Techniques

• Presentation
• Creation
• Delivery
• Venue
• Technology
• Products

Labels: General, Performance, Presentation

A covey of notions

"PowerPoint Heaven is a PowerPoint entertainment portal for PowerPoint animations, games, artworks, showcases, animation templates and tutorials. The focus of this site is to maximize the use of Microsoft PowerPoint and go beyond its capability. Our goal is to show users that PowerPoint is not simply a presentation tool, but is also capable on leveraging into other areas such as creating games, artworks and animations."

Labels: General, Tips

2003-2007-2010

Labels: General, Reference, Ribbon

A few tips

Labels: General, Instructional, Performance, Presentation, Tips

Find and/change storage spots

Labels: Customize, General, Templates

Start with the end in mind

"Before you even open up PowerPoint, sit down and really think about the day of your presentation. What is the real purpose of your talk? Why is it that you were ask to speak? What does the audience expect? In your opinion, what are the most important parts of your topic for the audience to take away from your, say, 50-minute presentation?


Remember, even if you've been asked to share information, rarely is the mere transfer of information a satisfactory objective from the point of view of the audience. After all, the audience could always just read your book (or article, handout, etc.) if information transfer were the only purpose of the meeting, seminar, or formal presentation."

Labels: General, Instructional, Performance, Presentation, Tips, Tutorials

Import it all

"This macro outline allows the user to use Word's "Send To PowerPoint" feature, then run this macro to get notes from MS Word to PowerPoint as notes. The macro allows you to set the text level you want to become the notes.

Labels: General, Notes, Tips, VBA

Scary trick

Labels: General, Templates, Tips

Go round the circle

Labels: General, Presentation, Tips, Tutorials

Different Shows, Different Folks

"Custom shows is all about creating a presentation within a presentation. Instead of creating multiple PowerPoint files, nearly identical presentations for different audiences, you can group together and name the slides that differ and then jump to these slides during your presentation. The slides in the show can be re-ordered to appear in a customized sequence.

For example - you might want to give a presentation to two groups that work at two different locations. The slide show includes slides 1 through 15, which are identical for both groups, and two custom shows, each specific to one of the locations. You can show the first 15 slides to both groups and then jump to a custom show named 'location 1' for the first group and to a custom show named 'location 2' for the second group."

Labels: General, Presentation, Tips

Line it up straight

Labels: General, Tips

In brevity is success

If "thirty points," is too dogmatic, the I offer you an algorithm: find out the age of the oldest person in your audience and divide it by two. That's your optimal font size.

Labels: Formats, General, Presentation, Tips

I'd Like to Make It Clear

• squinted your eyes trying to see the numbers in a PowerPoint presentation?
  
  
• scratched your head at a charity leaflet with an indecipherable pie chart titled 'Where your donation goes' ... and set it aside?
  
  
• missed discussion at a meeting because you were busy trying to figure out the figures?
  
  
• put aside a graph or table, thinking "I'm not good with numbers."?

• what to include: when unsure what numbers are important, people frequently display them all, overpowering the reader with irrelevance.
  
  
• which format to use: the choice between text and table, table and chart, bar and pie.
  
  
• how to use the technology effectively: computer software generates graphs easily, but the results hide your point behind incomprehensible chartjunk.
  
  
• how to explain the information: selecting the right words for titles, columns and captions.

Labels: General, Tips

Not a walk in the park

• Showing presentations without the need for a computer
  
• Distributing your slideshows to friends and colleagues
  
• Unattended exhibition presentations, that automatically repeat/rewind
  
• Giving your presentations more of a TV feel
  

Labels: General, Presentation, Tips

Labels: Formats, General, Tips

It's Probably Because People No Longer Really Listen

"Not only is it easier to throw together a stack of PowerPoint slides than it is to write that 10,000-word document, it is much easier to leave out or gloss over parts of the project that might not survive close scrutiny if they were described in complete sentences. Can you say "weapons of mass destruction?" If we cut to the heart of this current controversy about whether Iraq really had WMD, whether the U.S. honestly believed Iraq had WMD, and who got it wrong, I'm sure we'll end up with a guilty PowerPoint stack. In that stack, you'll find a slide containing the words "Iraq" and "WMD" but taken out of context, there is no way of knowing what the presenter even intended the slide to mean. Thus, we have plausible deniability through PowerPoint."

