Going backward in a PowerPoint presentation

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Going backward in a PowerPoint presentation

Have you ever wanted to go to the previous slide while in Microsoft PowerPoint's Slide Show view, perhaps in response to a question from the audience? If you have text animation that displays one bullet point at a time, you can right-click and choose Previous to go to the previous animation step, but it's frustrating to click through all of the animation's steps to finally get to the previous slide. For a quick work around, right-click on the slide, choose Go to Slide, then select the slide you want. That trick takes only three clicks of the mouse.

An even speedier method is to build in a button or link on each slide that will go back. One way to do this is to add an Action Button to the slide. On the Drawing toolbar, select AutoShapes, then Action Buttons, then choose the Back or Previous button. To create a button to pull up the next slide in a slideshow, go back to AutoShapes >> Action Buttons, but select the Forward or Next button. Alternatively, you can add a hyperlink (INSERT >> HYPERLINK) to any AutoShape or text to lead you to the previous, next or any other slide in the slideshow.

(Tip provided by Presentations columnist, Ellen Finkelstein)

Blogged on 7:57 PM

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Animation ordering

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Animation ordering

Need to change the order of a slide's animations on an existing Microsoft PowerPoint slideshow? This is easy to do. Open your slideshow in PowerPoint, and from the main menu, select SLIDE SHOW >> CUSTOM ANIMATION to open the Custom Animation task pane. All your animations will be listed. Simply click and drag any animation up or down the list to a new location to change the order. There. Easy as pie.

Blogged on 12:46 AM

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Presentation Myths

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Presentation Myths

Don't use PowerPoint as it will distract your audience. According to research by psychologists, 55% of your presentation is visual. Statistics also show that we remember more of what we're shown that what we're told. So our advice is use slides, but don't rely on them or read them word for word. Avoid too many bullet points as they are a very poor way of conveying your message.

Clip art makes you presentation look groovy. Wrong! Clip art makes your presentation look old fashioned, which will make you look behind the times. If you need to use images to improve your presentation, look for ones that are unusal, appropriate or brand new

Blogged on 6:02 AM

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Split one PowerPoint slide into two

If your text doesn't fit easily on one slide, spread the text onto a second slide. If the text is in a text placeholder, you can easily do this with the Outline toolbar. To display the Outline toolbar, right-click any toolbar and select Outline, then follow these steps:

1. Work in the Outline pane, not on the slide. (If necessary click the Outline tab of the Outline pane.) Place the cursor at the end of the last line of text that you want on the first slide and press ENTER.
2. On the Outline toolbar, click Promote until a New Slide icon appears in the Outline pane.
3. Type a title for the new slide.
4. Adjust the rest of the text as needed by clicking Demote or Promote on the Outline toolbar.

(Tip provided by Presentations columnist Ellen Finkelstein)

Blogged on 1:03 AM

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