This little commercial was developed using PowerPoint 2007 only.

Click the image on the below to view the flash for this movie. The flash plugin is required to view this movie. This flash is 5.47mb, so it may load slowly if you are on a slow connection.  If it streams poorly the first time it is played, click “replay.”  It should run more smoothly the second time.

A commercial like this can be developed and put into your bag of tricks, to be brought out when the occasion arises.  There are a number of instances that might call for a company commercial.

1. It can be used as the first or last slide in a marketing or fund-raising presentation.
2. Many types of gatherings will frequently splice together a group of slides provided by participants or presenters to create a loop that will run passively in the background.
   
3. A commercial slide like this can be used in pre- and postpresentation loops.
4. Since the content is developed completely in PowerPoint 2007, they are an inexpensive way to create content for your website.  It’s fairly easy with programs like Camtasia to record a slide show like this and have your programmer post it to your website.

Are these commercials difficult to develop?

This was developed by a “nondesigner” who understands PowerPoint animation capabilities and is fairly good at laying content out on a slide.  The message should be brief, the photographs should be positive and create anticipation, and the color and moving parts should be interesting and in sync.

This type of commercial is not easily broken down into development steps; and due to the nature of this feature article, there is no downloadable PDF this month.  But we’ve included a download of this commercial (without the photographs) so you are able to review the graphic elements and the animation scheme that were used to create the effects.  The commercial lasts about 17 seconds, but notice that all of the animation is formatted to “start with previous.”  The appearance and movement for each element is established by staggered delay times.  This animation download is pre-PowerPoint 2007, so everyone will be able to see how it was built.  The reason PowerPoint 2007 was used to develop the commercial shown in the flash above was because of its photograph formatting capabilities.  The animation capabilities are the same, however, in both PowerPoint application versions.

Click here to download a PowerPoint 2003 version (55kb).

Every so often it is appropriate to introduce members of a team, faculty, winners of awards, etc., in presentations. So you contact those people and ask them to send photographs of themselves to you.

Each photograph is generally just fine if used individually, but all of them together as a grouping are a little bit of a nightmare. Some serious scaling and cropping needs to happen.

Creating consistent and complementary
headshots in PowerPoint

There are a few steps that can be taken to wrangle photographs into a “set.”

1. Scale all the photographs so that the subjects’ heads are roughly the same size
2. Crop all the photographs so that they are exactly the same size
3. Adjust brightness/contrast so that the color values are the same for all photographs
4. If one is grayscale, make them all grayscale
5. Create a presentation design device to “bind”

Scale all Photographs

Scale each photograph (hold shift key down as you resize) so that the heads and shoulders of each of the subjects are roughly the same size. Don’t worry that the photographs themselves are wildly different sizes at this point. Just get the heads so they look the like a set. If a very large man and a small child are in the set, make allowances for these differences and make the child’s head smaller than the man’s head.

Crop all Photographs

Draw a rectangle (or other shape) that will be the size of each of the photographs. Usually you go to the most restrictive photograph – the one that can be sized and cropped the least – and draw your shape so that this photograph can fit it nicely. Then use this drawn rectangle to guide your cropping. Overlay the rectangle onto each photograph and crop the edges of the photograph so that they match the edges of the drawn rectangle. When this is done, your photographs should all be cropped and sized consistently.

Adjust Brightness and Contrast

Sometimes photographs come in darker or lighter than you’d like. PowerPoint has a feature that can lighten or darken a photograph and also create more or less contrast. Make these adjustments so that the photographs appear to be as consistently colored as possible.

Select a Mode

There are two considerations when selecting a mode.

1. What is the mode of the other photographs in the presentation? If all of the photographs in the presentation are a tinted grayscale, then the photos on the introductory slide should be a tinted grayscale (PowerPoint 2007 users only). If they are all color, then the photos on the introductory slide should also be color.
2. If all of the photographs are received in color except one (which comes in as grayscale), you should probably opt to make all of the photographs grayscale. Remember, you’re trying to create a unified set of photographs.

Create a Design Device

Use a design device that appears in your presentation to “bind” the photographs together as a set and also bind it to the rest of the presentation. If you don’t have a design device, create a simple one.

This simple design device unifies the set of photographs. You can leave space for names, titles, and companies if you wish. You can also use animation to highlight each person as you introduce them.

Additional Formatting Possibilities

When you start with decent quality photos, the tools within PowerPoint should be up to the task of formatting your photographs to a consistent look. If, however, you are proficient at using Photoshop or other image-editing software, you can make even more formatting changes/additions that will bind the photographs together as a set.

• Knock out the background for a “free-floating” effect
• Replace the background with something consistent between all photos
• Smooth out rough spots in the photograph
• Extra adjustment tools for finer adjustments to contrast, hue, saturation, color balance, and other aspects of your images
• Cloning tools for replacing unwanted portions of a photograph with more desirable areas of the photograph

When you are finished with these additional steps, the photograph should be enhanced but not appear to be altered.

