Insert a live Excel spreadsheet onto a slide

You can insert a live Excel spreadsheet onto a slide so that you can use Excel while in Slide Show view.

There are other ways to get Excel data onto a slide, so why would you want an active Excel spreadsheet? Let’s say that you’re presenting some results of your financial analysis and your [...]

A quick way to design better photo slides–the 3-side rule

Here’s a quick way to improve the design of slides that include some text and a photo. This type of slide is very common. But it doesn’t look very striking.

Here’s the principle: Make the photo touch 3 sides of the slide. When you do this, your slide will look bolder and clearer. [...]

Discover 3 reasons most presentations fail and 3 easy ways to fix them

I did a webinar for Brainshark.com and mybrainshark.com, a presentation-sharing website. It was called “3 reasons most presentations fail and 3 ways to fix them.” Over 500 people attended!

The 1-hour webinar included makeovers of slides that attendees submitted. You can watch the presentation for free here. Let me know what you think by [...]

Finish quickly with selection shortcuts

I started working with a new client doing a series of 1-on-1 coaching sessions. In the first session, we were going over a slide and I needed to select 2 objects to move them together.

Use the Shift key to select more than one object

Since we were working via webinar software, he [...]

Make your communication personal with photos

I see lots of presentation files and have started to notice that when people start designing slides, they go into a formal mode that makes the presentation less personal — and less effective. The negative impact is especially pronounced when the presentation is put online, because the audience doesn’t see the presenter (although there [...]

Create quick, professional diagrams with SmartArt in PowerPoint 2007 & 2010

SmartArt was a new feature of PowerPoint 2007 and is a way to quickly create professional-looking diagrams from bulleted text. In the Tell ‘n’ ShowSM method, you put a meaning title that tells the point on the slide. Then you add an image, graph/chart, or diagram that shows the point.

Just like the boy’s [...]

Create your own graphics and icons for PowerPoint: Part II–Creating line art from scratch

In a previous post, “Create your own graphics and icons for PowerPoint: Part I–Using clip art,” I showed how you can ungroup line art in PowerPoint’s clip art gallery and then modify it.

But sometimes, you can’t find clip art that meets your needs and you need to create the art from scratch. If [...]

Create your own graphics and icons for PowerPoint: Part I–Using clip art

Yes, you can create your own graphics and icons for PowerPoint! Not all graphics can, or should, be photos, charts, or diagrams. Sometimes you want to represent a concept and need a more symbolic or iconic look. This 2-part series will explore 2 ways you can get result you need.

Sometimes, simple shapes are enough. This slide’s graphic is just a circle with some 3D formatting.

You can also use the Custom Shapes feature to make more complex graphics. You can find a link to all four tips on this topic here.

Line art — which includes standard clip art — can provide you with any graphic you need. There are 2 ways to get line art into PowerPoint (aside from using PowerPoint’s drawing tools and shapes):

  1. Insert line art (in this case, clip art) and modify it
  2. Turn vector images from other programs into PowerPoint graphics

I cover the first method here.

Clip art — is it all bad?

Most clip art is bad. It doesn’t have to be, but it is. Clip art like this, from Microsoft’s Clip Art gallery, gives clip art a bad name. I just inserted several options that came up with a search on “steps,” but they are all corny, unclear, and unprofessional looking.

Read more! →

Ellen Finkelstein can train you or the presenters in your organization to create high-impact, engaging, professional presentations for training, sales, business, or education. For more information, please click here.

How to use your remote to switch to another presentation in PowerPoint 2007 & 2010

A friend asked me, “How can I link to another presentation and use my remote to get to that presentation?”

Here’s the problem. You can easily link any shape to another presentation by hyperlinking it. I have instructions in my tip, “Link to other presentations and return to the original presentation.”

But to activate [...]

Create consistent slides with layouts

I see lots of bad slides! One thing that I notice is that people ignore PowerPoint’s layouts. Please don’t!

Layouts provide a framework for your slides so that they are all consistent:

Fonts Font sizes Colors Title placement Image and text placement How do I choose a layout?

Let PowerPoint’s layouts do the heavy [...]