Mar 04 2009

Ten Commandments of PowerPoint Ninjutsu

Many business people use PowerPoint religiously each week. Although millions of PowerPoint presentations are being prepared and delivered on a regular basis around the world, it often feels as though “PowerPoint land” is a lawless “wild west”. Presentation audiences – big and small – have endured heinous PowerPoint sins for years.

PowerPoint users need to be held to a higher standard so here are the Ten Commandments of PowerPoint Ninjutsu that I came up with: Continue reading “Ten Commandments of PowerPoint Ninjutsu”

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Feb 27 2009

Three New Gradient Effect Options in PowerPoint 2007

If you’re familiar with using gradient fill effects in PowerPoint, you will have noticed a change in how PowerPoint 2007 handles gradient effects (see below). In a previous article, I showed how you could reproduce the familiar gradient fill effects from PowerPoint 2003 in PowerPoint 2007.

On the left side are the gradient fill options in PowerPoint 2003. On the right side are the gradient fill options in PowerPoint 2007.

A side-by-side comparison of the gradient fill effect options shows how the application features have changed from PowerPoint 2003 to PowerPoint 2007.

Now I’ll focus on three new gradient features in PowerPoint 2007 that may open up some new effect options for you. Continue reading “Three New Gradient Effect Options in PowerPoint 2007”

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Feb 23 2009

Mastering Gradient Fills in PowerPoint 2007

When you upgraded to PowerPoint 2007 from PowerPoint 2003, you might have noticed a big change in the way gradient fill effects work. When I first started using the new gradient fill effect options in PowerPoint 2007, I was a little frustrated with it. I thought that some gradient functionality had actually been removed. However, once you get oriented with the new gradient fill approach, you realize you can do what you did before with gradients and much more. Continue reading “Mastering Gradient Fills in PowerPoint 2007”

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Feb 19 2009

PowerPoint 2007: What is Missing-in-Upgrade (MIU)?

Chuck Norris would seriously maim the Microsoft product manager responsible for these upgrade oversights.

Chuck Norris would take down the Microsoft developers responsible for some key feature oversights in PPT 2007.

PowerPoint 2007 has many great features such as its enhanced picture effects, enhanced Presenter View, Selection Pane, Save as PDF file option, new shortcut keys (Paste Special = Ctrl + Alt + V), etc. There are some new features that I’m still not yet convinced that I like such as the Ribbon or SmartArt.

In addition to these notable enhancements, there were some features in PowerPoint 2003 that disappeared or changed in PowerPoint 2007 — but not for the better. Although I would recommend people upgrade to PowerPoint 2007 from PowerPoint 2003, I still have both versions on my work computer. I’ve identified six “missing in upgrade” (MIU) features that would push Chuck Norris and many PowerPoint ninjas over the edge. Continue reading “PowerPoint 2007: What is Missing-in-Upgrade (MIU)?”

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Feb 14 2009

Redmond, We Have a Problem: Freeform Drawing in PowerPoint 2007

Once you start drawing freeform objects in PowerPoint 2007, you quickly realize it behaves very differently than it did in PowerPoint 2003. I don’t understand why Microsoft decided to mess with something that wasn’t broken. I’ve identified three separate issues related to freeform drawing that were introduced in PowerPoint 2007. For PowerPoint ninjas, these issues are like bamboo shoots under our finger nails. Well, maybe more like hangnails — but they are really annoying! Continue reading “Redmond, We Have a Problem: Freeform Drawing in PowerPoint 2007”

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