Presentation Software Blog

You have been making presentations for months now and your boss has confidence in your skills at using PowerPoint. He just wants to have a heads up about the content of your presentation. Rather than email him the whole PowerPoint presentation, why not just convert it to a Word document? He will get a handout of the content -- you can even choose to include thumbnails of the slides and your speaker notes.

This method of converting your PowerPoint presentation to a Word document is, in my opinion, a quicker way to create printed handouts for the audience, when your presentation is complete. For those who like a quick video on this, see video on how to Convert PowerPoint Presentations to Word Documents.

More on Working with PowerPoint and Word
• Convert PowerPoint 2010 to Word
• Text Only Version - Convert PowerPoint to Word
• Convert Word to PowerPoint

The first slide loads and then the music is supposed to play. But ... no sound is heard until the fourth or fifth slide? Why? The audio file was inserted on the first slide and all the settings seemed to be set correctly.

On closer investigation, there are some other factors that might be at play here. Read more about Why the Music Won't Start to Play on First PowerPoint Slide.

More on PowerPoint Sound
• Sound or Music Problems in PowerPoint 2010
• Record Narration on a PowerPoint Slide
• Custom Timing and Effects for Animations
• Use PowerPoint Triggers to Start a Sound File

YouTube videos are easy to add to your PowerPoint presentations. You may link to live YouTube videos on the web or download and embed YouTube videos right in your PowerPoint presentations.

• Tips About YouTube Videos and PowerPoint
• Problems Embedding YouTube Videos into PowerPoint

_{Image courtesy YouTube}

Many professionals have made some of the most dreadful presentations -- for a variety of reasons -- which can range from the person who mumbles, to the one who talks too fast, to the one who just wasn't prepared. But perhaps nothing is as irritating as the person who misuses and abuses presentation software.

So, don't be the presenter that everyone wants to avoid. See if you are guilty of any of the 10 Most Common Presentation Mistakes.

More on Making Effective Presentations - or Not
• The 4 Parts of a Successful Presentation
• 10 DOs and DON'Ts for Technical Presentations
• How to Lose an Audience in 10 Easy Ways
• Presentation Checklist

First we started with five tips to get the most out of your presentations. Then we added five more tips and now here are yet another five tips to make your presentation life easier. Check these out.

• The First 5 Presentation Tips
• 5 More Presentation Tips
• Still Another 5 More Presentation Tips

At times during a presentation, you may wish to pause your slide show to quickly visit another screen -- perhaps another program or simply a live webpage -- to illustrate your point. This is when it is handy to know a few common shortcut keys. If you have never used the Alt key before, you now will have a reason to.

Read more on how to quickly Switch Programs During a Presentation.

More Presenter Tips
• How to Be a Better Presenter
• Presentation Checklist
• The 10 Most Common Presentation Mistakes

If only ... undoing mistakes in everyday life was as easy as using the PowerPoint "Undo" command. The Undo command will soon become your new best friend. If only ... other commands were so resourceful.

The Undo command in PowerPoint gives you peace of mind because it allows you to correct your most recent mistakes. The default setting keeps the last twenty actions in memory for your corrections if necessary. These options are available to you:

• undo the most recent error(s)
• undo an error several steps back
• change the default number of undos allowed

Read more on Using PowerPoint 2010 Undo Command

More PowerPoint Tips
• Create Invisible Hyperlinks to Webpages
• Extract Sound Files from PowerPoint Shows
• Change Transition Timings on PowerPoint 2010 Slides

While attending a wedding recently, I was fascinated watching the photographer get the group into all sorts of settings for wonderful results. Really, what would a wedding (or other big event for that matter) be without photography?

Whether you are getting great shots of the wedding of your niece, the beautiful gardens around or the kids at play, you end up with lots of digital pictures. So how can you organize them?

PowerPoint has a wonderful feature that makes it a snap (I couldn't resist) to create a digital photo album in no time. There is no limit to the number of photos you can add to your album or the number of albums you can create. (Just a hint though -- try to reduce the file size of your photos before adding them to your photo album).

• Digital Photo Albums in PowerPoint 2010


• Digital Photo Albums in PowerPoint 2007


• Digital Photo Albums in PowerPoint 2003

A Question from a Reader:
"I am designing a template for a very large group of people. The point is to standardize the presentation to all look alike (same fonts, bullets, lists, etc.). Is it possible to have ONE placeholder that contains the correct format for plain text; bullets: font, size, color and icon; and a numbered list style: font, size, color, icon."

The quick answer is "yes". Read more on how to Customize a PowerPoint Placeholder.

More PowerPoint Quick Tips
• Create a Default Presentation Template
• PowerPoint Presentations as PDF Files
• Install Different Versions of PowerPoint on the Same Computer

It's becoming easier and easier to use a video camera and then download the video clips to your computer to save as a movie. You can import these movie clips into Windows Movie Maker, add transitions and effects and voila! An instant movie. But ... what if you really want to fine tune the video you captured from your camera, by editing out some of the parts you recorded? Well, all you have to do is quickly edit these video clips in Windows Movie Maker.

More on Windows Movie Maker
• Import Still Pictures into Movie Maker
• Add Music and Sounds in Movie Maker
• Narrate Movies in Windows Movie Maker