The PowerPoint® Blog

Each year InfoComm puts out an online survey where you can compare yourself with others in InfoComm International's annual Presentation Professional survey.

This year it's shorter, easier and faster to complete. Whether you're one of many in a corporate setting, or a one-person shop wearing all the hats, see how you compare in the skills you have and the challenges you face. Best of all, all participants receive a report of the full survey results.

Click here to take the survey.

- Troy @ TLC

As we start off 2009 what better time to introduce one of the best people at Microsoft I interact with. For all that use PowerPoint you want to know and acknowledge at least one person at Microsoft - Ric B.

Ric Bretscheider has been at Microsoft for over 15 years with nearly all of that time spent on the PowerPoint development team (starting with the PowerPoint IV - PPT 2007 is version XII/12). He is the Lead Program Manager for PowerPoint and has been a huge influence in listening to end users and steering the program to address our real world needs (and if you don't like PowerPoint - you would dislike it even more if it were not for the efforts of Ric B! )

Many contributed to his 15 year anniversary with presentations, notes and videos. This one is one of the few that made it to public domain and does a good job of giving a look at Ric B.

Click here to view.

- Troy @ TLC

Here I am with my equipment backstage at an event. It takes a lot of gear with computers, backup computers, routers, etc.

I personally favor cases by Pelican for shipping all of my equipment as they come in a variety of sizes, well padded and virtually indestructable. But recently they have introduced a new, BIG, series of cases - big enough to pack your own producer!

(Note: modeling the jumbo pelican case is "Hodgie", Steve Hodges, a great show producer I get to work with several times a year).

- Troy @ TLC

Looking forward to a great year! Above image was created in PPT 2007.
- Troy @ TLC

Microsoft's Office Online has a collection of additional Smart Art objects that can be donwloaded and added to the PPT 07 library!

These work in PowerPoint, Excel, Word and Outlook. All are FREE. click here to go to the download page.

- Troy @ TLC

Here is my process for adding a YouTube (google, metacafe, soapbox, etc) video to a PowerPoint presentation:

1. Find the movie online and copy the URL

2. Go to www.techcrunch.com/get-youtube-movie

3. Paste in the YouTube URL

4. Follow instructions to download to your computer.
Note: the video is in .flv format, which need to be converted for use in PowerPoint

5. Go to www.media-convert.com

6. Be sure you are in the 'Local File Conversion' tab

7: Click the BROWSE button and find the video on your computer

8: Convert the .FLV video to a PowerPoint friendly .WMV format.
Note: there are lots of options, but I recomend
- No Video Preset
- Windows Media Video (.wmv)

9: Click OK and following instructions to convert and have file emailed you.

10: Move newly created .wmv video to same folder as presenation and use PowerPoint's INSERT >> MOVIE FROM FILE wizard

11: Done!

- Troy @ TLC

So you have found the perfect video for you analogy - on Youtube. The question I get a lot, is how to play that video in a presentation.

There are a few issues that make this a bit complex. In this post I'll overview the issues and in the next post show my process for making it all work.

Issue 1:
- YouTube (Google, Soapbox, Metacafe, and almost all other online video sites) is an online video, not on your computer.

Issue 2:
- If you download the video, it is an .flv (Flash Video), which a format PowerPoint does not support.

Issue 3:
- Nearly all online video sites automatically run a compression filter to make the file size smaller (they are storing ALL of these videos on their servers, so the smaller the file the more they can store and the less bandwidth needed to playback). Highly compressed videos mean lower playback quality.

- Troy @ TLC

Merry Christmas to everyone (a day early)!! As a small gift to everyone who visits ThePowerPointBlog.com here is a custom PowerPoint template for your use.

This is a full featured template with all master slide elements (text box position, text style - color - size, line spacing, slide transitions, default color scheme, etc.) pre-formatted. Template was setup in PPT 2003, the theme is 'white christmas' and it will hopefully find many wonderful uses. Click here to download.

Note: you can search 'christmas' to find templates from previous years too.

- Troy @ TLC

In all Office Online has 8 incredible example templates - each with step-by-step instructions on how to recreate each effect!
- Static Text Effects
- Static Picture Effects
- Animated Text Effects
- Animated Picture Effects
- Combined Picture and Text Effects
- Animated Hierarchy and Process Graphics
- Backgrounds
- 3D Shapes and Objects

Click here to access them all (note: downloads from Microsofts Office Online site must be done with Internet Explorer). All are the work of fellow PPT MVP Julie Terberg of Terberg Design.

(Note: I am grabbing this image from Ric B's PPT Team Blog)

- Troy @ TLC

More animations! This time 20 slides of image animations with thorough step-by-step instructions. Click here to go to the MS Office Online page to download.

- Troy @ TLC