Have you ever been told that you could only have a certain number of slides in your presentation, like 3 or 5? Crazy, right? How could you possibly condense everything you want to say into just a few slides? I think the better question, though, is "Why should you have to?" Why people limit slide … [Read more...] about Why slide counts don’t matter
Become a PowerPoint ninja with the Alt key
Think about how many times you hit Ctrl+C for Copy, Ctrl+P for Print, etc. and you'll understand how keyboard shortcuts speed up your workflow. Well, it's time to move past the Control key and graduate to the Alt key. It's a feature, not a bug Have you ever been typing in PowerPoint and suddenly … [Read more...] about Become a PowerPoint ninja with the Alt key
Office Insider: Get the cool PPT toys before everyone else
Image © Microsoft Corporation Microsoft has an interesting way to get the public hyped up about its products: the Insider program. Becoming an Office Insider is a way for early adopters to see what the company has in store for upcoming releases of its products within the Microsoft Office … [Read more...] about Office Insider: Get the cool PPT toys before everyone else
Simplifying PowerPoint collaboration
Anybody who's ever collaborated on a presentation knows the joy of the edit cycle. You create the presentation, submit it for review, receive an edited presentation with an explanatory email, repeat. There is built-in tool that simplifies this process. Unfortunately, it has a major flaw. The … [Read more...] about Simplifying PowerPoint collaboration
How to eliminate distracting gestures and movements
When you're speaking in front of an audience, your actions can speak louder than your words. Swaying, hand clasping, pacing, and other unconscious movements can distract people from your main message and communicate quite a different one, such as "I'm unprepared," "I'm nervous," or "I'd rather be … [Read more...] about How to eliminate distracting gestures and movements
The three worst PowerPoint training mistakes
The best way to learn something is to do it. So it makes sense that people learning how to use PowerPoint will do better at it if they're being taught on a computer rather than being lectured to. But there are three mistakes you can make as an instructor that will seriously derail the lesson. … [Read more...] about The three worst PowerPoint training mistakes
Speed up your work with keyboard shortcuts
It doesn't take forever to click on the screen in PowerPoint to execute commands. But what if you didn't have to? How quickly you're able to navigate in PowerPoint can have a lot to do with how many keyboard shortcuts you know. Let's start with the basics: Basic PowerPoint keyboard … [Read more...] about Speed up your work with keyboard shortcuts
Simplicity is hard!
What's the toughest presentation in the world? A short, simple one. It’s easy to talk for a long time about things that interest you. The difficult thing is conveying important information in a limited amount of time. How is it done? You’ve got 5 minutes I’ve been working with a group of … [Read more...] about Simplicity is hard!