You’ve been working tirelessly on a presentation. The creativity is flowing, you’re in a groove, and you’re masterfully pulling together what will be an epic PowerPoint presentation. For whatever reason as you juggle various files on your desktop, a part of your brain cramps up and you accidentally close (without saving) your presentation. This may never have happened to you, but it has happened to me a few times, including last Friday.

I was building a product demo presentation in PowerPoint, and I was incorporating multiple screenshot images from Photoshop. With multiple PowerPoint files and applications open on my desktop, I stared briefly at a window that I thought was an image I had already captured and cropped in Photoshop. I closed the “Photoshop” file, and then looked for my main PowerPoint file. To my disappointment, I realized I had just closed my PowerPoint presentation. Then my mind raced back to when I had last saved the file – surely I hadn’t been that stupid and had saved it recently. Right? Right?!!

To my horror, I discovered I hadn’t been diligently saving my presentation, and the last saved version was from a few hours ago. I had been “in the zone” previously, and now it was going to cost me dearly.

Don't hit the panic button if you're using PowerPoint 2010 (c) iStockphoto / Thinkstock

Panic started setting in because I really didn’t have time to redo what I had already done. Nothing feels as unproductive (and stupid) as reproducing something I had already created once before, especially when it would take me 2-3 hours I didn’t have. When your computer crashes or is unexpectedly interrupted, Microsoft displays recovered files when you restart PowerPoint. However, in this case the software wouldn’t know that user-error had caused me to lose the most recent version of my PowerPoint file. I then thought if PowerPoint’s AutoRecover feature is saving a temporary file of my presentations for when something unexpected happens, a more recent version of my presentation must be sitting somewhere on my computer. If I could just find it, a personal crisis would be averted.

Steps to recover a previously saved file in PowerPoint 2010

Step 1: The first thing you need to confirm is that you have AutoRecover enabled. If PowerPoint’s AutoRecover feature has been disabled, you’re royally screwed (sorry). Go to File > Options and a pop-up Options menu window will appear. Then go to the Save tab. Within the Save tab under the Save Presentations section at the top of the window, you’ll see some different AutoRecover options. Hopefully, you have the two options below enabled (they should be by default in PowerPoint 2010).

By default you should have these two options checked.

Step 2: In this same window, you’ll see that PowerPoint tells you where it saves the AutoRecover files on your computer.

Now you know where to find a more recently saved version of your PPT file

To find these files, I went to my local disk (C: drive) and then followed the folder structure listed below. I can’t recall if some of these folders are hidden so here’s a link to how to unhide folders in Windows 7 and Windows XP. Look for a folder that contains the name of your PowerPoint file and open that folder to find the most recently saved version of your presentation.

This folder looks like the presentation I was working on.

There's the temporary file I need, saved 13 minutes prior to my ill-timed brain fart.

Steps to recover a new file in PowerPoint 2010

If you’re working on a new PowerPoint file that you never saved before such as a presentation from an email attachment, there’s a slightly different and easier approach for recovering those files. In PowerPoint 2010, just go to File > Recent and at the very bottom right you’ll see a link for “Recover Unsaved Presentations”, which will take you to a folder with PowerPoint files that were never saved when the files were closed.

If you didn't know it was there, you'd probably never see the link.

Note: These files are temporary and will be deleted from your computer if you don’t retrieve them promptly. I couldn’t find any information on how long you have to grab the files, but assume you have 2-3 days max.

Happy Endings

Hooray! I don't have to spend even more time in PowerPoint! (c) iStockphoto / Thinkstock

The first method worked for me, and I was able to recover all of the work I had lost. I wanted to share this tip in the hope that it helps other people who find themselves in the same situation as me (or may find themselves in the same situation in the future). There is hope! This new feature only applies to PowerPoint 2010 so while my heart goes out to you if you have a previous version, I don’t have any tips for the same situation with PowerPoint 2007 or 2003. It appears the temporary files for those versions were limited to only recovery situations where your system crashed unexpectedly and not user error situations. It’s a good thing I only recently started making user errors in PowerPoint 2010 and never in the other versions…

Related posts:

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2. PowerPoint 2010 Paste Options – Love at First Sight Whether you’re building a PowerPoint presentation from a few other...
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Rise up against bad PowerPoint templates! (c)Thinkstock

If you work at a company with more than 100 people, you probably have an official corporate PowerPoint template. If you work in a company with more than 1,000 people, you probably don’t know the designer who created your presentation template. There’s a good chance that the graphic designer who created your PowerPoint template doesn’t use PowerPoint on a regular basis — in fact, they probably detest PowerPoint and never touch the presentation software other than to make sure the template looks okay every time the corporate branding is updated.