For eight years from 1987-95, Robert X. Cringely wrote the Notes From the Field column in InfoWorld, a weekly computer trade newspaper. He is also the author of the best-selling book Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date.
Most recently, Cringely is the host and writer of the hit PBS-TV miniseries "Electric Money."

If We're in Trouble

Robert X. Cringely (www.pbs.org/cringely/)




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powerpoint

Labels: General, Presentation

From one presentation to another

Colgate University:
Inserting Slides from Another PowerPoint Presentation

For 2007, see the bottom of the "New Slide" menu on the Home tab:





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powerpoint

Labels: General, Shortcuts, Tips

Tutorials and downloads

PowerPak for PowerPoint Demo

the shareware version of PowerPak, an innovative collection of PowerPoint lesson and game templates.

PowerPak for PowerPoint Sampler

a larger file, but includes a fun custom show as well as the shareware.

Control the Heat Mouse Over Template (ppt file)

a PowerPoint template with a thermometer which can raise the temperature by moving the mouse over it.

Time Machine Mouse Over Template

ia PowerPoint template with a clock that can be moved forward and backward in time by moving the mouse over it.

Shadow Techniques

shows some fun techniques with shadows in PowerPoint.

Origins of PowerPoint

the illustrated version of Austin Meyer's irreverent story.

Mouse Over Magic

shows stupid mouse tricks.

Abracadabra.mid

music to go with the stupid mouse tricks.

Labels: General, Graphics, Templates, Tips

Which side are you on?

"Boxes and Arrows is the definitive source for the complex task of bringing architecture and design to the digital landscape. There are various titles and professions associated with this undertaking — information architecture, information design, interaction design, interface design"

• Seth Godin writing a self-published how-to article called "Really Bad PowerPoint"?
  
• Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems banning its use?
  
• Peter Norvig parodying PowerPoint with the Gettysburg Address (or is it vice versa)?
  
• The New Yorker profiling a working mother who uses PowerPoint to "pitch" cleanliness to her two kids?
  
• Fortune Magazine calling it an "epidemic that threatens the cerebrums of business more than bovine spongiform encephalopathy"?
  
• Visualization guru Edward Tufte practically having fits?
  
• Leslie Harpold and Michael Sippey duking it out to create attractive presentations?

Labels: General

Choose your own images

1. Open the PowerPoint presentation. If you want to save a specific slide, select it in Normal view.
   
2. On the File menu, click Save As.
   
3. Select an empty folder or create a new empty folder in which to save your presentation or slide.
   
4. In the Save as type box, click Device Independent Bitmap, and then click Save. You can keep the original presentation file name or create a new name.
   
5. Click Every Slide or Current Slide Only, and then click OK.
   
6. Your presentation or slide is saved to the folder that you selected. After you close your PowerPoint presentation, you will use Windows XP to open the presentation or slide as a screen saver.
   (Animations that you may have added to the original presentation will not play when you create the screen saver. )
   
7. Close your presentation.

1. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Display, or right-click an empty part of the desktop and choose Properties.
   
2. On the Screen Saver tab, click My Pictures Slideshow (Photos in Vista).
   
3. Under Screen saver, click Settings.
   
4. Under How often should pictures change?, set the slider at the interval you want between pictures, or, if you are making a single slide a screen saver, move the slider to Less (three minutes) to avoid a distracting flicker on the screen during the transitions.
   
5. Under Use pictures in this folder, browse to the folder in which you saved the presentation or slide.
   
6. If you saved a single slide, clear the Use transition effects between pictures and Allow scrolling through pictures with the keyboard check boxes.
   (screen saver transition effects in this screen saver option are predesigned and do not include the transitions that you set when you created the presentation.)
   
