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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Jan 16 2009

PowerPoint Color Transparency Tip

By removing the white background from an image, you can layer one image on top of another graphic.

By removing the white background from an image, you can layer one image on top of another graphic.

When you’re working with picture images in PowerPoint, you may want to remove unnecessary parts of an image so that you can see other graphics behind it. If the image in question is a vector image (e.g., WMF), it may be very easy to customize the clip art image. However, if the image is a bitmap image (e.g., PNG, JPG, GIF), then you cannot simply “ungroup” the image and edit it as you want. If you own Photoshop and you’re proficient with it, this task may be fairly straightforward for you. However, many business users don’t have access to this expensive photo editing software or if they do, they may not know how to use it. Continue reading “PowerPoint Color Transparency Tip”

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Nov 29 2008

13 Ways to Quickly Derail a PowerPoint Presentation — Part I

Avoid derailing your PowerPoint presentation. Start strong, build momentum, and don't let up!

Most presentation experts would agree that it is important to have a strong opening to your business presentation. Your audience will give you five minutes or less (usually less) to determine if your presentation is worth listening to or not. They may not physically leave your presentation (that would be rude), but if your audience is unimpressed, disappointed, or annoyed, they will disengage mentally. Suddenly, their iPhone/BlackBerry or the doodling in their notepad becomes more important to them than what you’re presenting. Continue reading “13 Ways to Quickly Derail a PowerPoint Presentation — Part I”

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Oct 29 2008

Four Steps to Customizing PowerPoint Clip Art

Have you ever struggled to find just the right clip art for a particular slide in a presentation? You may have searched through PowerPoint’s extensive collection of clip art images and identified some possible options. However, the clip art weren’t exactly what you had in mind due to one of the following reasons:

  • Image was okay but the colors didn’t match the rest of the images or slide background
  • Image was close to what you wanted but it had a few extra details in the illustration, which were unnecessary or distracting
  • Image contained a useful illustration but several background elements made the clip art unusable Continue reading “Four Steps to Customizing PowerPoint Clip Art”

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Oct 18 2008

PowerPoint Graphics: Clip Art or Pictures?

As you build your PowerPoint slides you may wonder whether you should use clip art or pictures. Many presentation experts have touted the benefits of using stock photos to enhance your slides. Clip art doesn’t receive as much love from these experts, and some people have even suggested never using clip art. PowerPoint ninjas know that each type of presentation graphic is effective in different situations. Continue reading “PowerPoint Graphics: Clip Art or Pictures?”

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