Does anyone see a problem here? It’s like a Mormon making your coffee or a vegan preparing your hamburger. Too many companies have templates that may look professional aesthetically but are basically impractical for daily use or have bad practices embedded right in them. I’m sure the designers put a lot of thought into the look-and-feel of the PowerPoint templates, but I don’t believe they ever considered doing any usability testing on their actual template designs. That’s too bad because all of their company’s PowerPoint users end up suffering. It forces people like me — who use PowerPoint on a daily and weekly basis — to modify the corporate templates to make them more practical and effective at communicating.

Most of the changes I make to the presentation templates are usually subtle in visual terms, but can save major headaches during the creation and presentation phases. However, most PowerPoint users won’t know how to fix their corporate templates, aren’t going to take matters into their own hands, and are essentially stuck with an impractical or ineffective presentation template.

10 mistakes to avoid in corporate PowerPoint templates

Working at different companies, I’ve run into various issues with PowerPoint templates over the years. I thought I’d share ten common template problems in hopes that template designers will avoid repeating these mistakes or empowering PowerPoint users to have them fixed. Most of these considerations are minor in nature but can have a big impact on the template’s usability and the effectiveness of the final presentations.

1. Font size is too small. I recently ran into a corporate template that has its slide title set to 24 pt. I guess the template designer wanted to make sure that the titles never went to two lines. However, by default the slide titles are now barely noticeable and almost confusing because the hierarchical importance of the slide title is lost (it’s almost the same size as the 20 pt. body text). I’ve modified the slide title to be at least 44 pt. so it commands more attention. The smaller the font size in the body or title text, the more you’re encouraging presenters to include more text which is generally not a best practice.
2. Weak contrast. On the same presentation template, there are a couple of problems with contrast. The slide title is set against a black background, however, the designer didn’t use white text but instead a shade of gray. When you combine the smaller text and weak contrast, the titles are essentially invisible and worthless. In addition, the designer chose a faded orange color for the bullets, which looks fine on your laptop but can disappear depending on the projector. I’ve changed the title text to white and the bullet color to a bolder orange that won’t be washed out by a bright projector.
3. Custom fonts. I’ve blogged about how you can add a custom font to your presentation. I like using non-standard fonts in certain situations; however, I’m against using them as default fonts in corporate PowerPoint templates. The custom fonts will work great internally as long as everyone has the fonts installed, but as soon as you present your slides on an external computer or send to someone outside of your organization without embedding the fonts, you’re hosed. When you present your slides on a computer that doesn’t have the same font, PowerPoint will insert another standard font (e.g., Arial) in its place which can lead to all kinds of layout problems, leaving your presentation looking more like a crossword puzzle. For those individuals who present outside of the organization (salespeople, consultants, executives, etc.) on non-company computers, having custom fonts in the presentation template is a bad idea. I’ve removed the custom font in my version of the corporate template and replaced it with the Calibri font, which is standard across most computers running MS Office and a little more interesting than Arial or Times New Roman (ok, only slightly). This approach is not as sexy, but it avoids unexpected text issues when presenting on external computers.
4. Large file size. If the template designers are sloppy, they’ll include a hi-res image for a background and inflate the baseline file size of all your presentations (much to the annoyance of your IT department). If your empty presentation template is over 1 MB, you’ve got this problem. You’ll want to have the designer save the background image at a lower resolution to reduce the file size of your presentation files.
5. Off-center bullets. Designers will often reduce the size of the bullet character as a percent of the text (e.g., 70%) when they want a smaller bullet. They don’t realize that changing the size of the bullet mark will create a bullet that is no longer centered on the line. The better approach is to find a smaller version of the same object (circle, square, dash, etc.) in one of the standard fonts (wingdings, webdings, normal text, etc.).
6. Default color theme. Each PowerPoint template should have a color theme that matches the corporate brand colors. If you just have the default PowerPoint colors in the template, you’ve missed an opportunity to help presenters choose colors from a palette that you control and influence. It’s a missed opportunity if you don’t, and you’ll see some interesting colors used across the company. You can create a custom theme for colors under the Design > Colors tab.
7. Mismatched shape formatting. Often so much emphasis will be placed on the slide background, layout, color themes, etc. that designers forget to create a standard format for shapes or objects that matches the overall presentation template (e.g., fill color, outline color, text font, etc.). It’s simple to create a default style by creating the desired formatting then right-clicking on the shape and selecting “Set as Default Shape” before saving the template file.
8. No blank slide. With the increased use of images in PowerPoint presentations, many presenters will appreciate a layout option for a simple blank slide. Template designers often neglect to include this option, but it should be a standard option in any good PowerPoint template.
9. No light/dark background options. Sometimes you might need a light background presentation for an internal meeting or you might need a dark background for a presentation at an industry conference. Good presentation templates should have both light and dark versions available for the presenter to choose from.
10. Uses standard footers. In PowerPoint 2007 and 2010, Microsoft mistakenly (in my opinion) made the footers editable when you’re designing your slides. This can be a major pain in the butt when you accidentally select a page number footer when you’re re-positioning different objects on a slide. I prefer to have any footer content immovable and embedded in the actual slide master. You can do this by avoiding the footer feature in the Master Slide and just use text boxes instead for page numbers, disclaimers, etc.

