Four tips for a killer PowerPoint presentation

Pro Pyer | 3:25 AM | | 0 comments

INFOMATION
Have you ever been tempted to chew off a paw to escape a mind-numbing slide show? Bad design and flawed delivery may have been to blame. BNET’s Dave Johnson offers a few simple suggestions to help presenters avoid some of the worst pitfalls
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I hate PowerPoint presentations. Let me clarify; I don’t hate PowerPoint. I actually like the program quite a bit. But most of the PowerPoint presentations I am forced to sit through seem to combine all the world’s worst presentation habits into one unbearable hour of pain, sadness, and cheesy fonts. Here are four things I’ve learned from years of delivering PowerPoint presentations.

1. Choose a simple PowerPoint template and apply it consistently across your deck
Honestly, I’m not even sure how people manage to do this, but I routinely see presentations with a ransom note assortment of fonts, sizes, and styles on each slide. PowerPoint goes out of its way to make it easy to apply a consistent style; take advantage of it. In PowerPoint 2007, for example, click the Design tab and choose one of the themes. And keep it simple; make sure the text is readable against the background and that there isn’t a busy design competing with the text. Remember what Halle Berry told me once in a dream: Just because a theme exists, doesn’t mean you should use it.

2. Less is more
Don’t feel the need to pour your entire speech into your slides. As a rule of thumb, each slide should list three to five main points in bullet form. You’re in the room to expand on those nuggets verbally. The slides are there to enhance your overall presentation, not to replace you. If it takes more than a few seconds to process the text on any given slide, it’s too much: Your audience will spend its time reading instead of paying attention to you, and probably end up doing both of those things somewhat poorly.

3. Test your links
If you embed video or links to content on the Internet or a network share, for the love of Woden test it before you walk into a conference room and try presenting it to a dozen people. I can’t tell you how frequently I encounter folks who don’t know how to launch an external link from within their deck or who have linked to an obsolete version of the document they wanted to show. Do you homework.

4. Test your projection
Along the lines of testing the innards of your presentation, be sure you know how your laptop connects to the projector. As a rule of thumb, make sure the laptop is fully booted and then connect the VGA cable. If you’re on Vista, you should then choose Win+X to open the Windows Mobility Center and click Connect Display. (If you’re testing Windows 7, it’s even easier: Press Win+P to open the projection settings directly.)

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11 ways to avoid drawing layer headaches in Word

Pro Pyer | 2:19 AM | , | 0 comments

INFOMATION
Word offers some decent drawing tools, but they don’t always give you the results you expect. Someone unravels some of Word’s drawing layer mysteries.


Adding pictures and objects to a Word document can enhance your message. For instance, what’s a brochure or pamphlet without a few pictures? Word’s drawing tools aren’t as powerful as a desktop publishing package, but they’re adequate for many tasks. However, the drawing tools aren’t second nature to most users. Learning a few easy tricks will help you work more efficiently with Word’s drawing features.

1. Rethink the drawing layer

You must adjust the way you think about the drawing layer: The document and drawing layers are two separate layers.
Most documents are two-dimensional, like a flat sheet of paper — we call that the document layer. That’s fine as long as you’re just dealing with text. The drawing layer is an additional layer that floats above or below the document layer. Objects in the drawing layer don’t interact with the contents in the document layer because you can’t actually draw inside the document layer.
Imagine trying to insert a starburst to emphasize the high price of an early PC, as shown in Figure A. Unfortunately, you can’t do it. Word adds the starburst to the drawing layer, which floats on top of the document layer by default. To make matters worse, the picture can even disappear. Choose Normal from the View menu, and you can’t even see the starburst. Word’s drawing layer isn’t visible in Normal view, so you might forget it’s even there.
Figure A


The drawing layer floats above or below the document layer.