* * *

It is important to correctly develop these types of slides. Slapping a bunch of photographs on a page without trying to unify them may send a message that is counter to what you’re trying to convey. A team is usually balanced and deliberately assembled. Approach the development of a team introductory slide in the same manner. The underlying visual message will be consistent with what you’re verbally communicating.

Don’t miss opportunities to format the arrows you use to connect two objects.  Simple arrows are typically used to flow one object to the next, but there are alternatives.

In the example to the right, you see that the flow suggests a screening or process of elimination.  The top group of many flows into a group of fewer.  Using an arrow that has subarrows can convey a stronger many-to-few flow message.

If you want to add a little design pizazz, the arrow from the second group to the third group is an arrow formatted with a gradient under a chevron formatted with a gradient.  The effect is nice.

The single arrow with a gradient is most commonly seen; but, with a little gradient formatting, it looks better.  The hard edge at the beginning of the arrow shaft has been eliminated.  As a result, the two objects look more connected than if an arrow with hard start and point edges is used.

Think of ways to format your flow arrows.  They usually get the least amount of attention on a slide, but can add to the message and aesthetic appeal of the slide if they are formatted with purpose.

Formatting and balancing with tables can be time consuming if you don’t have a set of steps to guide you through the process. This Flash tutorial will provide those steps.  We’ll show you how to make an unformatted text table presentation ready in just a couple of minutes.

In order to have content-style killers, there needs to be a content style.  Companies frequently spend considerable time and money designing presentation title and content pages - the template backgrounds.  A lot of thought is put into the look, feel, and branding aspects of the backgrounds; and the results are many times very pleasing and effective.  This is only the first step of setting a presentation style.  Roughly the same amount time that was spent designing the background needs to be spent developing style preferences for the content.  The content should blend with and compliment template backgrounds.  For example, if the background is free flowing and organic, the contents should work with that style - limited sharp edges, semitransparent elements so that the flow is visible through the objects, etc.  If the background is geometric or architectural, the contents should complement that style … and so on.   Making content-style choices that allow for this type of blending will produce a higher-quality presentation.  A plan!

Content style plan

What are the considerations and decisions that need to be made in order to develop a content style?  A starting-point list of content-style choices include:

• A color scheme. It is surprising how frequently companies’ templates do not have a set color scheme other than the standard Microsoft PowerPoint default scheme. Thoughtless use of color is the no. 1 content style killer.
• An established preference about how the colors are applied. For example, the arrows used in a presentation that take the audience from one part of the slide to another should all be consistently formatted. Tables should all be formatted the same, using the same heading colors, divider line colors, etc. Data-driven charts should pull their colors from the color palette in a prescribed manner: maybe you want to designate a color in the palette to always represent a certain product or activity, etc.
• 3D or no 3D in data-driven charts and elsewhere in the document. If you use 3D, is it the 3D box-like 3D in pre-PowerPoint 2007 or is it the PowerPoint 2007 element design presets and options that give volume to objects and lift them off the slide through the use of drop shadows? Use whatever blends best with template background and then use them consistently. Note: by the way, PowerFrameworks does not advocate the use of 3D in data-driven charts. Graphics choices - clipart vs. photographs and conceptual graphics styles. Decisions need to be made regarding the types of visual support that are used in a presentation. Are photographs preferred? Is clipart preferred? Are chevrons preferred over arrows in conceptual flows? Within those preferences are still more choices. What styles of clipart are allowed? Is it okay to mix the styles? These issues need decisions.

The number of preferences that should be established in these four starting-point areas can be few or many, depending on how many people in your organization create presentations.  Large companies tend to set more style preferences so that all presentations appear to come from “the company” instead of individuals within the company.  Smaller companies tend to let the presentation developers/presenters set the style.  This is not always a good tactic.

Content-style killers

Presentation-development practices can sometimes kill the style of a presentation.  The following situations frequently occur as presentations are being developed.