I’ve provided ten areas where PowerPoint templates can be improved. What other faux pas have you seen in PowerPoint template design? What have you seen in good presentation templates that I might have missed? Let’s put an end to the tyranny of bad PowerPoint templates that plague corporations today!

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While my first published book through Adobe Press/Peachpit focuses on web analytics, I do make the point that analysts and marketers need to be able to effectively communicate their optimization recommendations in order for their organizations to act on them. In fact, a significant part of the book’s sixth chapter focuses on this topic (you can see where my presentation and web analytics skills intersected). I feel you can have a sharp analytical mind and even a PhD in Statistics, but if you can’t communicate your insights effectively you’re not going to drive any action. No action, no value.

After writing my first book, I now have a new appreciation for authors and all the work that goes into publishing a book. After devoting a significant chunk of my 2011 to this project, I’m glad it’s done and excited that my life can return to being more normal.

Adding a new Twitter account: @AnalyticsHero

When I originally started blogging and opened my first Twitter account (@pptninja), I primarily focused on announcing new posts for this blog. Then I started blogging for my day job on web analytics topics  at Omniture/Adobe, and I decided to keep the same Twitter account. This approach created a small problem because I now had two sets of followers: people who like my PowerPoint presentation tips and people who work in the web analytics industry. While most web analytics professionals might be interested in my PowerPoint tips, any tweets on analytics wouldn’t necessarily appeal to my pure presentation followers.

Anyway, launching my new book has forced my hand to introduce a second Twitter handle @analyticshero that coincides with the book. Therefore, if you originally followed my @pptninja Twitter account for web analytics-related tweets, please switch over to the new @analyticshero handle. If you’re interested in PowerPoint goodness, stay with the current @pptninja handle (feel free to follow both). Now that all of my spare time isn’t consumed with writing a book, I hope to post more PowerPoint Ninja posts this year than last year.

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Ready for any PowerPoint emergency. (c) Thinkstock

Recently, I was a part of a university event where I needed to present along with a senior executive from my company and several student teams. Rather than switching out the laptops for each different presentation, I decided to load all of the presentations on to my machine beforehand. I hate it when you run into setup problems when one group’s laptop doesn’t work properly with the projector or some other issue — and it throws off the whole schedule. What I didn’t anticipate was that the presentation remote would only work with the desktop computer in the auditorium.

No problem. I had all of the presentations also loaded on to a USB flash drive so I could transfer the files on to the desktop. However, in its infinite wisdom, the university’s IT group blocked any files from being installed on the desktop including a font file that one of the teams needed. After explaining the situation to an IT “support” person, he indicated nothing could be done before our event started. Aaagggh. Luckily, someone had brought their own presentation remote so we could just run the presentations from my laptop.

Often it’s easier said than done “to be prepared”, but we often focus so much on the actual presentation itself and forget the other small technical details that can completely ruin our beautiful slides and well-rehearsed thoughts. In reflecting on this recent situation, I had several takeaways for presenters who want to be more prepared for PowerPoint emergencies:

1. Be early

Nothing defuses potential problems like having ample time to adjust or adapt. If I wasn’t early for the aforementioned event, I would have been scrambling and very stressed out right before I was set to present. Not ideal. It’s always a best practice to arrive early for important presentations to familiarize yourself with your environment, technology, audience, etc. Nothing says “I don’t care about my audience” like unnecessary delays or complications due to arriving last-minute and expecting everything to “just work” — and it doesn’t.

2. Have a back-up plan

As you’re building your presentation, anticipate problems before they happen and have a contingency plan in place. Common problem areas include needing internet access to show a website or displaying a live product demo. What will you do if you can’t access a website or the demo crashes? I often have screenshots of the website or product in my presentation if something goes wrong. While screenshots might not be as good as the real thing, they’re better than nothing. Panic from not having a back-up plan can throw off what would have been a great presentation.

