******************************************************************* Dave Paradi's PowerPoint Tip Issue #123 November 28, 2006 Published & Copyright by Dave Paradi of ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com Circulation 8,487 *******************************************************************
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******************************************************************* In this issue: New Transforming Text Slides into Visual Slides ebook New Downloadable video bundles PowerPoint Tip: Detailed Handouts without Packed Slides Best of the Blog - Teaching Templates to Professors Dave's Travel Schedule *******************************************************************
New Transforming Text Slides into Visual Slides ebook
Thank you to the 184 people who participated in the survey on future resources that wrapped up just over a week ago. I have analyzed the responses and the first new resource is an ebook titled "Transforming Text Slides into Visual Slides" Many people have moved from sentences to bullet points, but are looking for ways to make their slides more visual. In this ebook, I apply dual-coding theory ideas to the design of PowerPoint slides. I have taken 15 common business topics and I show how you can use a visual slide instead of a text slide. There are 39 slide examples in all. And I also share what the best practices are in designing each of the visuals. Get your copy at http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/transformtext.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------- New Downloadable Video Bundles
The survey also showed that you want videos that can be downloaded and viewed on your computer. So I have packaged some of my videos into three new video bundles - The Multimedia Bundle, The Visual Slides Bundle and The Advanced Delivery Bundle. Save up to 27% by downloading instead of ordering the physical video. Order yours at: http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/videobundles.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------- PowerPoint Tip - Detailed Handouts without Packed Slides
One reason presenters pack slides with too much text and information is that they claim that since they will be printing the slides as their handout, they will need the audience to have the detail for future reference. But what happens is that the barrage of information on the slide overwhelms the audience and the presentation is a failure.
There is a better way. Instead of overloading text on your slides, design a slide file that has both detail slides and properly designed visuals that can serve both show and print purposes. Here's how you can do it.
For each topic, create two slides. The first one you will display during the presentation and it should be visual, not packed with text. The next slide should contain any detailed information you want the audience to have to refer to after the presentation. This second slide will never be shown during the presentation. It is there for printing purposes only.
Then, for each of the detailed slides, click on Slide Show - Hide Slide. This stops the detailed slide from being seen during the slide show. When you are running your slide show during practice sessions, make sure that the detailed slides are not shown.
To print a handout of slides that includes both the display slides and the hidden detail slides, check the Print hidden slides checkbox on the print dialog box. You will then get a printout with each of the detailed slides beside or below the display slide. Your audience can quickly see that they have more detailed information and can take notes that are appropriate to their own situation.
When you are presenting using this type of handout, it is a good idea to mention how the handout is structured at the start of your presentation. This lets the audience know that they do not need to take copious notes and can be more engaged in what you are saying. It also frees you from feeling that you have to plow through a lot of detailed slides in order to finish on time.
This is one way to provide a handout that is more customized than the usual handout that most presenters provide. If you want to create an even more customized handout using your slides as graphics in Word, you can get detailed instructions in my ebook "Guide to Advanced PowerPoint Techniques" at http://snipurl.com/gtappt
------------------------------------------------------------------- Best of the Blog - Teaching Templates to Professors
At the end of October I was in San Antonio speaking at a conference of business communication professors. The topic we were talking about was how to teach students to create an attractive template for their slides. The professors agreed that too many students (and in my experience presenters of all ages) spend too much time formatting every slide individually instead of using the slide master to set the common look. They also agreed that many of the designs that the students come up with or find in the program or on the Internet are at best distracting and usually closer to annoying. So we shared how to set colors and fonts so that the text color and background color have enough contrast and the text is easy to read when displayed. One key to remember is that whether you use a dark background and light text or light background and dark text, make sure that the colors have enough contrast. Another presenter at the conference explained that there are two types of contrast that you can have. The first is color brightness contrast and the other is color contrast. Remember this the next time you are creating a look for your slides.
If you want more detailed instructions on creating your own custom template, check out the web tutorial I did that shows you what colors, fonts and other elements work well for presentations and then I showed you exactly how to do it in PowerPoint. You can get your copy at: http://www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com/wtcustomtemplate.htm
Other recent blog posts at http://pptideas.blogspot.com : Making slides more visual Wall Street Journal article on PowerPoint
------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave's Travel Schedule
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:
December 5 Markham, ON December 6-10 Vancouver, BC December 13 Toronto, ON January 15, 2007 Toronto, ON January 29-30, 2007 Cincinnati, OH February 19-23 St. John's, NF March 30, 2007 Toronto, ON April 10, 2007 Toronto, ON April 19, 2007 Toronto, ON May 25-26, 2007 London, ON E-mail me at Dave@ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com to discuss your upcoming event.
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