7. Click OK.

To preview your new screen saver, on the Screen Saver tab, click Preview

Create a screen saver from slides



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powerpoint

Labels: General, Instructional, Other uses, Tips

Use local Help

1. Bring up the Help Task Pane (The F1 key will do this.)
   
   
2. At the bottom of the "See also" box there is a hyperlink: "Office Online Settings"
   
   
3. Click this link; you will get the Service Options dialog box
   
   
4. Uncheck the option: "Search online content when connected"

Office will now use the help files on the local hard drive. It is much faster!
(Editing will affect all Office applications)

In office 2007, left click on the "Connected to Office Online" and choose local



If you need to disable its use through a Group Policy, or in the Registry, see:

Microsoft Support:
How to disable Microsoft Office Online featured links in Office

Be aware that if you do turn it off, you might miss some of the Office online feature, like tutorials and downloads.

Office Online: Get More Out of the Microsoft Office System



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powerpoint

Labels: General

Keep a record

"Frequently there is a need to capture information in a PowerPoint presentation. For example, when making a presentation before an audience, there might be a need to capture comments and questions as the presentation proceeds. You might also have a need to capture answers to a quiz or survey, or to record game responses.

You can download a small (12KB) presentation by clicking on notetaker.zip that demonstrates the method. Unzip the file (notetaker.pps) and click on it to see it in Slide Show mode.

Please note that this method requires the use of an Active-X control and therefore only works when run from PowerPoint. It will not work in the Viewer."

It does work in 2007.

See more tutorials and PowerPoint downloads at Sonia Coleman's web site, Digital Studio.



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powerpoint

Labels: Addin, General, Notes, Presentation

A contrary opinion

"Particularly disturbing is the adoption of the PowerPoint cognitive style in our schools. Rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials.

Elementary school PowerPoint exercises (as seen in teacher guides and in student work posted on the Internet) typically consist of 10 to 20 words and a piece of clip art on each slide in a presentation of three to six slides -a total of perhaps 80 words (15 seconds of silent reading) for a week of work.

Students would be better off if the schools simply closed down on those days and everyone went to the Exploratorium or wrote an illustrated essay explaining something. "

Labels: General, Instructional

Stick it in Word

Arrange the windows so that both applications can be seen.
(Right-click an empty area of the Task bar and choose "Tile Windows Vertically."

Type your introductory text in the Word document.

Switch to PowerPoint and open the PowerPoint file.

In Slide Sorter View, hold down the Ctrl key and select the slides you want to include.

Drag the selected group of slides onto the Word document.

You will only see the first slide in the document, but if you double-click on the image, the PowerPoint show will run.

It will also work in Excel.

(This, of course assumes that the target machine has PowerPoint or PowerPoint Viewer installed)



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powerpoint

Labels: General, Presentation, Tips

Make it so

"Here's a Power User column for teachers. Want to involve your students more in a presentation? Set up "triggers" for them to click as they go through the show. Triggers (related to animations) let you add surprise to your slides while inviting your viewer to take part and have fun."

Indezine.com:
Trigger Animations

All 'Bout Computers:
Trigger Happy Animations in PowerPoint



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powerpoint

Labels: Animation, General, Presentation, Tips

We're all in this together

PowerPoint Newsgroup:
Discussions in PowerPoint General Questions

WOPR.com:
Lounge - PowerPoint board

TechRepublic.com
Office Questions

TheOfficeExperts.com:
Office Experts - PowerPoint

RDPSlides.com:
How do I join the PowerPoint newsgroup?

Presentation Helper



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powerpoint

Labels: General, Tips

Choose your own location

Word

you can change the default location by going to Tools>Options. On the "File Locations" tab you can modify the storage location.

Excel

Tools>Options. On the "General" tab change the default location.

PowerPoint

uses Tools>Options and the "Save" tab.

