How to access the line spacing options in PowerPoint 2007.

If you used PowerPoint 2003 and recently upgraded to PowerPoint 2007, you probably noticed a significant change in how PowerPoint 2007 handles the line spacing of text within your slides. Line spacing in PowerPoint 2007 and Word 2007 are now almost exactly the same. Microsoft obviously wanted to create a unified approach to line spacing across its Microsoft Office suite. However, the simple and straightforward approach in previous versions of PowerPoint is now a little more tricky. More…

Popularity: 39% [?]

The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, written by Dan Roam, is a bold effort at introducing business people to using visual thinking principles to solve problems and communicate more effectively. Visual thinking is something that I feel I excel at; however, I know it has been a challenge for many of my co-workers, managers, and clients. Even if you don’t struggle with visual thinking, I recommend The Back of the Napkin (four of five stars) as it provides a valuable set of processes and frameworks that can even benefit experienced visual thinkers, who probably operate more by intuition than methodology. More…

Popularity: 14% [?]

PowerPoint ninjas hate jelly beans (c)iStockPhoto/Christine Glade

One form of animations in PowerPoint that you may want to avoid is slide transitions. Transitions are the animation or motion effects that occur as you move between slides in a PowerPoint presentation. Continuing in my tradition of comparing PowerPoint to food, I consider slide transitions to be “empty calories” within PowerPoint - high in calories (sizzle) and low in nutritional value (substance). More…

Popularity: 36% [?]

With the growing popularity of YouTube, more and more people are interested in adding YouTube videos to their PowerPoint presentations. It might be a funny YouTube video to engage your audience at the beginning of your presentation or an informative video that ties in directly with your main message. But how can you get a YouTube video into your PowerPoint slides? More…

Popularity: 14% [?]

What is more intimidating than a PowerPoint ninja? How about a coordinated team of angry PowerPoint ninjas? (c)iStockphoto/Ethan Myerson

In various business scenarios, you might find yourself a part of a team that is responsible for building and presenting a PowerPoint presentation. When you’re working independently on your own PowerPoint slides, you have full control over the outcome of your presentation. Coordinating a PowerPoint presentation with other individuals introduces new challenges, which can frustrate even PowerPoint ninjas who are caught unprepared. As a team, you don’t want to waste time on unnecessary or overlapping PowerPoint slides, or reworking poorly designed slides at the end. In order to be successful with group or team presentations, you should consider the following eight tips: More…

Popularity: 20% [?]