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  Web http://www.klippert.com



  Tuesday, May 13, 2008 – Permalink –

Embed a Show

Stick it in Word



You might like to distribute a short PowerPoint slide show, and include some extra material.

Open Word and PowerPoint.

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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<Doug Klippert@ 6:20 AM

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  Sunday, May 11, 2008 – Permalink –

Forms and Slides
Forms and Slides

PowerPoint in Access


This download provides an Access database and a PowerPoint slide show.

"Create a PowerPoint slide presentation from scratch using Access data. In addition, display and control a slide show from within an Access form. Walk through the solution and explore ways to extend the sample for your own applications.

This article looks at two ways of interaction between Access and PowerPoint.

The first sample illustrates how to create a PowerPoint presentation from the data in an Access table using Automation.

The second sample shows how to display and manipulate an existing PowerPoint presentation inside of an Access form, also using Automation."

Here is an MSDN article:
Working with PowerPoint Presentations from Access Using Automation

If you have some knowledge of VBA, you can probably figure it out from the code on the Access Form.



Office 2003 Sample:
Working with PowerPoint 2003 Presentations from Access 2003 Using Automation



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<Doug Klippert@ 6:24 AM

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  Monday, April 14, 2008 – Permalink –

Click to Trigger

Make it so



A trigger is an object on your PowerPoint slide - a picture, a shape, a button, or even a paragraph or text box. When you click on it an action is initiated. The action might be a sound, a movie, an animation, or text becoming visible on the slide.

Microsoft Office Online has a tutorial:
Use triggers to create an interactive slide show in PowerPoint

"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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<Doug Klippert@ 6:26 AM

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  Thursday, April 03, 2008 – Permalink –

News Groups

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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<Doug Klippert@ 6:59 AM

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  Wednesday, March 19, 2008 – Permalink –

Beyond Bullet Points

By Cliff Atkinson


ISBN 0-7356-2052-0
Microsoft Press 2005

About the Author
Cliff Atkinson is a leading authority on how to improve communications across organizations using Microsoft PowerPoint. He is a popular keynote speaker, a writer, and an independent management consultant whose clients include companies ranking in the top five of the Fortune 500. He is president of Sociable Media in Los Angeles.

Cliff teaches at UCLA Extension, is a senior contributor for the MarketingProfs newsletter, and writes the Beyond Bullets weblog, at BeyondBullets.com.
Also see SociableMedia.com


Book Description
PowerPoint owns the presentation world. We've been cocooned by a blue gradient screen with six or more bullet points feeding information.
Or so we've been lulled to believe.
(see Edward Tufte's dissection of the Columbia PowerPoint disaster)

Cliff Atkinson takes a well researched, but almost heretical stand that a presentation is a story and that too much data plastered on the screen, dulls the audience's soul and actually reduces comprehension and retention.

Beyond Bullets walks the reader through the story process and provides tools to structure presentations to have the maximum impact.

The "PowerPoint" part of the process is easy to follow, even for a novice. The story telling sections will help improve the most experienced speaker's show.


Quote

"But what might not be evident in the simplicity of this slide is what happens when the audience experiences it along with your verbal explanation. Because the slide design is simple, the audience can quickly scan the headline and visual and understand the idea. Then their attention turns to the place you want it. — to you, the words you're saying, and the way the information relates to them. Instead of making everything explicit and obvious on the slides, you can leave the slides open to interpretation so the audience is dependent on you, and you on them.

What (the experts are) saying, basically, is that slides filled with bullet points create obstacles between presenters and audiences. You might want to be natural and relaxed when you present, but people say that bullet points make the atmosphere formal and stiff. You might aim to be clear and concise, but people often walk away from these presentations feeling confused and unclear. And you might intend to display the best of your critical thinking on a screen, but people say that bullet points "dumb down" the important discourse that needs to happen for our society to function well.

Somewhere in our collective presentation experience, we're not connecting the dots between presenters and audiences by using the conventional bullet points approach. This issue is of rising concern not only to individuals and audiences - even the major players of large organizations are taking notice of the problem. It seems that in every location where people meet, from small meeting rooms to board rooms to conference halls, people want a change."

Here's the latest edition:



[Edited entry from 3/1/2005]



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<Doug Klippert@ 5:36 AM

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  Thursday, February 28, 2008 – Permalink –

PP7 fixes PP3

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."

PowerPoint 2007 and Word 2007 use Excel to insert charts.

When the file is saved in 97-2003 format, you lose that feature.

According to MS,
"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."


Knowledgebase 945002



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<Doug Klippert@ 6:58 AM

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  Monday, February 11, 2008 – Permalink –

PPT Font Size

How big should you go?


In the old days of slide shows, presenters would hold their slides out at arm's length. If they could still see the text, then it would be OK when projected.

