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 [...]

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 [...]

Business concept diagrams: Group 1–Working together, parts of a whole, integrating the parts

I’ve started creating some business concept diagrams. Diagrams like this are so useful! Sometimes, you need to illustrate a concept, but don’t want a photograph. In this situation, diagrams may communicate the concept more clearly.

You can use them in 2 ways:

As labeled diagrams for your specific situation As graphics to portray a [...]

6 steps to create a quick PowerPoint makeover

This past month, I did two makeovers–one for a long-time friend who was presenting at an academic conference and the other for a business partner. Since I wasn’t getting paid, I went through them fairly quickly and by the time I had finished both, I realized that I had a simple system that I [...]

Support your statements

After deciding on the points you want to make in your upcoming presentation, you need to figure out how to support those points. For example, if your point is that your company has the largest market share in the industry, quote the research (hopefully done by a third party) that says so. This applies [...]

Create a timeline agenda in PresentationZen style

Olivia Mitchell, who writes the Speaking about Presenting recently wrote a blog entry, “How to do an agenda slide like Garr Reynolds.”

Note: There’s a special offer at the end of this tutorial, so read on!

Here’s the presentation, which is posted on slideshare.net. The timeline agenda is on slides 7 through 12. Slides [...]

Animate a chart or table

You may find it useful to animate the elements of a chart or table. For example, you may want to discuss sales of one product throughout all the quarters of the year before going on to the next product. Or you may want to explain a table row by row.

To add animation to [...]

Push PowerPoint charting options to the limit

This article is by Rebecca Renner, President of Creative Minds, Inc., a 10-year-old graphic design firm that specializes in PowerPoint presentations and print collateral. Rebecca has more than 20 years of graphic design experience, including 10 years in corporate communications, handling writing and editing projects in addition to presentation and print design. She enjoys [...]

Formatting Bar Charts

Charts are a great way to visually present complex data. However, the default chart is never, I repeat, never acceptable. You need to format the chart. Here are some simple steps you can take to format a bar chart:

Double-click the chart so you can edit it. Click one series of bars once to [...]

Designing chart titles

PowerPoint lets you create a title for a graph/chart, but for simplicity and to leave more room for the chart, omit it and use the slide title instead to describe the chart.

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.