PowerPoint Tip: Presenting from someone else’s computer In my workshops it is common that participants ask about what they need to take into account when they must take their PowerPoint presentation to another computer on a USB drive instead of using a laptop. It may be that the room they are presenting in has a…
Tag: 2011
Breaking the habit of speaking to the screen; Issue #240 July 19, 2011
PowerPoint Tip: Breaking the habit of speaking to the screen In the past, I have discussed the habit some presenters have of talking to the screen instead of the audience when using PowerPoint. In two previous newsletters (here and here), I suggest that the problem stems from presenters using the slides as speaker notes and needing to…
You need permission to use YouTube videos; Issue #239 July 5, 2011
One of the most frequent topics on the PowerPoint newsgroups and forums is how to include YouTube videos in a presentation. People find a cool video on YouTube and think it would be great in their presentation. In this article I’m not going to show you how to include a YouTube video in your PowerPoint…
Using a tablet or e-reader for Speaker Notes; Issue #238 June 21, 2011
PowerPoint Tip: Using a tablet or e-reader for Speaker Notes One of the sessions I’ll be presenting at the Presentation Summit conference this September in Austin, TX is on the topic of being more environmentally friendly with our presentations. While PowerPoint presentations are seemingly all digital, they tend to generate a lot of paper with…
Editing old graphs in PowerPoint 2007/10; Issue #237 June 7, 2011
PowerPoint Tip: Editing old graphs in PowerPoint 2007/10 One of the major changes between PowerPoint 2003 and PowerPoint 2007 is the way that graphs are created. In PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions, graphs were created by using a module called Microsoft Graph. Starting in PowerPoint 2007, you now use Excel to create graphs, which makes…
Why You Shouldn’t Use Google Images to Find Photos; Issue #236 May 24, 2011
PowerPoint Tip: Why You Shouldn’t Use Google Images to Find Photos In my workshops, whenever I speak about using photos in a presentation, someone always asks about Google Images. It is so easy to find pictures using the image search function of Google, why don’t I recommend it? Because in almost every case, it is…
Prepare for Problems so you Respond, not React; Issue #235 May 10, 2011
PowerPoint Tip: Prepare for Problems so you Respond, not React At a conference in February I heard Bo Boshers share a story of two groups who faced the same situation and had very different reactions. One group saw a potential danger and reacted by running away. The other group had been prepared for challenges and,…
Formatting text in a table; Issue #234 April 26, 2011
PowerPoint Tip: Formatting text in a table Two issues ago I wrote about how to format text on slides because text will always be a part of our slides. Today I want to take the topic further and discuss the formatting of text in a table. Tables can be a great way to visually show…
Using Exit animation to reveal a graphic; Issue #233 April 12, 2011
PowerPoint Tip: Using Exit animation to reveal a graphic The last step in my five-step KWICK method from my book The Visual Slide Revolution is to Keep the Focus of the audience. The best way to do this is to build your points or slide elements one by one on the slide. This works if you have…
Text formatting tips; Issue #232 March 29, 2011
PowerPoint Tip: Text formatting tips Last Friday I did a web based training session for a consulting organization and one of the issues we discussed was formatting text on slides so that it was easy to understand. Even though I try to help people use visuals instead of text, I know that text will still…