| ******************************************************************* Dave Paradi's PowerPoint Tip Issue #158 April 29, 2008 Published & Copyright by Dave Paradi of ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com Circulation over 8,400 ******************************************************************* Please forward this newsletter to executives and professionals who want to create PowerPoint presentations that sell their ideas, products or services more effectively. If this newsletter has been sent to you by a friend, sign up to get your own copy at http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/newsletter.htm . ******************************************************************* In this issue: Turn off Fast Save PowerPoint Tip - Using PDF files during presentations Best of the Blog - Where spell check doesn’t work Dave's Travel Schedule ******************************************************************* Turn off Fast Save I had a challenging time yesterday getting ready for a presentation. I went to print my slides in the morning and found that one of the graphs had been replaced by a different graph in the presentation. This happened once before, but this time it got worse. Every time I fixed it, more things started disappearing or changing. PowerPoint started telling me that it couldn't save the file. I ran a scan of my hard drive thinking that there must be a bad sector, but all was OK. I did some research and came upon an article written by Echo Swinford, a great PowerPoint MVP (her site is http://www.echosvoice.com) that talked about how the Fast Save feature of PowerPoint can sometimes cause problems. Because it only saves changes in an appended portion of the file, it is subject to corruption more than if the file was properly saved each time. Her advice, and my advice now too, is to turn off Fast Save in the Save tab of the Options under the Tools menu. My file now works and the session went very well yesterday. For more information about my training workshops and seminars, visit http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/powerpointseminars.htm . ------------------------------------------------------------------- PowerPoint Tip: Using PDF files during presentations In my latest article that has been posted to the web site, I talk about how we can increase interaction in our sales presentations. I talk about the difference between a lecture style of presentation (one-way communication only) and a more interactive presentation. I then give four ways to get the audience involved to have more of a conversation. One of the ideas is to hyperlink to a PDF document, and that's what I am going to expand on today. The full article is at: http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/articles/increasinginteraction.htm . When you display a brochure in the Adobe PDF Reader, it usually opens showing the full page, which is usually far too small to be able to read or explain. So what you will need to do is zoom in on the area that you want the audience to focus on. You can use the percentage zoom drop down list, but the zoom is focused on the center of the page, which may not be where you want to zoom in on. Instead, click on the zoom-in magnifying glass tool and then you can click on the portion of the page you want to expand (you may need to click there more than once to make it readable). It allows you to show what you want quickly during your presentation. Your PDF document will usually have multiple pages, since it is usually a brochure that you are showing. You will need to jump to the page that you want to show. Instead of scrolling down or using the Page Down key to jump through pages, use the feature to go directly to the page you want. Click in the page number field at the bottom of the screen and simply type in the page number you want to show. The software will jump directly to that page and you save time getting to what you wanted to show the audience. You also have an option in Acrobat that can help give the audience more context when looking at a multi-page document. In the lower right hand corner of the Acrobat screen, you will see a number of icons that represent the different ways that the display can be shown. If you want to give people a context of where they are in a multi-page document by showing facing pages as if they had opened a brochure on their desk, select the icon that looks like two pages beside each other. Then, when you want to zoom in, select the icon that just shows one page. With more documents being created in PDF format, use these ideas to bring a PDF document into your presentation for added impact. If you aren't familiar with adding hyperlinks to documents and PDF files, check out the Guide to Advanced PowerPoint Techniques, which has complete instructions to follow. Get more info at: http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/guidetoadvppt.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------- Best of the Blog - Where spell check doesn’t work I was at a presentation recently and noticed that there was a spelling mistake on the slide. Unfortunately this is not uncommon, but this mistake caused me to investigate a little further. The spelling mistake was in the axis of a graph. My question was, "Does PowerPoint spell check axis labels?" My testing in PowerPoint 2003 revealed that it does not! This can be a shock to those who rely on the spell check feature (I could write a whole article on why relying on the spell check feature alone is a bad idea). And it is one more reason why you need to carefully check every piece of text on your slides before show time. Spelling mistakes reduce your credibility and hurt your ability to get your message understood and acted upon. Other recent blog posts at http://pptideas.blogspot.com : Coordinate with other speakers so you don’t duplicate content ------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave's Travel Schedule I work with business people who struggle with the effectiveness of the PowerPoint presentations they use to sell ideas, products and services to other business people. My research based PowerPoint Presentation Effectiveness System helps my clients achieve greater productivity and deliver presentations that close more sales. You can save money by booking me to speak to your organization or conference when I am close to your area for other clients. Here's where I will be in the next few months: May 3 - Chicago, IL May 9 - Ottawa, ON August 1-5 - New York City September 5-6 - Kansas City, MO September 21-24 - San Diego, CA September 26 - Cincinnati, OH E-mail me at Dave@ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com to discuss how my Think Outside The Slide(tm) sessions can help your organization be more productive and improve communication throughout the organization. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Privacy Policy: I will never sell or distribute your e-mail or information to anyone. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Need articles for your newsletter? 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