Tips

Good to Make Business Hot - Mix up with Presentation Spices

Corporate presentation is something significant for a team in any conferences to show up their power and confidence. However, presentations are not the most entertaining films to view, especially on sonorous afternoons in air conditioned and darkened rooms that lull you to sleep. To make any exceptions on the rule, some good tips are necessary, not tricks of business. Got some good points from Heather Johnson’s blog post “How to Spice Up a Presentation” on Jenna Sweeney’s Corporate Training & e-Learning Blog.

= Know your subject and know your audience
= Interaction to get your audience involved: ask and invite questions
= The shorter and more powerful the message
= Use your hands to complement your words and slides
= Talk eloquently without the use of too many “ahs” and “ums” and “likes”
= Know your slides thoroughly and never get them mixed up in the middle of a presentation

How to Spice Up a Presentation

More than these good tips above, I think too many words in slides would be huge mistake in any presentations. Just titled, narrated, multimedia added. Your words, smiles, gestures are superior to guide audiences live. Another, some reasonable silence with a nice face between sentences instead of “ahs” or “ums” could be better, I think.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Perfect Presentation Online - Your SlideShare PowerPoint Slides with YouTube Video Narration Together on Omnisio

Once you’re back from various conferences, uploading your video recordings on presentation to YouTube, and uploading PowerPoint slides to SlideShare could be the best way to share your masterpiece socially, so that people who could not make it to the conference, are able to run through your presentation. How about put them together on your blog?

Just embed them with the codes from YouTube and SlideShare on your blog. But it’s not perfect - your PowerPoint slides and the audio-video recording are embedded separately and your readers will therefore have to watch them repeatedly in two different ways. Fortunately, this age-old problem can be solved in minutes with Omnisio - a free service that lets you synchronize pre-recording audio-video with a PowerPoint presentation. Now you can just upload your PowerPoint presentation to Slideshare, video to YouTube and then synchronize the two with Omnisio.

It’s not a service promotion; just experience this yourself on Omnisio.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Quick Tips to Enhance Your Presentation in PowerPoint 2007

After your meticulously constructed the contents of next-day presentation, enrichment is great for your confidence. Applying some quick enhancements to your presentation is really easy, because you’ll find PowerPoint 2007 has made them ready for you.

1. Themes offer you more thoughts

Access the Design tab of the Ribbon in PowerPoint 2007, the Themes gallery provides several themes here with thumbnail previews, and you can just hove your mouse cursor over and get live preview with new theme in current presentation.

Furthermore, the built-in theme colors are very friendly feature to help you make professional design. Fonts, Effects are also already selected by designers, and what you need is just a few clicks.

2. Quick Styles is what you want

In Drawing section of Home tab, you can decorate the selected contents with this fascinating idea: just live preview and apply preset style in mouse hover and clicks. That’s why it called “Quick”.

Like theme feature, the preset style or layout is well designed. Everyone can easily access it and make a professional-like presentation.

3. Use SmartArt in smart

SmartArt is so cool that everyone will like it. Actually it just provides the quick way to make designer-quality graphics from preset templates, as better graphics can essential promote your presentation.

You may create one from SmartArt icon of Insert tab, and simply all the boring listing, process, cycle, relationship contents into a smart and bright view. That’s SmartArt simply did for you.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Learn From Everyone: WikiHow’s PowerPoint Tutorials and Articles

Wiki is great, as everyone could be the contributor to share the unlimited knowledge. This wiki website WikiHow calls itself the ‘How-to Manual You Can Edit’ because it allows users to add and edit the tutorials it hosts.

Here I just introduce WikiHow’s Presentation Software category, which provides how-to steps for performing several tasks and using some important features in Microsoft PowerPoint. You know, usually I contribute some terms in those articles, where you may find my name on the author list.