Dave Paradi has researched the question and offers a PDF document that compares screen size, fonts, and seating distance.

For instance:


"For example, if you're using a 60 inch screen and have 32 point text on your slides, the furthest someone should be is 57 feet from the screen."


Font Size

Dave Paradi's PowerPoint Tip



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<Doug Klippert@ 7:57 AM

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  Thursday, January 24, 2008 – Permalink –

Slideshow Accessibility

Hearing and vision enhanced


Dave Paradi has an article about how to design PowerPoint shows for those with limited hearing or vision.

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.

Making Accessible Slides



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<Doug Klippert@ 6:56 AM

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  Friday, January 04, 2008 – Permalink –

PowerPoint Pundits

Connect with other PowerPoint users


Microsoft has put together a list of locations, forums, blogs, etc. that cover PowerPoint.

You'll probably find that your question has been answered at one of these spots.

Office.Microsoft.com



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<Doug Klippert@ 7:42 AM

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  Friday, November 30, 2007 – Permalink –

YouTube in PowerPoint

Imbedded videos


Shyam Pillai has provided a free wizard to imbed YouTube clips into a PowerPoint Presentation

"Use this to insert YouTube videos into a PowerPoint slide. All you need to do is to provide the YouTube video URL that appears in the browser address bar, the rest is taken care of by the YTV Wizard.

Note: YouTube videos are streamed so a live internet connection is required to playback the video during the slideshow. Use the free FlashBack add-in to play/rewind the YouTube video automatically."

YouTube Video Wizard



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<Doug Klippert@ 7:06 AM

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  Thursday, November 22, 2007 – Permalink –

New Tables in Town

Bigger and better (?)


Pre '07 versions of PowerPoint limited tables to a maximum of 25 rows and columns. You were able to ungroup the table cells before, but that has been taken away.


"In this release, we have increased that maximum to 75x75 within the UI.

We were able to do this because we made the decision to move away from the metaphor of a table simply being a group of shapes, as it was in previous versions.
This has been one of the largest enabling factors in our performance gains, and as a result, tables are workable at sizes much greater than that of 25x25.

A tradeoff made in order to obtain these gains in performance was the ability to "ungroup" a table.

While this tradeoff means that there are a set of scenarios no longer present, specifically the ability to ungroup a table to animate individual pieces, we feel that the performance gains (not to mention all the other aspects talked about in this section of the blog) along with the ability to use multiple tables and/or shapes in these scenarios will benefit users in a much greater way."


PowerPoint Tables


It can still be done:


Workaround for animating a table:

  1. Right-click the table, choose Save as Picture

  2. Save as EMF (choose EMF from the "save as type dropdown list)

  3. InsertPicture, insert the EMF

  4. Ungroup the EMF twice

  5. Now regroup the parts you need to animate -- rows, columns, or whatever


microsoft.public.powerpoint



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<Doug Klippert@ 6:53 AM

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  Wednesday, November 14, 2007 – Permalink –

Word to PP

Send outline to PowerPoint


That old 2003 version allowed you to send a Word file to PowerPoint and have it create a slide show.

After styling with Heading 1, 2, etc, go toFile > Send To > Microsoft Office PowerPoint.

2007 is a little different (duh!)


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).




Word to PowerPoint



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<Doug Klippert@ 5:24 AM

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  Monday, October 29, 2007 – Permalink –

Handy Master View

It's mouse and keyboard quick!


With PowerPoint 2007, View>Presentation Views>Slide Master will take you to the Slide Master View. The same location shows Handout and Notes Masters.

A shortcut involves using the Shift key.


"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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<Doug Klippert@ 6:57 AM

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  Wednesday, October 10, 2007 – Permalink –

65,534 Dollar Question

The eleventh place error


Sure, you got a recall notice on your new car because the drink holder was the wrong size.

Big deal, Excel 2007 also has/had a problem with some calculations.


The result of the calculation is a number from 65534.99999999995 to 65535. The calculation is performed correctly. However, the result is incorrectly shown as 100000.

The result of the calculation is a number from 65535.99999999995 to 65536. The calculation is performed correctly. However, the result is incorrectly shown as 100001.


Excel 2007 hotfix package

Calculation Issue Update




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<Doug Klippert@ 7:24 AM

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  Friday, September 14, 2007 – Permalink –

Annoying Hypertext Warning

How to disable hyperlink warning messages in 2007 Office programs


When you include links in PowerPoint, or other '07 applications, you may get this admonition:
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?


To disable the hyperlink warnings in 2007 Office programs when an http:// address or an ftp:// address is used, you must create a new registry subkey.

To do this, follow these steps:

  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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<Doug Klippert@ 6:17 AM

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  Monday, September 03, 2007 – Permalink –

Enlarge and Shrink Picture

Get a close up


"Often when doing a presentation, you may want to enlarge an image using Emphasis: Grow.

