Aug 07 2009

31 Flavors of PowerPoint – Part II

Just one flavor of PowerPoint? (c)iStockPhoto / cnicbc

In my previous blog post, I discussed the different flavors of PowerPoint that exist. It’s not just vanilla or even double-chocolate fudge brownie. We need to accept the fact that there are multiple flavors — at least 31 — if not more. Continue reading “31 Flavors of PowerPoint – Part II”

Tags: budget, consistency, content-bias, control, death by PowerPoint, design, presentation design, Presentation Zen, presenter-bias, rules, strategic, tactical, time, venue

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Jul 27 2009

31 Flavors of PowerPoint – Part I

Is there really only one flavor of PowerPoint? (c)iStockPhoto / RapidEye

Too often I hear people talk about PowerPoint presentations like there is only one flavor of PowerPoint. If you read popular presentation design books like Presentation Zen or Slide:ology, you’d swear that most people are tasked with keynote presentations like Seth Godin and Steve Jobs are. A more visual approach with less text is definitely a good strategy for keynote presentations. However, let’s be realistic that only about 0.012% of presenters are delivering keynote presentations on a regular basis. Continue reading “31 Flavors of PowerPoint – Part I”

Tags: design, golden rule, guidelines, Jan Schultink, meeting, presentation design, Presentation Zen, rules, Seth Godin, Steve Jobs, strategic, tactical

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Jul 11 2009

How Colors Can Make Your PowerPoint Charts More Digestible

Mmmm. It all looks good. Where do I focus? (c) iStockPhoto / Adventure Photo

Mmmm. Fruit salad. It all looks good. But where do I focus? (c) iStockPhoto / Adventure Photo

By default PowerPoint or Excel 2007 will create multicolored pie charts or single-colored bar charts. Unfortunately, these default color combinations can cause charts to communicate less effectively unless they are modified.

In most cases, when you’re using charts in PowerPoint slides you’re trying to highlight a specific data point or a subset of data points:

“Look at how much higher the revenue is for this product”
“See how the average for this country is much lower than those of other countries”
“Notice how the quality score of this product is practically the same as those of other cheaper products” Continue reading “How Colors Can Make Your PowerPoint Charts More Digestible”

Tags: bar charts, Charts, color, colors, Excel 2007, pie charts

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Jun 30 2009

Curse of Pac-Man: the Dangers of 3D Charts in PowerPoint

If you grew up playing video games in the 80’s, you’ll have fond memories of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man. These classic arcade games were revolutionary in their day and continue to be favorites today. If you compare their simple 2D format to today’s lifelike first-person shooters, you wonder why people still continue to play them. The fact is their simple game play is still infectious. Continue reading “Curse of Pac-Man: the Dangers of 3D Charts in PowerPoint”

Tags: 2D, 3D, bar charts, Charts, Garr Reynolds, pie charts, Presentation Zen, simplicity

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Jun 11 2009

Tips for Sharing Large PowerPoint Files

How can I get this 18 MB file to our client in Chicago in the next 7 minutes?

How can I get this 18 MB PPT file to our client in Chicago in the next 7 minutes? (c) iStockPhoto / contour99

You killed yourself to complete a PowerPoint presentation on a short deadline. You put a lot of time and effort into your slides — crafting a cohesive message, choosing some great images, and building some advanced animation effects. What a relief that you were able to submit everything on time, and you’re confident that you’ll receive great feedback on all your hard work (promotion, hello?). Continue reading “Tips for Sharing Large PowerPoint Files”

Tags: add-in, compression, Flash, Garr Reynolds, images, Nancy Duarte, pdf, pictures, PowerPoint 2007, pptx, Presentation Zen, yousendit