3. Invest in a 16 Gig (or higher) USB flash drive

You never know when you’ll need a way to quickly transfer a file from one computer to another prior to a presentation. We frequently assume that we’ll have an internet connection available so we can just email files back and forth, but experience has shown that’s not always the case as Murphy’s Law will often kick in. What if the wifi reception in the room is spotty or the files are too big to email? Having a large-capacity USB drive overcomes these types of issues, and the USB drives are now fairly inexpensive. I picked up a new Kingston 16 GB flash drive from Amazon for less than $20.

4. Buy your own presentation remote

After this recent experience, I finally broke down and bought my own remote — probably something I should have done ages ago (I know, I know). Now I have one less thing to worry about from a technology and usability perspective. I love my new Logitech Professional Presenter R800 (about $60). It works flawlessly, and I don’t have to worry about figuring out an unfamiliar remote. I also hate being tethered to a computer, and the remote gives me the freedom I need to engage and interact with my audience (as well as a handy laser pointer built into the remote).

5. Apple Users: Get an extra VGA cable adapter

If you use a MacBook Pro, you’ll want to have a spare Apple Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter. When I’ve used an Apple MacBook, I needed to bring my VGA cable adapter for internal meetings; however, I often forgot to pack it for external meetings. I found it was better just to have one permanently in my laptop bag for external presentations in addition to the one I used in the office.

How else do you prepare for potential PowerPoint emergencies? Pack a spare CAT5 cable? An extension cord? I’m sure there are other tips and tools that may have helped you to be more prepared. Please share them!

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I love quotes. (c)Thinkstock

When you’re trying to add more emphasis or credibility to a key point in your presentation, a quote can come in handy. I’m a fan of a good, well-placed quote. I’ve even assembled a humble collection of PowerPoint-related quotes. However, just like inappropriate or tired images can detract from your content, so can poorly-chosen or over-used quotes. I thought I’d share some thoughts and tips on using quotes in PowerPoint presentations.

Two types of quotes

I’ve found that good quotes fall into two main categories:

1. Powerful quote because of who uttered it: Sometimes who stated the quote is just as important as what was said. If you have a quote by someone highly respected or highly relevant to your topic (e.g., your competitor’s CEO), the quote gains credibility and potency simply by who stated it. The opposite effect can also happen. For example, I found a great quote by Richard Nixon – but I decided against using it because it came from the disgraced former US president.
2. Powerful quote despite who uttered it: In some cases, the quote is so insightful or appropriate that it doesn’t really matter who said it. Generally, it’s hard to find quotes that don’t come from some reasonably respected source, but the quoted individual might be fairly obscure and not familiar to your audience. I like to do a Wikipedia search on the individual to find out more about their background and make sure that nothing in their past would conflict with the point I’m trying to make. In a few instances, I found a great quote by an unfamiliar person but when I researched the author I found they had a checkered past, which soured me on using their quotes.

Which type of quotes do you tend to use? Do you tend to favor one type over another? At the end of the day it comes down to the appropriateness or relevance of the quote to your content. If it’s credited to someone well-respected or well-known, then you don’t have to worry about explaining who the author is. In the case of the second option, you might need to indicate who they are (e.g., first female boxer, 18th-century English poet. etc.).

Finding good quotes

Two of the best sites for finding good quotes are Brainyquote.com and Thinkexist.com. Both have extensive selections of quotes. One of the challenges of finding good quotes is getting the right keyword. Without the right keyword, you might not identify the quote you need. Experiment with different synonyms as well as plural forms. For example, simply trying “tools” instead of “tool” opened up better quotes during a recent quote search I was performing.

In addition, some of the best sources of inspirational quotes are collections of quotes for particular topics (e.g., motivation, success, design, adversity, etc.). The advantage of these collections is that they don’t necessarily contain a specific keyword. Sometimes you can be limited by the terms you search for. I’ve found these quote collections by searching for the topic by including “quotes and sayings” in your search.  A good example of one of these sites is quotegarden.com, which has quotes by a variety of topics. If you’re a fan of using quotes, I also recommend keeping track of our favorite quotes as you find them by keeping them in a single document so you can easily find them when you need them.

Verify your quotes

Check out Ralph Keyes book!

When you choose a quote, you’ll want to be sure to get the right source. Sometimes a popular quote will be attributed to several different people. You might want to double-check who the most likely source was using Wikiquote or Ralph Keyes’ Quote Verifier book. I would also recommend checking on quotes that are deemed to be “anonymous” or “author unknown”. I found a great quote (“Words divide us, action unites us”) that was supposedly from an unknown author until I discovered it was actually the slogan of a South American terrorist group (Uruguay’s Tupamaros). Yikes. Finally, you may want to check the context of the quote (if it’s even possible to ascertain). You may interpret the quote differently than the way the author intended. Sometimes it won’t matter if you’re using the quote out of context, but in other situations the context may be critical.