Access

Tools>Options and the "General" tab for Databases and Projects

Publisher

Tools>Options "General".

Outlook

will make you take an underground tour into the Registry to change the location to save e-mail attachments.

FrontPage/Expression Web

appears to require the same sort of spelunking.

Labels: Customize, General

Repair PowerPoint 2003 charts

"Consider the following scenario:

• You apply a design theme to a presentation in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007.
  
• You insert an embedded Microsoft Office Excel chart object into a slide in the presentation.
  
• You save the presentation in the PowerPoint 97-2003 Presentation (*.ppt) format.

In this scenario, when you open the presentation in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 and then edit the chart, the theme information that is applied to the chart is lost. Instead, the default Microsoft Office color theme is applied to the embedded Excel chart object. Additionally, the text in the chart changes, and the chart shrinks.

Note This problem also occurs if you create a .doc file by using Microsoft Office Word 2007. Then, when you edit the chart object in Microsoft Office Word 2003, you experience these symptoms."

"To work around this problem, use one of the following methods:

• Do not edit the chart in PowerPoint 2003.
  
• If you edit the chart in PowerPoint 2003, remove the chart. Then, use PowerPoint 2007 to reinsert the chart."

Labels: General, Tips

Hearing and vision enhanced

With PowerPoint presentations becoming more of a standard way to communicate information of all types, we need to keep in mind that our first responsibility is to our audience. We need to use the ideas above to make sure that we make our presentation accessible for everyone.

Labels: General, Presentation, Tips

Connect with other PowerPoint users

Labels: General, Instructional, Tips

Portable PowerPoint

Here is the download location for the PowerPoint 2003 Viewer:

Microsoft 2003 PowerPoint Viewer

Here's the PowerPoint 2007 viewer:
PP 2007 Viewer

Microsoft:
What happened to Pack and Go?

How to package and copy a presentation to a CD in PowerPoint 2003

Leave a good impression; distribute a business presentation on CD

"Want to truly impress your customers with a multimedia presentation about your business? You can easily make your Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 presentations more portable by burning them onto a CD. By including the new free PowerPoint 2003 presentation viewer on the CD, presentations can be distributed to and viewed by audiences who do not use Microsoft Office."

Labels: General, Presentation

Portable hints

There are several potential problem areas:

• Recipients who don't have PowerPoint
  
• PowerPoint version compatibility
  
• Links - to images, sounds, movies and OLE content (graphs, charts, spreadsheets, Word pages etc.)
  
• Sound and movie compatibility
  
• Fonts
  
• Timing/Synchronization
  
• VBA code and Controls
  
• Recipients using assistive technology

Labels: General, Presentation

Send outline to PowerPoint

For Microsoft Office 2007

Word 2007 doesn't allow you to publish to PowerPoint 2007 by default.
Here's the solution:

After you are done in Word 2007, save it as a Word document.

Now open PowerPoint 2007.

Click on the Office Button at the top left hand corner.

Click Open.

Under Files of type, select All Outlines.

Now select the Word document and click Open.

Alternately,

In Word 2007, right click on the ribbon.

Select Customize Quick Access Toolbar.

Under "Choose commands from:", select Commands not in the ribbon.

Look for "Send to Microsoft Office PowerPoint".

Click OK.

The command will then be added onto the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT).

Labels: General, Share, Tips

Presentation alternative

Labels: General, Other uses

It's mouse and keyboard quick!

"At the bottom left hand corner of PowerPoint (bottom right for PowerPoint 2007), you will see 3 mini buttons. They are: Normal View, Slide Sorter View, and Slide Show. Now here's a quick trick:

When you hover over these 3 mini buttons, hold down the Shift key. The mini buttons will now become Slide Master view, Handout Master view, and Set Up Show respectively."

The Setup Show is on the Slide Show tab in the Setup group. The Shift key is a cooler way to bring it up quickly.



The Art of PowerPoint-ing

Thanks to Lucy, an MOS Master Instructor from Australia; aneasiertomorrow.com.au.



