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. More…

PowerPoint ninjas need to be agile and resourceful. Microsoft provides many different shortcuts to streamline repetitive tasks within PowerPoint 2007. Rather than overwhelm you with all of the shortcut key options, I’d like to focus on a lethal subset of key strokes that can significantly impact your PowerPoint productivity. If you don’t feel you need shortcuts, remember that slow, inefficient ninjas are dead ninjas. More…

Any aspiring PowerPoint ninja needs to be familiar with a subset of important features within PowerPoint. Through a series of PowerPoint Ninja “toolbox” articles, I will cover some of these key features. Whether you’re using PowerPoint 2003 or 2007, the Drawing Guide feature is very useful as you design new slides. More…

In the Part One, I discussed the familiar epidemic of “death by PowerPoint”, and how we should be focusing blame on the presenters — not necessarily the software. I presented four factors that I feel contribute to bad PowerPoint presentations. After covering two of the factors — lack of preparation and lack of experience and knowledge — I’m going to focus on the remaining two factors of indifference and self-importance. More…

Rest in peace, Boris Toudeth (c)iStockPhoto/Arvid Emtegren

Has your life been threatened by bad PowerPoint presentations? Maybe a recent presentation stole 30-60 minutes of your life which you would like back. Unfortunately, too many of us have sat through an experience known as “death by PowerPoint” - a disinterested presenter, a series of disconnected slides, a merciless procession of bullet points, and a mishmash of overly complex clip art, charts, and tables. Sound painfully familiar? More…