Short and sweet

For presentations, I’d recommend using short quotes that are quick reads for your audience – say no more than a couple of lines (less than 15 words). Occasionally, I might use a longer quote but the payoff needs to be worth the increased text. Some quoted people have the talent to express things more succinctly (Albert Einstein – succinct, Bill Gates – verbose). Make sure you’re not passing up a more succinct quote simply because you’ve settled on the first relevant quote you’ve found.

The top quote is really short. The second quote is pushing the length limits (one of my favorite quotes BTW).

Quotes and images

Typically, I’ve seen quotes presented in three methods. First, you may choose to feature the quote without any images (e.g., white text on a dark background). With a minimalist approach your audience isn’t distracted from focusing on the key point or message within the quote. You can emphasize key parts of the quote with italics, bold, color, size, font, etc. (check out this blog post for some inspiration). If the author of the quote is well-known and important to the quote, you may decide to include a picture of the individual who stated it (see below). Third, you may choose to emphasize the message (and not the author) by tying the quote to a descriptive image. There is no preferred way, and the best approach will depend on your audience, your message, and what you’re trying to achieve.

Here you see three versions of the same quote using different approaches (text, author image, and topic image).

Interestingly, the often-quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson once stated, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.” Quotes aren’t substitutes for good content, but they can reinforce good content. You can quote me on that!

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Paste options . . . it was love at first sight. (c) Thinkstock

Whether you’re building a PowerPoint presentation from a few other slide decks or creating charts in Excel to add into your slides, you’re constantly copying and pasting things into PowerPoint. One of the most frustrating things is when you copy something – a slide, chart, or table – and paste it into PowerPoint 2007, all of the formatting changes. Grrrrr. More work that you didn’t need. One of my more popular blog posts is actually how to retain the formatting of a slide when it is inserted into another presentation in PowerPoint 2007.

You'll see other options depending on what you're pasting.

In PowerPoint 2010, Microsoft has combined the Paste Special dialog box with Office Paste Recovery feature so you have easier access to different paste options. In addition, if you’re not sure which paste option to use, you get a live preview so you can see what the end result will look like. It’s definitely a great user-centric enhancement to PowerPoint. In fact, it’s my favorite new feature in PowerPoint 2010 so far because I use it so much (Office 2010 for that matter because it works in Outlook, Word, Excel, etc.). It was love at first sight when I found it. (Is there such a thing as love at first paste? It sounds weird).

Pasting entire slides into PowerPoint 2010

When you’re pasting slides from another presentation, you’re going to have three options:

1. Use Destination Theme: The slide will be reformatted to work with the theme and template of the presentation you’re pasting into. Depending on how different the two templates are, you could notice significant differences when you use this paste option.
2. Keep Source Formatting: The slide will retain its original appearance, including the background template. Tip: If you want to keep the same color theme for objects within a slide but not retain the slide’s original template, copy the guts of the slide (instead of the entire slide) and then paste them into a new slide using this “keep source formatting” option. That way your template will be consistent across all of your slides, and you don’t have to spend extra time restoring everything to its original color scheme.
3. Picture: The slide is inserted as an image within the presentation. I think there are limited applications for this option.

In PowerPoint 2007, you had these same options but they were a little buried in the tool and hard to find. Note: When you’re pasting an entire slide, you don’t get the live preview option. The live preview feature only works when you’re pasting objects (e.g., charts, text, tables, etc.) into a slide rather than an entire slide.

Pasting charts or tables into PowerPoint 2010

When I paste this chart, the colors have changed (left). Whereas if I keep the source formatting (right), it will match what I originally created in Excel.

One of the most frustrating things is to create a nice Excel chart and paste it into PowerPoint, and watch all of your formatting and colors change right before your ideas. You then have to go in and reformat the stupid chart to the way you originally had it in Excel or paste it as an image.

Subtle differences between your PowerPoint template's theme colors and the default colors will cause problems.

You may be wondering why this happens. If you’re using a corporate template, the designer will have adjusted the theme colors to match corporate brand colors. However, all of the other Office applications (Word, Excel, etc.) will still have the default color theme. When you bring over a chart or table, the colors will align with the color theme of the presentation rather than staying with the default colors. The good news is with Office 2010 you no longer have this problem as you can easily retain the source formatting using the enhanced 2010 Paste Options. Hooray!