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powerpoint

Labels: Formats, General, Shortcuts, Tips

Convert PP to Acrobat

How to Create Slide Shows and Self-running Kiosks in Acrobat

"First, make sure you're using the right Acrobat software. With Acrobat Standard, you can add sound to documents but you can't import video clips. To create documents containing both video and sound, you'll need to use Acrobat Professional, which contains all the tools necessary for integrating media in PDF documents.

Acrobat is not a presentation-authoring program, so you'll need to use an application like PowerPoint to create your presentation. Some people use page-layout software to create presentations, but for animated effects, PowerPoint is the easiest tool for adding motion to both text and objects.

Add your desired animation and motion effects in PowerPoint before exporting to PDF. The visuals you create in PowerPoint display in an Acrobat viewer after PDF creation as long as you follow a few rules."

PlanetPDF offers other Acrobat tricks.

There is also:
Acrobat Reader Slideshow.pdf

PDFzone.com



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powerpoint

Labels: Addin, General, Other uses

Geek fame

"You probably have a document you use over and over again, something you created to solve a particular problem. You may even find yourself occasionally sending the document to others in e-mail because it's so useful. Now you can share your clever solution with everyone who uses the 2007 Microsoft Office system!

People like you all over the world are allowing others to download and use their document templates on Office Online. Some of these templates have tens of thousands of downloads. They were submitted by people who either wanted to help others or show their great solutions. You can, too.

Labels: General, Templates

How to disable hyperlink warning messages in 2007 Office programs

Opening "path/filename".
Hyperlinks can be harmful to your computer and data. To protect your computer, click only those hyperlinks from trusted sources.
Do you want to continue?

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
   
   
2. In the Open dialog box, type regedit, and then click OK.
   
   
3. In Registry Editor, locate one of the following registry subkeys:
   

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common 

   
   

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common

   
   Note You only have to modify one of these registry subkeys. You do not have to modify both of them.
   
   
4. Click the registry subkey, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click Key.
   
   
5. Type Security, and then press ENTER to name the key.
   
   
6. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
   
   
7. Type DisableHyperlinkWarning, and then press ENTER to name the entry.
   
   
8. In the right pane, right-click DisableHyperlinkWarning, and then click Modify.
   
   
9. In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, click Decimal, and then type 1 under Value data.
   
   Note A value of 0 enables the hyperlink warning message. A value of 1 disables the hyperlink warning message.
   
   
10. Click OK.
    
    
11. Exit Registry Editor.

How to disable hyperlink warning messages

Security warning message



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powerpoint

Labels: 2007, General, Tips

Web sounds

"The situation usually is that someone has spent the time to create a wonderful slide show with music set to start on the first slide and run throughout the entire presentation.

Unfortunately, when the presentation is saved as HTML, and it is tested, the music plays only on the first slide.

This article will not only explain what to do, it will also give you exact HTML code and tell you where to put it in the file. "

Labels: General, HTML, Sound

There must be reasons

• Create powerful, dynamic SmartArt diagrams.
  
  
• Easily reuse content with Office PowerPoint 2007 Slide Libraries.
  
  
• Dramatically modify shapes, text, and graphics with new SmartArt graphics tools and effects.
  
  
• Add more security to your PowerPoint presentations.
  
  
• Reduce your document sizes and improve file recovery at the same time.

Labels: General

3-2-1

Tushar-Mehta.com offers a free download:
PowerPoint Timer add-in
The add-in provides a variety of capabilities missing from PowerPoint itself. During a slideshow, it can:

• Show the current time
  
• Show the elapsed time of the presentation
  
• Count down the time remaining for the presentation.
  
• Optionally, it includes the ability to terminate the presentation at the end of a separately configurable grace period!

Also a tutorial on auto scheduling a PowerPoint show

Countdown with sound



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powerpoint

Labels: Animation, General, Instructional, Presentation, Tips

Eavesdrop on the experts

Labels: General, Tips

Fix the resolution

Because of changes in how the preview image is saved in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, and in Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, the preview image File Open dialog box is more difficult to read than in PowerPoint 2000 and earlier versions.