2. Pictures aren’t always equal

You can’t draw in the document layer. However, you can insert a picture into the document layer using the Insert menu. When you do, Word treats the picture like another big text character. In other words, the picture is in-line with the text and other content. That means that Word will push the picture around as if it were text. If you select a line or paragraph that contains a picture, you also select the picture. While this can be convenient, it’s also limiting. For instance, you can’t drag the picture to a new position or change its orientation.
Inside the drawing layer, however, Word treats a picture like any other object in the drawing layer. That means you can do more with the picture, such as changing its orientation and dragging to a new location.
More often than not, you’ll want pictures in the drawing layer. Getting a picture into the drawing layer takes a little work. First, you insert the picture as you normally would:
  1. Position the cursor approximately where you want the picture to be. (You can easily move pictures in the drawing layer, so don’t obsess over placement.)
  2. Choose Picture from the Insert menu and the choose From File (or Clip Art).
  3. Locate the picture (or clip art) and click Insert.
At this point, the picture (this is actually a piece of clip art) is in-line, as shown in Figure B.
Figure B


By default, pictures start out in the document layer.

To move a picture from the document layer to the drawing layer, do the following:
  1. Right-click the picture.
  2. Choose Format Picture.
  3. Click Layout.
  4. Choose a wrapping style.
  5. Click OK.
As you can see in Figure C, the drawing layer is a more flexible environment for pictures and clip art. A short tug at the picture’s rotation handle (the small green dot above the picture) adds a bit of playfulness to the picture. You can’t do this with an in-line picture.

Figure C


Move pictures to the drawing layer.

3. Change the layer default

By default, Word inserts all pictures in-line with text. If you want all of your pictures in the drawing layer, change Word’s default insertion method, as follows:
  1. From the Tools menu, choose Options.
  2. Click the Edit tab.
  3. Choose one of the many options from the Insert/Paste Pictures As control, as shown in Figure D. Select the wrapping style you’ll use most often.
  4. Click OK.
Figure D

Choosing a wrapping style from these options will force new pictures into the drawing layer.

After changing this setting, Word will insert all pictures into the drawing layer instead of in-line with text.

4. Display anchors

The drawing layer anchors a picture to a paragraph. That way, the picture moves with its corresponding text. Now, that might work great, but it can also be a real nuisance. Knowing a picture is anchored to a paragraph before you move the paragraph can prevent a lot of confusion. Although it seems odd, Word doesn’t display anchors by default, so change that setting if you plan to work with pictures. To see anchors while you work, do the following:
  1. Choose Options from the Tools menu.
  2. Click the View menu.
  3. Check the Object Anchors option in the Print And Web Layout Options section.
Figure E shows a small anchor in the left margin of the first paragraph. That anchor is the visual clue you need to determine that the picture in that paragraph is also anchored to that paragraph.
Figure E

Display anchors to avoid annoying mistakes when moving text that contains pictures.

5. Control anchors

When you add a picture to the drawing layer, Word anchors the picture to the text nearest the picture — you can’t really control Word’s initial choice. However, you can change the anchor. Simply drag the anchor to another paragraph.
Once you have the anchor where you want it, it’s a good idea to lock it in place as follows:
  1. Right-click the picture.
  2. Choose Format Picture.
  3. Click the Layout tab.
  4. Click the Advanced button.
  5. Select the Lock Anchor option in the Options section.
  6. Click OK.
If you want the picture locked to a position on the page, rather than anchored to text, do the following:
  1. Right-click the picture.
  2. Choose Format Picture.
  3. Click the Layout tab.
  4. Click the Advanced button.
  5. Select the Picture Position tab.
  6. Select Absolute Position in the Horizontal section and choose Page from the To The Right Of control.
  7. Select Absolute Position in the Vertical section and choose Page from the Below control.
  8. Click OK twice.
This basically defines an offset for the picture from the right and top edges of the page.
There may be times when you don’t want a picture to be anchored. In that case, do the following:
  1. Right-click the picture.
  2. Choose Format Picture.
  3. Click the Layout tab.
  4. Click the Advanced button (bottom right).
  5. Click the Picture Position tab.
  6. Deselect the Move Object With Text check box in the Options section.
  7. Click OK twice.
6. Revert to in-line with text

