If you want some facts about PowerPoint, you could search the Microsoft website or just head to Wikipedia (click here) for a history of the program and more.

- Troy @ TLC

Pecha Kucha is something that sounds fun and may be a great skill builder for presenters. Basically Pecha Kucha forces presenters to create an on-the-fly presentation. They are given a topic, 20 slides, and 20 seconds per slide. It was created in Tokyo, Japan in 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.

If you are in the NorthEast, head over to the free Calypso Communications event in Portsmouth NH. Click here for a story outlining the event and Pecha Kucha.

- Troy @ TLC

To quickly get the "big picture" you may need to see the whole slide or image. There are some great keyboard shortcuts to do this, but they are different in PPT 2003, PPT 2007 and Photoshop.

PowerPoint 2003:
Option 1: Use the drop-down menu and choose FIT

Option 2: Install the PPTools free StarterSet and click the magnifying glass icon

PowerPoint 2007
Click the 'Fit to Window' button in the lower right corner

Photoshop:
CTRL + 0 (zero)

- Troy @ TLC

Another great feature is resizing (enlarging or shrinking) images and autoshapes from any corner and have it maintain the same aspect ratio.

This feature is available in PowerPoint and Photoshop, using the SAME key combination.

PowerPoint: SHIFT + adjust with mouse

Photoshop: SHIFT + adjust with mouse

- Troy @ TLC

A great feature is resizing (enlarging or shrinking) images and autoshapes from their center point.

This feature is available in PowerPoint and Photoshop, but using different key combinations.

PowerPoint: CTRL + SHIFT + adjust with mouse

Photoshop: CTRL + ALT + adjust with mouse

- Troy @ TLC

I have been using Photoshop since version 2 (the dark ages of computer design) and just had Lori point out a cool feature I never knew existed!

I know PowerPoint is our topic, but I work in Photoshop virtually everyday preparing images for templates and presentations. In this case I was moving back and forth between PPT images that are measured in pixels and a print layout that was measured in inches. So, I was constantly going into the preferences and changing the rulers until Lori came over and pointed out a better way.

If you RIGHT-CLICK the ruler in Photoshop, it can instantly (and easily) be changed!

- Troy @ TLC

In the old days (PPT 95 through 2003), the only difference between a presentation and a show was the extension. So if you had a presentation and wanted it to open in slideshow view, just the file extension had to be renamed. But in the new world (now 2 years old) of PPT 2007 that does not work.

1. Here is our test file - a .pptx (PPT 2007 presentation)

2. Manually change the file extension (.pptx), changing the "T" to an "S", and Windows gives this confirmation dialog

3. The icon changes to the PowerPoint Show icon and the extension is .ppsx

4. But when you try to open the file you get this error

5. Why? Because any Office 2007 file with an "x" in the file extension is really a .zip file with lots of individual files inside it. Changing the extension does not directly change the file any longer, so the quick fix of 'just rename it' no longer works...

- Troy @ TLC

- Troy @ TLC

Okay so the 'little' bug in PPT 2007 is driving you crazy! The fix is on the way with SP2 for Office 2007 (really), but you need to adjust the length of your straight lines today.

Here is a PPT 07 line

To adjust length AND maintain same angle you hold down the SHIFT KEY + CLICK on end of line and it zooms out to infinity

One solution is to duplicate the line, group the 2 lines together, then adjust the length of the group

The original line stays in the same position, the length was adjusted, the angle was maintained! Now ungroup and delete the duplicate line leaving you with the adjusted line (made shorter in this example)

- Troy @ TLC

This may make the 'elevator speech' and sales presentations even more engaging. T-Mobile will be carrying the Logic Bolt cell phone which looks to have a fully functional projector built into it!

It is being shown at CES this week and features a touch screen interface, quad band GSM, support for Powerpoint, Excel, Word as well as the ability to connect directly to most video sources, and built-in projector that casts images 36-64"+.

- Troy @ TLC