******************************************************************* Dave Paradi's PowerPoint Tip Issue #128 February 20, 2007 Published & Copyright by Dave Paradi of ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com Circulation 8,612 *******************************************************************
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******************************************************************* In this issue: Public Workshop in Toronto Webinar on webinars PowerPoint Tip: Protecting Your Slides from Changes Best of the Blog - Testing for color blindness Dave's Travel Schedule *******************************************************************
Public Workshop in Toronto
I have been getting a number of inquiries about public workshops recently. I do public workshops in conjunction with conferences or sponsoring associations and I have one coming up in Toronto, ON on April 20th. It is in conjunction with the Health & Safety 2007 conference and will cover key issues such as presentation structure, slide design, best practices for individual slides, using more visual slides, multimedia and delivery. To register, go to http://www.iapa.com/conference and sign up for the post-conference workshop (you don't have to sign up for the conference to attend the workshop).
------------------------------------------------------------------- Webinar on webinars
Last week's webinar on presenting over the web went extremely well. If you are looking at presenting over the web, I encourage you to get the recording of this session. SpeakerNetNews offers either a CD or MP3 version of the audio and you get the video recording as a bonus. Use http://snipurl.com/snncd for the CD and http://snipurl.com/snnmp3 for the MP3 version.
------------------------------------------------------------------- PowerPoint Tip: Protecting Your Slides from Changes
You have spent a long time getting your slides just right - everything is in place, colors work, animation builds to emphasize the key points and visuals speak louder than text. Now you have to send it to a colleague or distribute it to others. The risk is that all that work will be for naught when someone else decides to change something on the slide.
I have spoken and done consulting in the investment management industry where compliance is a large concern and the risk of slides being changed is a real threat. Other industries have similar compliance risks. Even if you don't have a compliance issue, the risk of your carefully crafted message or visuals being altered and an important client not getting the right message can be even more scary. Just telling people not to change the slides doesn't work.
There are a couple of things you can do to reduce or prevent changes. First, use the grouping feature to lock the positions of graphical elements. I use this for callout boxes or arrows to make sure that the element of a visual that the callout is highlighting does not change. I have also used this to lock the relative positions of pictures and names of people to make sure someone's name or picture does not get accidentally moved or deleted.
The second thing you can do is to lock all the content on a slide. The easiest way to do this is to save each slide as a PNG graphic file. Then, create a new presentation and import each graphic file as a slide. The slides look like your original presentation, but they have no individual elements that can be changed because the entire slide is a single graphic. You do lose any builds on the slide with this technique, but you can get around that by creating separate slides instead of building on a single slide. I have also used this technique when sending slides to people who view them on a handheld device like a Blackberry or Treo because I have found that the visuals tend to look better by using graphics as the slides.
I cover more details on protecting your slide content in my ebook "Guide to Advanced PowerPoint Techniques", which contains 26 techniques that weren't included in Prentice Hall's "Guide to PowerPoint". You can get the advanced techniques ebook at http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/guidetoadvppt.htm . If you haven't purchased "Guide to PowerPoint", learn more and get your copy at http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/guidetoppt.htm .
------------------------------------------------------------------- Best of the blog - Presentation Technology Checklist
Recently I had a request to reprint a checklist I produced in 2002 that clearly people still have and use. It is called the Presentation Technology Checklist and it lists items that you may need to take along for your presentation in a checklist format. It is especially useful when you are travelling to deliver a presentation or preparing someone else to deliver a presentation in another location. It is based on my own experience taking equipment to present all over North America. I revisited the list and have made a few updates. It is now available for download as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file on my web site at http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/PresnTechChecklistv3.pdf . I hope it helps you remember everything you need for your next trip.
Other recent blog posts at http://pptideas.blogspot.com : The Power of Visuals at the Ski Chalet Observations from a Recital
------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave's Travel Schedule
If you have been sitting through too many presentations that did not relay the key information needed to make critical decisions, you should schedule an in-house or web based seminar or workshop. 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:
February 19-23 St. John's, NF February 24-25 Nashville, TN February 26-28 Lexington, KY March 22 Toronto & Mississauga, ON March 29 Huntsville, ON March 30 Toronto, ON April 10 Toronto, ON April 16 Toronto, ON April 19 Toronto, ON April 20 Toronto, ON (1 day Think Outside The Slide(tm) workshop that you can register for at http://www.iapa.com/conference ) May 26 London, ON July 6-12 San Diego, CA July 13-16 Los Angeles, CA September 7-9 Winnipeg, MB 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.
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