You probably want to show a clearer view of a photograph. But enlarging with the Grow effect often ends up getting the image blurry/jagged.

Now it looks ugly, you wouldn't want to show others an enlarged but poor quality picture, do you?


PPTHeaven.mvps.org:
Enlarge Image



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<Doug Klippert@ 9:20 AM

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  Sunday, July 29, 2007 – Permalink –

Non Stop Show

Stop the breakout


If a PowerPoint show is running, it can be stopped by using the escape key. Here's a way to prevent that from happening.

A User can exit out of a show accidentally/intentionally by pressing the ESC key. This add-in disables the functionality of the ESC key.

Note: If the show is set to run in Kiosk mode, disabling the ESC key will provide no way of getting out of a slide show, hence please ensure that you have provided an escape route (e.g an invisible shape set to End show) to exit the show.


No ESCape Add-in
by Shyam Pillai



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<Doug Klippert@ 7:13 AM

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  Wednesday, July 11, 2007 – Permalink –

Great Collection

Examples and ideas


The experts show you how they have developed some pretty spectacular animations and designs using PowerPoint out of the box.


"PowerPoint Heaven is a website providing PowerPoint showcase, artworks, PowerPoint games, animation templates, PowerPoint animations and tutorials on animating Microsoft PowerPoint."


PPTHeaven.mvps.org



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<Doug Klippert@ 6:35 AM

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  Saturday, July 07, 2007 – Permalink –

Countdown Slide

3-2-1




It can be useful to let your audience know when the show is going to begin. Here's a description about how to do it:

Create Countdown Slide Without VBA
(There is also a sample PowerPoint file with all the hard work done for you!)


The MVPS.org site also has a way to do it with VBA:
Simulate a countdown timer using Sleep API

Indezine.com has a tutorial:
Countdown Timer


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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<Doug Klippert@ 8:12 AM

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  Friday, July 06, 2007 – Permalink –

MS RSS Feeds

Eavesdrop on the experts


RSS feeds can give you a flow of new information.

Microsoft knows the value of these web casts and provides a list of links from Access to SharePoint Server:

RSS Feeds on Microsoft Office




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<Doug Klippert@ 7:25 AM

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  Thursday, June 28, 2007 – Permalink –

Scanner, No Insertions

2007 is lacking




You can still scan images into Microsoft Publisher and a few other programs, but not the big three.

"Yes, unfortunately, the Insert from Scanner and Camera feature was removed in Office 2007.
This was a difficult call, but I think for the best of the product overall. The feature supported a limited number of scanners and the camera support had not been updated for some time.
We came to the conclusion that most users would be better off using the software that came with their camera, scanner or even built into Windows, to get their images from their device, to the file system, and then use the Insert Picture command to get them into Office.
The downside, is that for some users, this feature did work and so will be missed."

Mark Jaremko, Senior Program Manager

"The From Scanner or Camera option for adding pictures to a presentation, photo album, or workbook is not available in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 or Microsoft Office Excel 2007.

Instead, you can add pictures from your camera or scanner by downloading the pictures to your computer first, and then copying them from your computer into PowerPoint or Excel."


Support.Microsoft.com
How to insert scanned images in Office 2007


You could also use the Microsoft Document Imaging/Scanning application.
About Microsoft Office Document Imaging

BTW, when the article calls for clicking on the Scan button, it's actually the picture of a scanner.





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<Doug Klippert@ 6:45 AM

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  Wednesday, June 13, 2007 – Permalink –

Loop the Beginning

Then start the show


It can be effective to have an opening segment run before the actual presentation begins.

We all know how to set up a show that will run in kiosk mode until you hit escape.

Here are instructions about how to set up the loop so that you can seamlessly start the show without an interruption.

Creating & Running an Opening Loop



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<Doug Klippert@ 7:33 AM

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  Tuesday, June 05, 2007 – Permalink –

No Black Slide

End the show


After creating a presentation, save it as a PowerPoint show. This allows you to run the show and not be faced with all the paraphernalia that was used to create it.

One negative is that at the end of the show a black slide is displayed.

To eliminate this last distraction, so that the show will run and then just return to the desktop, Go to PowerPoint Options (Tools>Options or Logo PowerPoint options in 2007).

Remove the check from "End with black slide". Resave and carry on.



This will hold for every show until the setting is changed. It is not saved with the file.


"To force the presentation to end without the black screen on every computer, add an action button or autoshape on your last slide within the presentation.

You can now set the . . .action setting to "end show". This will force your presentation to end without displaying the final black screen and end of slide show message.

123PPT.com



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<Doug Klippert@ 7:54 AM

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  Sunday, April 08, 2007 – Permalink –

Presentation Tips

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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<Doug Klippert@ 6:41 AM

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