1. Rate Your Presentation Slides Audit
One of the things many people have asked me is: “How do I know if my presentation slides are any good?” We have all seen the bad slides – and some are truly worthy of the Hall of Shame. How do you make sure that yours are not in that shameful category? Use the free Rate Your Presentation Slides Audit I have on the web site. The audit is a 34 question evaluation of your presentation slides. Once you have answered the questions, compare your score to the legend to help you determine if you have done a good job. The audit covers areas such as the slide design (colors and fonts), slide text (text density, text builds and text movement), graphics & multimedia (graphics/clip art, copyrighted material, audio/video and charts), and ease of understanding (fit with topic and presentation map indicator). You are encouraged to use it and because it is a free download in Adobe PDF format, you can send it to others who would benefit from it. Let me know how you have found it useful. Here is the link to the Learning Tools page: http://www.communicateusingtechnology/products_home_page.htm
2. Removing Delayed Menus in MS Office
One of the features in Microsoft Office I find most annoying is the delayed menus. This is when you click on a menu item at the top of an application and it shows you only some of the menu options and if you wait for three seconds, it will show you the rest of the options (you can also click the double chevron at the bottom of the list to expand the menu option list). If you want to turn this off, follow these steps in Office 2000: Click on the Tools menu item Click on the Customize item Click on the Options tab Uncheck the Menus Show Recently Used Commands First checkbox Click on the Close button (In Office XP, the option is a slightly different name, but it is on the same Options tab.)
3. Useful Resource – http://www.presentations.com
To start the new year in the Useful Resource section of the newsletter, I am starting a series on useful presentation related web sites. I hope you find these as useful as I have. The first is the web site for Presentations magazine. It is loaded with good articles that focus on both presentation technique and on presentation equipment. If you are located in the United States, you can sign up to receive their magazine for free, and it is a good read each month. They also publish a regular e-zine that has the latest news from the presentation industry. Definitely a good choice if you want to improve your presentation ability.