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2. Bedazzling Presentations with New Transitions in PPT 2010 If you’ve used slide transitions in PowerPoint, you’ll be happy...
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Localize (localise) your slides! (c) Thinkstock

If you present in various locations around the world or even within your own country/province/state/county/city, you might want to consider localizing your slides for your various audiences. The path of least effort is to make one generic version of your slides and just present the same version to all audiences. With the generic slides, you pass up any advantage you would gain from making the slides more relevant and meaningful to a specific local audience. There are some real benefits to localization as local examples can really pique the interest and attention of your audience.

In order to capture some of these benefits, you might tailor your presentation for your most important audience. But you may decide to not put the same effort into subsequent presentations for other less important audiences. Alternatively, you might not realize ahead of time that you’d be presenting the same presentation in another location so you weren’t anticipating having to localize the slides for another audience. If your slides are tuned for one audience (e.g., USA), then they will be suboptimal for another (e.g., Canada). In your mind, you might argue that Americans and Canadians are similar enough that the Canadians will “get” the US-centric slides. No big deal, right?

Localize and Put Your Audience First

Well, you’re essentially putting yourself ahead of your audience. Rather than tailoring the slides to each audience – showing them that they are important to you – you send the opposite message that you don’t care enough about your audience to spend the time localizing your slides for them. It’s not a great message to send your audience. You’re also making your audience work harder to understand your message. They have to see past the content that is tailored to a different part of the world, country, city, etc., and hopefully the localization efforts for one audience don’t impede the ability of other audiences to comprehend the slides.

In Nancy Duarte’s most recent book, “Resonate”, she argues that you (the presenter) are not the hero/star of your presentation, your audience is. Localizing your slides to a particular audience can really help you to connect with that audience, and make them feel like they are the heroes of your presentation. From what I’ve seen as both a presenter and an audience member, audiences really appreciate the extra effort to connect with them through their culture, values, traditions, history, language, etc.

Congrats to ManU on its 19th league championship. Good luck in the Euro Cup!

Last week, I presented at a conference in London. One of my presentations was a repeat of one I delivered in the US. One of the core themes in my presentation was related to sports — specifically the Jordan-era Chicago Bulls dynasty. At first I thought it might be too difficult to tailor the slides I had created for the US to another geographic region. However, after recruiting some help from local co-workers in the United Kingdom, I was surprised at how well the concept translated over to another sport and sports team (football and Manchester United).

While it did require some extra time and effort, I believe it was worth the effort as I felt better connected to the local audience. In addition, I received positive feedback on the presentation from several audience members, and they enjoyed the localization of the slides even if they weren’t Manchester United fans. They indicated that too often American presenters fail to make any effort at localizing their slides for European audiences. That’s a missed opportunity in my mind and may even put a wall between you and your audience (especially when nationalism is involved).

You don’t have to present overseas to run into this problem. It can be as simple as presenting slides featuring one team (e.g., Michigan) to an audience based near a bitter rival (e.g., Ohio State). In this case, you not only look ignorant, but you can actually aggravate your audience. Don’t risk losing your audience! Localize (localise if you’re in the UK) your slides accordingly to have a greater impact with your audiences.

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You can bedazzle your presentations with new transitions in PowerPoint 2010. But should you?

If you’ve used slide transitions in PowerPoint, you’ll be happy to know that Microsoft has upgraded the transition effects in PowerPoint 2010. They’re slicker and smoother than the stale ones that you’ve seen in recent versions of PowerPoint. In fact, if you’ve seen any presentations done on Apple’s Keynote presentation software, you’ll recognize some similar effects in PowerPoint 2010 (e.g., the “cube turn” transition). I believe the 19 new transitions were a direct response to Keynote’s more cinematic, professional-looking transition effects, which put to shame PowerPoint’s transition effects.

PowerPoint 2010 also gives presenters more control over the actual transition effects. In the past, the slide transitions were more or less uni-directional and fixed, but now you can adjust various aspects of the transition effects (primarily the direction of the effect). In the case of the new Glitter transition, PowerPoint 2010 lets you choose the direction of the effect and what shape it will use to create the effect (hexagon or diamond). Microsoft also introduced “dynamic content” transitions, which don’t change the entire slide (background + content) — just the content within the slide.

You get a whole bunch of new transitions in PowerPoint 2010 -- nineteen by my count.

Before you bedazzle your next presentation

With all of these new transition options at your fingertips, you may be tempted to “bedazzle” your next presentation. I’ve seen Keynote presentations where the cinematic slide transitions were used rather liberally — almost flauntingly. Before you start pumping flashy, new transitions into all your PowerPoint 2010 presentations, you need to re-consider the purpose of slide transitions. In most cases, slide transitions simply inform the audience that your presentation has progressed from one slide to another slide. That’s it. If your audience needs to wake up between slide changes, you may have bigger problems with your presentation content than even transitions can solve.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Bedazzling isn't always the best idea.