19 PowerPoint 2003 Tutorials:

- Add Music to Powerpoint

- Add a Template to the Autocontent Wizard in PowerPoint

- Change the Background on Powerpoint Slides

- Convert PowerPoint to Flash Using Open Source Tools

- Convert PowerPoint to Flash Using Wondershare

- Convert a PowerPoint Presentation to Screensaver

- Create a Flowchart

- Embed Music in a PowerPoint Presentation

- Embed and Insert a Chart in a Powerpoint Presentation

- Fill out a PDF Form With PowerPoint

- Make Animations With Microsoft Powerpoint

- Make
a PowerPoint Presentation with Lots of Bitmap Images and Small File Size

- Make an Awesome Rpg on Powerpoint

- Publish a PowerPoint Presentation Online

- Put a Hyperlink in Microsoft PowerPoint

- Save a Powerpoint Presentation on a Thumbdrive

- Show the Slide Number and Total Number of Slides on Every Powerpoint Slide

- Use Microsoft Office PowerPoint

- Use WonderShare PP2DVD to Burn PowerPoint to DVD

2 PowerPoint 2007 Tutorials:

- Add a Sound to a Presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint 2007

- Insert Flash Into PowerPoint 2007

Certainly it’s recommended to add your words on some specified topics in WikiHow you’re really good at; learning is the process of sharing knowledges, that is, helping everyone is helping yourself in philosophy.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Quick Try This: Your Personal Show In MySpace Profile

Whether you know it or not, MySpace connects people with people in the Web communities. Decking a perfect profile of yourself in MySpace is the first step of your social network online. If you insert a Flash animation as your personal show in profile, it will be great to show than just texts and pictures.

Well it’s pretty simple to do so within copy and paste technique. At first, you need to have your Flash file hosted; it’s easy to purchase some online spaces nowadays, just select some well-known Web hosting services like 1&1 or DreamHost with your credit card.

After the SWF Flash file is hosted somewhere, copy the URL where it’s hosted, such as: http://www.abc.com/d/efg.swf.

Now you may login your MySpace account and go to edit profile section where you want the Flash show to appear, just modify the URL and width/height in the following HTML codes as you like, then copy and paste them in the profile field:

<embed src=”http://www.abc.com/d/efg.swf” mce_src=”http://www.abc.com/d/efg.swf” width=”300″ height=”300″ quality=”high” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” />

Finally you can save all, and all your friends and potential friends will view and like your updated MySpace profile with the Flash showoff.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Make Your Live Homepage in PowerPoint Slides

You probably will like this way: a live window within a slide in PowerPoint, which displays the live Webpage, not just a pop-up Internet Explorer when clicking a hyperlink. Actually it’s easy to do so, at first you should add a Microsoft Web Browser control to a slide, and then run a macro as an action to the live Webpage in PowerPoint.

1. Show The Control Toolbar In PowerPoint
    In PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions, point to View -> Toolbars, and click Control Toolbox, now the box shows up;
    In PowerPoint 2007, click the Microsoft Office Button -> PowerPoint Options -> Popular, click the Show Developer tab in the Ribbon check box, and then click OK, now the control group is in the Developer tab.

2. Draw The Web Browser In A Slide
    Click “More Controls” button, and then click “Microsoft Web Browser”, and then draw the control on your slide. The Microsoft Web Browser ActiveX control now appears on your slide.

3. Make A go2URL Macro For Presentation
    Launch the “Visual Basic Editor” in PowerPoint:
    In PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions, go to Tools -> Macro -> Visual Basic Editor; in PowerPoint 2007, go to Visual Basic in the Developer tab;
    On the Microsoft Visual Basic window, point to Insert -> Module; just specify the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) as you like in the following code, and paste the modified code in the new Module window, which will run the browser, opening the URL:

Sub go2URL ()
Dim varURL as VariantvarURL = "http://www.yahoo.com"
Slide1.WebBrowser1.Navigate varURL
End Sub

    Then close the Visual Basic Editor.

4. Add An Action To Run The Macro
    Type any texts or insert any shapes you like, then add the actions to the live Webpage on them: make the texts or shapes selected, and point to Insert -> Action; in the tab of “Mouse Click” or “Mouse Over” as you like, select “Run macro” -> “go2URL”, and OK.

Now preview or save the presentation with macro, you can activate the live Webpage in the PowerPoint slide with a mouseclick or mouseover on the link.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Be A Superstar With Your PowerPoint Presentation

Days ago I came across a cute idea called “PowerPoint Karaoke” on http://lemill.net/methods/powerpoint-karaoke by Hans Põldoja. It introduced a method that can be used in presentation trainings as social activity to improve presentation skills for teachers or other presenters. The main difference between PowerPoint karaoke and real karaoke is that people give PowerPoint presentations instead of singing.