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
   
   
2. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
   
   

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\PowerPoint\Options

   
   
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD value.
   
   
4. Type Preview Picture Precision, and then press ENTER.
   
   
5. On the Edit menu, click Modify.
   
   
6. Click Decimal in the Base area.
   
   
7. Type 320, and then click OK.
   
   
8. Exit Registry Editor.

Labels: General

Suggestions included

... (the) CEO of Whole Foods Market, John Mackey, gave a presentation called "Past, Present, and Future of Food" for an audience of 2000 in Berkeley, California.

... (he) was there to make a presentation and have a conversation that would . . . (show) a skeptical Berkeley audience that his large company still has the credibility to lead the food movement into the future.

. . .(the) 45-minute talk "aided" by 67 text-filled slides followed by an on-stage conversation

. . . Most people felt that the evening generally was successful given Mackey's sincerity, honesty, and general likeability, but John Mackey's "multimedia presentation" as it was billed, could have been so much more.

. . . (the) presentation in Berkeley is a wonderful example of a presentation by an intelligent, personable, and passionate leader that easily could have been insanely great but was not. "[He] raced through the slides like a Ph.D. student presenting his dissertation," said the UC Berkeley reporter in the audience.

. . . it's a shame the presentation itself was not better planned and delivered given the importance of the topic and the profile of the speaker. Frankly, when you're trying to change the world, there is no excuse for being dull.

• It's a story. This topic screams "Story" yet there was no story that I could follow.
  There were bits and pieces (some of it interesting) and way too much history and data-without-purpose.
  
  
• Make it shorter. Cut the presentation part of the evening to 20-25 minutes and spend more time discussing on stage with the host, taking questions from the audience, etc.
  
  
• Make it visual. There are no boring topics, but this topic is especially interesting and provocative.

Labels: General, Performance, Presentation

PPT does not forget

"PowerPoint numbers slides in several ways and it pays to know the difference.

When you create a new slide, it gets a unique SlideID, a unique number that's read-only… you can't change it manually or programmatically. Reordering the slides won't cause it to change. Once a slide is created, it keeps the same SlideID forever.

SlideIndex is the ordinal number of the slide in the presentation as it's currently arranged. Move a slide around in slide sorter and its SlideIndex changes to reflect its new position in the show."

"Microsoft PowerPoint has the ability to create custom slide shows, which are subsets of existing slides within your presentation. When you print a custom show, PowerPoint prints the page number defined for that slide. For example, if you print a custom show named My Show that consists of slides 2, 8, and 13 of your presentation, the numbers 2, 8, and 13 appear on the printed output.

This article provides a sample Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro that prints out a specified custom show and numbers the pages consecutively, beginning with the number 1."

Labels: General, Macro

Ideas and tutorials

• a search engine for educational Web sites only, a place where educators can find information without searching the entire Internet;
  
• original content, including lesson plans, practical information for educators, information on how to integrate technology in the classroom, and articles written by education experts;
  
• site reviews;
  
• daily features and columns;
  
• teacher and principal profiles;
  
• Wire Side Chats with the important names in education;
  
• employment listings.

Labels: General, Instructional, Other uses

Ideas

Unique Presentation Solutions
(See the list of articles under "Creative Techniques" .)

Terberg Design specializes in creating unique presentations. Here is an interview with Julie Terberg from Indezine.com.

PowerPoint Personality



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powerpoint

Labels: General, Presentation, Tips

More than you wanted to know

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then
   
   
2. Cick Access Options, Excel Options, PowerPoint Options, or Word Options.
   
   
3. Click Resources
   
   
4. About Program Name, click About.
   Note Program Name is the name of the program you are in, for example, About Microsoft Office Word 2007.
   
   
5. To see information about your computer, in the About Program Name dialog box, click System Info.

Labels: General