I’ve referred to transitions as empty calories because I don’t believe they add much value (yes – even this “exciting” new group of transitions). If I bedazzle my sweaty workout t-shirt, it’s still going to smell. Sure it sparkles, but I don’t think most people will get past the odor. In other words, flashy transitions aren’t going to save a bad presentation. I would even argue that they can potentially detract from a good presentation. Initially, the new transitions in PowerPoint 2010 will be a novelty but eventually the “wow factor” will wear off when most people are using Office 2010. I think presenters need to remember that the “wow factor” isn’t for their presentations but the presentation software they’re using.

If slide transitions aren’t used to better communicate your message, they really shouldn’t be used. If you’re not trying to convey a particular message (e.g., photo slideshow) in your slides, bedazzle away to your heart’s content. However, I would argue that almost all business presentations should be focused on effectively communicating a particular message or set of messages to an audience. As a result, slide transitions will just delay, dilute, or detract from the message you’re trying to convey. I welcome creative applications of the new transitions to achieve better communication (there might be some specific scenarios where it makes sense to use transitions — e.g., Nancy Duarte’s push transition technique), but I’m concerned that in most cases the new transitions will just be used to bedazzle presentations needlessly — substituting sizzle for substance.

More custom animation effects needed — not transition effects

Surprisingly, Microsoft only upgraded the transition effects in PowerPoint 2010 – there are no new custom animation effects. When I heard about the new transitions in PowerPoint 2010, I was hoping that they would add new custom animation effects as well (e.g., my vote would be for a pendulum effect where I can swing an object around a specific pivot point). I consider the two types of effects to be close cousins. Too bad only one side of the family got some cosmetic surgery — the side I don’t care about.

Using an approach I’ve called content staging, custom animations help to communicate information ON a particular slide. Transition effects focus on what happens BETWEEN slides. I care more about the message which is conveyed on a slide rather than the gap between slides. Maybe the next PowerPoint version will add more custom animation effects, which in my mind are far more valuable than any flashy transitions.

Note: Yes, I’ve finally upgraded to PowerPoint 2010 (PowerPoint ninjas are cautious animals). As I explore PowerPoint 2010 further, I’ll provide more insights into the features that I like and dislike. Stay tuned!

Related posts:

1. PowerPoint Slide Transitions are Empty Calories One form of animations in PowerPoint that you may want...
2. Five Keys to Creating Effective PowerPoint Animations – Part I Custom animations can help you to communicate your message or...
3. Five Keys to Creating Effective PowerPoint Animations – Part II In my previous post, I covered two of the five...

I love layers when it comes to parfait and PowerPoint. (c) Brand X / Thinkstock

Layering can be a useful technique and a potential shortcut in PowerPoint. You can use the order of the objects to create different visual effects that would be difficult or impossible to create by other means. Part of being a PowerPoint ninja is recognizing when a time-saving shortcut is the best approach.

Sometimes building a PowerPoint slide is like building a movie set. You don’t need to build a perfect replica of an entire Mayan temple — just a passageway and a few walls that will be a backdrop to your hero’s adventures. Movie directors and set designers know that only the visible parts of the set are what matter to the film. In other words, as long as your audience is only viewing your slides in the Slide Show view and it achieves the desired visual effect, it doesn’t matter how you construct the actual slide in PowerPoint.

I’ve used this particular layering trick a few times to hide edges within an object. In this case, I wanted to have arrows pointing inwards within this cloud. I could edit the arrows so that they didn’t overlap with the outline of the cloud objects. However, this would be very time-consuming to do as I would need to be careful to not overlap any of the outline edges.

Once I added the arrows, I created a copy of the cloud which I layered on top of the other cloud.

Instead, I created a copy of the cloud image, made its fill transparent, kept the outline the same, and brought it to the front (Home tab > Arrange > Bring to Front). I then roughly adjusted the ends of the arrows so they would be hidden when I placed the transparent cloud directly in front. Essentially, the arrows became sandwiched between the two clouds, and my audience was none the wiser as to how I created the graphic. I’ve used this technique in various ways such as partially filling an object in a different color. Enjoy!

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2. Image Fading Technique in PowerPoint You may have run into a situation where you wanted...
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Finding the right images can be a time-consuming exercise. (c)Thinkstock

You’ve read Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen or Nancy Duarte’s Slide:ology, and you’re energized to start using more images in your PowerPoint presentations. All of the examples in their presentation design books are amazing. They make it look so easy, but you’ve probably found it’s not as easy as it looks. Searching for just the right image can be a time-consuming and sometimes frustrating process.

