Latest posts

Below are the most recent articles or resources I’ve published. If you are looking for help on a specific topics, it would best to look at the topics in my Articles archive as I have grouped my recent and best articles by topic there.

  • Graph labelling techniques; Issue #331 February 17, 2015

    In this article I am going to share a couple of innovative ways to use the built-in graph data label feature of PowerPoint to make your graphs more effective. I’ve always taught that if the built-in data labelling feature does not work for your graph, just add text boxes with the labels you need. And…… Continue reading

  • Testing how a slide looks to someone with color deficiency; Issue #330 February 3, 2015

    For many years in my workshops I have been discussing the importance of considering how colors look to people who have color deficiency. The term many people commonly use is color blindness, but that is not accurate. Some people truly can’t see the colors red and green, but more commonly the colors don’t look the…… Continue reading

  • Select Effective Visuals: The Business Professional’s Guide to Selecting and Creating Effective Presentation Visuals

    This book contains a three step approach to help business professionals create effective presentation visuals. Step 1 is writing a headline that summarizes the message you want the audience to understand and remember from that slide. Step 2 is to select and create an effective visual for the slide. The book focuses on this step… Continue reading

  • Fixing the Excel Rounding Error; Issue #329 January 20, 2015

    When an executive sees a calculation error on your slide, how does it affect their view of the information you are presenting? It makes them question all the other data and analysis you did. But you checked your analysis and it is correct, so why is there an error on your slides? That’s what I…… Continue reading

  • 5 steps to better presentations in 2015; Issue #328 January 6, 2015

    At the start of the year we see many lists of predictions, trends, and resolutions for the upcoming year. In this article I want to share five steps you can take right away to improve your presentations this year. You don’t need to be a designer or an artist. Anyone can follow these five steps.…… Continue reading

  • The correct use of a pie chart; Issue #327 December 23, 2014

    The correct use of a pie chart is to show one segment compared to the whole; Use bar charts for ranked values Continue reading

  • Updates to the PowerPoint Document Inspector may save your job

    One of the big issues with copying cells or graphs from Excel into PowerPoint is that some of the common methods actually embed the Excel workbook into the PowerPoint file. This is a concern for two reasons. First, it makes your PowerPoint file larger, and second, it exposes all the data in the entire workbook,…… Continue reading

  • Why SmartArt is often misused; Issue #326 December 9, 2014

    At my workshops I suggest that people not use the SmartArt feature of PowerPoint. Example slides I reviewed at a recent workshop reinforced how this feature is often misused. The big issue is that most people pick SmartArt based on how nice it looks vs. whether it effectively communicates the correct message. Let’s start with…… Continue reading

  • Rad Presenters interview

    I was interviewed by Jon Schwabish and Stephanie Evergreen on their Rad Presenters podcast. It was a lot of fun and we cover a wide range of topics, including what it means to be a PowerPoint MVP, dealing with data and numbers on slides, my surveys, my page on how to solve setup problems, and…… Continue reading

  • Finding and Using Vector icons in PowerPoint; Issue #325 November 25, 2014

    Today’s article was inspired by a topic that fellow PowerPoint MVP Nolan Haims covered in one of his sessions at the recent Presentation Summit. When he was speaking about using icons, he stressed how vector icons are better than image icons. Today I want to explore this topic in some depth and give you resources…… Continue reading