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”

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Apr 16 2009

Free Ninja Clip Art for Your PowerPoint Slides

I didn’t comment on another key deficiency in PowerPoint 2007 in my recent “Missing-in-Upgrade” article, but there are only two clip art images that are ninja-related in PowerPoint 2007 (below) — and they’re lame. As the PowerPoint Ninja, I wanted to make sure that this problem is rectified.

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Is the ninja on the left wearing a hooded Snuggie and a man purse? Maybe someone spilled his bowl of Cheetos while he was lounging on the couch in front of the TV and now he's out for blood...or he's just a nerd-ninja.

Continue reading “Free Ninja Clip Art for Your PowerPoint Slides”

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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 24 2008

Book Review: The Back of the Napkin

The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam

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. Continue reading “Book Review: The Back of the Napkin”

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