About me

Ellen FinkelsteinMy goal is to help you succeed when you present by giving you knowledge. I'm passionate about turning Death by PowerPoint into Life by PowerPoint. You'll find free tips, techniques, articles, and tutorials here. At the E-store find books and courses to aid you in becoming a great presenter. On my About page, learn more about consulting, workshops, training, webinars, and coaching on presentation skills and PowerPoint.

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  • Government slides are the hardest to make visual, but I did a few today. It IS possible! 4 days ago
  • What's a good resource for info on inexpensive lighting for webcam videos & videocasts? Both lights themselves and how to set them up? 4 days ago
  • Tip for sales presentations-find out what's really bothering the decision maker. It may not be what you expect. 4 days ago
  • Just posted link: 89% of employers want colleges to place more emphasis on oral & written communication. http://bit.ly/brCUt6 1 week ago
  • Just posted update to an old tip: Creating JPEG & PNG files from AutoCAD dwgs. Many ideas from contributors! http://budurl.com/hjsb 1 week ago
  • #oscars It looked like they were doing it in Las Vegas 1 week ago
  • Register for free mini-course in presenting: From Death by PowerPoint to Life by PowerPoint http://bit.ly/589yGb 1 week ago

Featured in Alltop

Featured in Alltop

Speaking Pro Central

Speaking Pro Central

Recording available for the training webinar: Animation and Video in PowerPoint—Advanced Techniques

If you missed it, we had a great webinar last week on Animation and Video in PowerPoint—Advanced Techniques. It was jam packed with 10 techniques and attendees also got a 14-page handout with detailed instructions and the presentation itself, containing all the techniques!

You can now purchase the recording for $24.95, or buy all 5 webinars [...]

Animation for entertainment

Occasionally, you may want to use PowerPoint animation for its entertainment value. An introduction that loops as the audience arrives is one good use. Another is to build excitement at the launch of a new product.

I usually recommend restraint when using animation, but when the purpose is entertainment, you have a lot more leeway. Insert [...]

Duplicate animation

It’s common to create a nice PowerPoint animation and then want to copy the animation to a different object. Unfortunately, PowerPoint doesn’t have that capability. While you can copy an existing animated object and get a duplicate, along with its animation, you can’t independently copy an animation to another existing object.

Here are some options:

Use Animation [...]

Great new collection of PowerPoint 2007 effects and animations

Julie Terberg is a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP (Most Valuable Professional) and one of the top presentation designers around. She is well-known for her incredible animations and special effects, which look as if they were done in Adobe Flash or a high-end animation program. They’re all done in PowerPoint.

She has created a stunning set of slides [...]

Circle an object

A great way to emphasize and draw attention to an object on a slide is to circle it.

Of course, the easy way is to insert a circle, and use the Appear or Fade entrance animation. Be sure to format the circle with no fill. I like to use a red outline and give it [...]