Certainly it’s kind of funny to do so, but actually it’s really an efficient practice like so for your better performance in the future. A PowerPoint karaoke needs to search from Google or Slideshare for random PowerPoint files, and list presentations on different topics to be chosen for participants. If there’s really such a leisure activity with group wisdom and inspirations, any participants can gain more techniques and experiences from others and themselves like a superstar is born in normal karaoke contest.

William Peterson
Presentation Verteran

Why Not Add YouTube Flash Video in Your Next PowerPoint Presentation

Maybe not everyone loves YouTube, watches and uploads videos on YouTube, but in the world’s most popular community, sometimes you would like to add a favorite video on YouTube to your next presentation. Many people have tried various methods to make YouTube video in their PowerPoint. Here I just review these great ideas, and express the clear fact in my words.

Play YouTube Flash Video Online in PowerPoint with Live Connection

If you’re going to give a PowerPoint presentation under the environment with live Internet connection. You can directly embed your expected YouTube video into the slide, and play the video in your presentation from Internet like embedding YouTube video in a Web page. Just follow the simple steps below:

1. At first, you need to find the hidden Control Toolbox out in PowerPoint. In Normal View of PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions, go to View -> Toolbars -> select “Control Toolbox”; for PowerPoint 2007, go to PowerPoint Options -> Popular -> tick “Show Developer tab in the Ribbon”.

2. In the Control Toolbox, click the last icon “More Controls” which is displayed as hummer plus wrench. In the set of controls available on your computer, select “Shockwave Flash Object”. Then use your mouse to draw and resize an area in the slide as you like to place your YouTube video.

3. Go to the YouTube video page you’d like to add, and check the URL in the address bar of your Web browser. You’ll get an address like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hChq5drjQl4. Change the phrase “watch?v=” to “v/”, and now the address become http://www.youtube.com/v/hChq5drjQl4. The address is what we need to link the video from YouTube.

4. Right click the area you drew which is displayed as a big cross, select Properties and go to Properties tab. Just copy and paste the YouTube video address like http://www.youtube.com/v/hChq5drjQl4 in the field as value of attribute “Movie”; set the value of attribute “Playing” and “Loop” to False. Close the Properties tab when everything is done.

5. Now save the presentation, preview and enjoy the embedded live YouTube video in the slide with a Internet connection.

Get YouTube Flash Video Offline and Add To Presentations

When you don’t like the live YouTube video way, which requires live and reliable Internet connection, you may download YouTube video to your hard drive, and insert the video into presentation offline. It’s also very easy to make in a few minutes.

1. Go to the YouTube video page you’d like to add, and check the URL in the address bar of your Web browser. You’ll get an address like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hChq5drjQl4. Then try some online services like KeepVid or other offline tools to retrieve and download the original Flash video file from the address. Rename the downloaded YouTube Flash video file from “get_video” to “xxx.flv” as you like in FLV format.

2. Now you need to decide in which format of YouTube Flash video you’d like to add in PowerPoint presentation. If directly inserting the Flash video in FLV format, you have to ensure the FLV file could be properly played back at first. It’s recommended to install VideoLAN VLC media player to play YouTube Flash video files in FLV format.

3. Find the hidden Control Toolbox out in PowerPoint and go to “More Controls” as the way in the first steps of online YouTube section above. Select “VideoLAN VLC ActiveX Plugin v1/v2″ in the set of controls available, then draw and resize the displayed area with mouse in the slide as you like. Right click the area you drew and go to Properties tab, and complete the value of attribute “MRL” with the path of the YouTube Flash video file, like D:\Temp\2008\temp.flv, then close the tab. Now the YouTube Flash video in your hard drive is ready to play in the presentation.

— Insert YouTube Video As Common Video

Besides, you may also try to convert your YouTube Flash video in FLV format to other common video format like AVI, MOV, etc with some online services such as vixy.net or other offline video conversion tools. Then you can directly insert these converted video in your hard drive via “Insert Movie from File” in PowerPoint.