I thought I’d share some practical tips for finding good images for your next presentation (I’ve also done a two-part article on what makes an image good). There are a couple of different scenarios when you’re searching for images. In some cases, you generally know what you are looking for. For example, I might need a photo of a boat, and it is fairly straightforward to accomplish this task on a stock photography site. However, there are times when you don’t necessarily know the subject of your image and you need inspiration. For either scenario, the following tips will help you to be more effective in your quest for good images for your presentations:

Tip #1 – Try various keywords in your search

When you’re searching for images on a stock photography site (e.g., an image of a boat), I recommend trying different synonyms of the word (e.g., ship), specific types/categories of the word (e.g., yacht, steamboat, canoe, etc.), or related words (e.g., fishing, sailing, cruise, etc.). You might want to use a thesaurus or keyword lists on actual image pages to identify other keywords you can use in your image search.

Most of the stock photos are assigned meta tags by the photographers, and some of them do a better job of tagging their photos than others. You may miss out on a great photo simply because you didn’t use the right keyword in your search. The most obvious keyword may not yield the best results.

These are the metatags for a particular image (found on the image page). You can see what other keywords are being used for the same image and see if there's another keyword that is better than the one you're using.

Tip #2 – Get inspiration from other people (via Google)

If you need an image for a more abstract topic (e.g., teamwork, willpower, or arrogance), you may not know where to begin your image search because you don’t have a specific subject in mind. It can be helpful to see what subjects or approaches other people have used for the same keyword. A quick Google image search can yield some great ideas (Note: you might want to adjust the Safesearch settings so you don’t have potentially embarrassing images showing up on your desktop. Seemingly harmless keywords can turn up some interesting images).

Once you have some inspiration from what other people have done, you can then find specific images on a stock photography site. You need to be careful about just taking images from random sites via Google image searches. First, the images may have copyrights. Second, most of the website images are too small or low resolution to show well in presentations.

Google Image search can be a great source of inspiration when you're in a hurry or stuck in a creative rut.

Tip #3 – Realize filters are your friends

Useful search filters on Thinkstock

Many stock photography sites have introduced advanced search filters that can speed up your image searches and also increase your success rate. Sites such as Thinkstock (Disclaimer: I have received a complimentary subscription from Thinkstock) and iStockphoto have added a variety of useful search filters so that you can better target your searches. For example, on Thinkstock you can narrow down your search for “innovation” images by subject (e.g., “business”), concept (e.g., “ideas”), people (e.g., “no people”), style (e.g., “close-ups”), collections (e.g., Comstock images), etc. In addition, some stock photography sites allow you to apply negative keywords to your searches (e.g., not “light bulbs”). In addition, Boolean filters (AND, OR, NOT) and searching within results can help you to narrow down the thousands of images to a more manageable and targeted set of photos.

Tip #4 – Take full advantage of useful site features

Stock photography sites offer various tools and features that can help your quest for good images. One useful tool is the light box, which enables you to save images to a folder. Sometimes you come across decent images, but you’re not sure if you’re going to find a better image around the corner. It’s a best practice to add the image to your light box so you can easily find it if you decide you really do need it.

Another useful search feature is the ability to expand the number of images per page. Seeing more images at a time can speed up your searching. Finally, every site is going to have unique features, and I really like Thinkstock’s “view similar images” feature, which allows you to see other photos with a similar composition. This feature can come in handy when you’re trying to find a slightly different variation of an image that you’ve already found or a series of similar-looking images for a theme in your presentation.

I love the "view similar images" feature on Thinkstock.

Tip #5 – Watch the time clock

Be careful how long you take to find images. You can't get it back once it's gone. (c)Thinkstock

You may be searching for the perfect image – but it’s not jumping out at you. You may be trying the tips mentioned above to find the right image. However, you need to know when it’s time to cut bait and settle for something that may not be ideal or rethink your idea for the image. You can spend hours looking for an elusive, “big bang” image, and still come up empty handed. As I’ve stated many times before, time is the root of all PowerPoint evil. When you carelessly waste your time searching for images, you’re going to have less time to actually build or rehearse your slides. Sometimes a “good enough” image has to be good enough.

Please share any image search secrets that have helped you in the past. An old ninja can still learn a trick or two. Good luck in your future image searches!

Related posts:

1. What Makes an Image Good for Presentations – Part II In the first part of this article, I discussed how...
2. What Makes an Image Good for Presentations – Part I If you’ve read any presentation design books lately (Presentation Zen...
3. PowerPoint and the Quest for the “Big Bang” Image I was reading a recent post by Jan Schultink on...