Sometimes, in-line with text really is the best format for a picture. If the picture’s in the drawing layer, you can quickly return it to in-line with text as follows:
  1. Right-click the picture.
  2. Choose Format Picture.
  3. Click the Layout tab.
  4. Select In Line With Text.
  5. Click OK.
7. Understand text wrapping styles

Once a picture is in the drawing layer, you have several options for determining how text in the document layer wraps around a picture. Explanations for those options follow:
  • In Line With Text: Word positions the picture in line with the text. The picture flows with the text; text doesn’t wrap around the picture.
  • Square: Text wraps around the picture in a rectangle.
  • Tight: Word uses wrapping points to determine the amount of space between the text and the picture.
  • Behind Text: Word displays the picture behind the text; text doesn’t wrap.
  • In Front Of Text: Word displays the picture in front of the text; text doesn’t wrap.
(The Advanced settings also offer a Through option, but good luck getting it to work.)

8. Override the snap-to grid feature

When you move a picture in the drawing layer, Word micromanages things a bit. There’s an invisible grid that Word uses to snap pictures into place. It’s a way of lining things up, which you might not need or want. It can be frustrating if you want to move a picture just a tad one way or the other because the grid won’t let you.
To override the snap-to grid feature, hold down the [Alt] key while you move the picture. This will allow you to move a picture just a hair, something the snap-to-grid feature won’t let you do. Using just the keyboard, you can hold down the [Ctrl] key and press the arrow keys.

9. Text in the drawing layer isn’t really text

It’s okay to add text via a text box or some other drawing object. In fact, sometimes it’s exactly the right technique for the job. However, keep in mind that Word doesn’t treat text in the drawing layer the same way it treats text in the document layer. Specifically, Word won’t consider text in the drawing layer when generating a table of contents, table of figures, or any other reference table. It simply isn’t text to Word; text in the drawing layer is a drawing object.

10. Change AutoShape defaults

Word’s Drawing toolbar offers a number of drawing objects, such as lines, arrows, rectangles, ovals, text boxes, and AutoShapes. All of these objects come with default attributes. Their initial size, color, and so on, are all determined by these defaults. Usually, you’ll change one or more default attributes. Maybe you’ll change an arrow’s begin style or make the arrowhead larger. Perhaps you’ll turn a solid line into a line of dashes. There are many possibilities.
The thing to remember is this: If most of your objects share the same attribute, you can change the object’s defaults. That way, you won’t have to change the attribute for each new object. Create the first object and when it’s just the way you want it, change the object’s defaults as follows:
  1. Right-click the object.
  2. Choose Set AutoShape Defaults.
That’s all there is to it — two clicks will save you a lot of formatting time. Bear in mind a couple of things here: First, your default settings will apply only to the current document. And second, setting defaults for one type of object - a text box, for example - will set the same defaults for all the other types of objects.

11. Turn off the drawing canvas

The drawing canvas escapes definition — it’s like a piece of drawing layer with attitude. It’s difficult to work with, obscures the view of your document, and serves almost no purpose, perhaps other than to annoy you.
If you try to add drawing objects to a document and the drawing canvas pops up, as shown in Figure F, you can disable it. First, cancel what you’re doing. Then, turn off the drawing canvas and try again. (By default, the canvas is turned off — thank goodness — but if it shows up, you’ll know how to deal with it.
Figure F


Disable the drawing canvas.

To turn off the drawing canvas, do the following:
  1. From the Tools menu, choose Options.
  2. Click the General tab.
  3. Uncheck Automatically Create Drawing Canvas When Inserting AutoShapes in the General Options section.
  4. Click OK.
You can still use the drawing tools without the drawing canvas.

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