— Insert YouTube Video As SWF Flash Movie

Generally speaking, to avoid video codec problem with different computers, and ensure the properly video playback in PowerPoint, Flash video in FLV format and other video formats is not recommended to be inserted in PowerPoint. Based on the popularity of Adobe Flash player, which is widely installed on most computers in the world, Flash movie in SWF is highly compatible cross-platform and properly played back. You may try some video to Flash conversion tools, such as WebVideo Author, to convert FLV or other video formats to SWF format.

The Flash movie file in SWF format could be inserted into PowerPoint presentation as “Shockwave Flash Object” in Contorl Toolbox like the way in the first steps of online YouTube section above. And you can embed the SWF Flash file in your presentation through setting the attribute “EmbedMovie” to True in Properties tab.

By the way, some presentation authoring tools, such as PPT2Flash Professional, Articulate Presenter, offer the shortcut to insert SWF Flash files quickly, and finally output the PowerPoint presentation with YouTube Flash video as Flash movie in SWF format. Flash-based presentation is kind of great solution to avoid compatibility issues from video codec, PowerPoint versions and operating systems, and easy to make Web compliance with.

Maybe the total guide for YouTube video in PowerPoint is a little of complicated for everyone. Google’s PowerPoint killer in Google Docs is highly expected to add the feature to add YouTube video in online presentation instantly, if Google really wants to be the killer. After all, YouTube is a great video treasure for everyone, we can make better use of it with our works and life.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Best Practices for Playing and Controlling More in PowerPoint Presentations

You ever want to insert, control and play Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Flash movies, PDF documents or anything in PowerPoint to enhance your excellent presentations. Here you get the chance.

As we’ve already known, Microsoft PowerPoint is an incredibly powerful and popular tool for helping anyone create and conduct rich presentations. PowerPoint even allows you to integrate rich media, video and documents into the slides.

To insert Word, Excel and PDF files, you must have Microsoft Word, Excel and Adobe Acrobat Reader installed in your computer, and go to PowerPoint menus: Insert -> Object, then you can insert these files as objects into your presentation.

If you use ActiveX controls in PowerPoint, which can be as simple as a text box, as complex as an entire dialog, and in some cases as complex as a small application, you can insert and control more such as Flash movies as you want. Click the More Controls tool in the toolbox (you need to Show Developer tab in the Ribbon at PowerPoint Options -> Popular -> Top options for working with PowerPoint), and then click the control you want in the list (e.g. Shockwave Flash Object). Just place and resize the control in the slide as you like.

To make full use of the control, you have to set the properties. Make sure the control is selected, and then click Properties on the toolbar. Complete the source path to link your Flash movie or other files to the controls, and now you get ready to play it as well.

Certainly a good presentation cannot depend on text and pictures only, try to grab more items to power up your presentations in PowerPoint.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Not Just Type Well: Build Up Your Good Business With Text

Definitely the words in a PowerPoint presentation should be concise to help audiences understand your statement, and appealing to catch viewers’ eyes at least. It’s not the time showing your typing skills except some stupid typo. And the full page of mission statement or notes is redundant on the screen for everyone. For good and better business opportunities, now it’s great to review the creating process of your PowerPoint presentation.

You must know you don’t want to be verbose and the audiences don’t need, either. While times you are faced with this dilemma whether your presentation includes lots of text on a slide, you can try to rescue the show from text floods. The first thing to do is highlights on most important text. Once you’ve nailed that down, you have a couple options. The simplest way is to change the font and color of these really imperative text that you want people to take note of. PowerPoint already provides some text effects or WordArt to make them special. To have the eyes drawn to the words instantly, you may need some advanced treatments. You might want to try animating those words to stand out them, select the words and click on Custom Animation from the Slide Show menu (or Custom Animation from Animations in 2007). Pick any animation you want to apply, especially Entrance and Emphasis. If you don’t like the customized text effects, set a good text background to stick out words by contrast. Just draw, format and animate a rectangle, then send it to back under the words you concentrated. That way it will provide a stand-out background for your text that your audience will be sure to notice as well.

Text usually gets leading role for readers unless you have persuasive or exclusive pictures in a presentation. What I think about text presentation is that you cannot ignore the detailed job in PowerPoint to try. Sometimes they actually make sense, and your opportunities depend on these points.