• Embedded color schemes are not in sync with the template background. Create a color scheme for your template. Color schemes should include a mix of bold and light colors. They should, of course, match or blend with your template’s background. If you don’t know how to develop a color scheme, get some help. Graphic designers can easily develop a palette of colors for you, especially if you used the designer to create the backgrounds. It shouldn’t cost very much. If you choose to do this yourself without the help of a designer, there are a few tools you can use to make the job easier.If you are using pre-PowerPoint 2007, you can use ColorPicker by pptXtreme, http://www.pptxtreme.com/colorpicker.asp. This add-in will help you match colors in your background perfectly.  You can also visit the Adobe Kuler site, http://kuler.adobe.com/.  This site contains a lot of very nice color schemes that can be used, but also has the capability of helping you design a custom scheme.If you are using PowerPoint 2007, there is a design feature that may be all you need.  You still may want to use Adobe Kuler, however, if you want something that is not “canned.”  We recommend a totally custom color scheme if at all possible.
• Content imported from other presentations or sources. Not only does this content have a different color scheme, but it almost always contains different formatting and style choices than your content.  Do not use screen shots of charts, tables, or other graphic representations.  Recreate the material within your template using your style choices.  Do not cut corners or save time by using content like this in its original form.  Also, be sure to source this type of content, giving credit where credit is due.  The only time it is permissible to use a screenshot is when you are showing a website page, proprietary software pages, or objects that cannot be recreated.
• Excel charts imported into the presentation. Excel worksheets and charts are tremendous tools for modeling, developing supporting data, and manipulating and parsing data to deliver precise messages.  Pre-PowerPoint 2007 versions do not have the luxury of working with Excel as a native program within PowerPoint.  It is, therefore, difficult to format Excel charts to match the other data-driven charts that were developed in Microsoft Graph.  Everyone knows that there are a lot of reasons to import an Excel chart:  number changes, data is trackable back to the worksheet at later dates, etc.  There is one very large reason not to use imported Excel charts in presentations, however: they kill the style.  Your audience does not make allowances for the good reasons you have imported the Excel chart, they only see that the presentation is disjointed and out of sync.  Either recreate the chart in Microsoft Graph so that it blends with the other presentation content or (and this is not the best choice) copy the imported Excel chart and place it out of sight off the slide (in the gray area).  Then ungroup the Excel chart and format the fields so that they match the rest of your content.  Your presentation style is preserved.You’ll be happy to know that PowerPoint 2007 uses Excel as the charting program - no more Microsoft Graph.  Excel used in PowerPoint 2007 has access to all of the formatting options and color choices within your presentation template.  Formatting data-driven charts is much faster and easier.  This alone is a good reason to upgrade.
• Graphics that are either poor choices or that are formatted badly. Everyone agrees that a highly visual presentation is more engaging and encourages message retention. But using graphics poorly or inconsistently is almost worse than not using them at all.
  • The biggest transgression is using poor-quality clipart and mixing clipart styles.  Don’t do this.  If you use clip art (for icons, as illustrations of concepts, etc.), make sure that the style of the clipart matches the style of your template.  Don’t use screen beans in your otherwise very formal and tailored template.  The two styles will not blend.  Be discriminating  cwhen selecting clipart.
  • Photographs can have styles as well.  Be sure you select similarly shot photographs and format photographs consistently.  For example, are you using frames, grayscale or color tinting, or other photograph formatting treatments?  Use them consistently.
  • Conceptual graphics have styles, particularly flows.  Do you use arrows or chevrons in your flow graphics?  Choose one and try to use that style consistently.  Do you use gradient fills, outline colors, patterns?  Use them consistently.

These observations and suggestions should give you a starting point for developing your presentation style.  They are not an exhaustive list of what needs to be done, but they will hopefully raise your sensitivities to the issues that need to be addressed.  The time spent working out the style preferences will pay off over the long term.  Don’t cut corners here.

This slide was developed in PowerPoint 2007 and here are the steps:

1. Find a photograph for the background (the produce in this case)
2. Find a photograph or graphic of your switch-out object (the bottle in this case)
3. Outline the switch-out object in the photograph or graphic with the polygon tool – be as precise as possible. The pink line in the graphic below is the outline drawn with the polygon tool. The black squares are the anchor points created by clicking while drawing the outline polygon. Double click when you want to end the polygon. You can edit the anchor points by right clicking on the outline and selecting Edit Points. Then move/nudge points to fine tune the outline.
   
4. Make a copy of the switch-out object outline (the bottle in this case) and set it aside. Fill the switch-out object outline that you just created with white, remove the line color, and apply an interior shadow. The interior shadow tool is in the Shape Effects menu. You have just created the negative-space bottle knockout.
   
5. Knock out the background in the switch-out object photograph. If you need to use option 2 below to develop the free-standing object (bottle in this case), you can use the copy of the outline that you just created and set aside in step 4.
   

   There is a FAQ devoted to the process described in Option 2 above. You can click here to review it if you wish.

6. Apply a drop shadow to the background photograph (the produce in this case) and match the interior shadow in the negative-space bottle knockout (step 4) with the drop shadow for the background photograph. Right-click on the negative-space bottle knockout and select Format Shape, Shadow in the left-hand list. Then make adjustments to transparency, blur, angle, and distance so that the interior shadow matches the background photograph’s drop shadow.
7. Size the vitamin bottle you just created with the negative-space knockout (illustrated in step 4). Align and order the layering of these two objects and then apply animation. The animation scheme can vary depending on your message.

The illusion is then complete. There is no download for this Chart of the Month due to photograph copyright restrictions.

Thank you to Ute Simon, Microsoft PowerPoint MVP, for the tip on interior shadows, which was used to create the bottle in this Chart of the Month switch-out concept.

This graphic will get their attention, and they won’t believe you created it in PowerPoint! It’s suitable to be a theme graphic that recurs in your presentation.

The photos have been sized and imported into the circle slices and then tinted. Everything can be accomplished in PowerPoint 2003 except the tinting, unless you format the photos to grayscale and then overlay colored semitransparent fields (see blog entry that discusses this technique).

Adding WordArt around a circle like this is a good choice. Create your WordArt and then resize the WordArt so that it is perfectly round, e.g., 3″ high by 3″ wide. Then rescale (hold shift key down as you resize) so that the WordArt “frames” the circle of photo segments. The circular WordArt can be animated to spin slowly.

This is actually a fun graphic to produce – highly imaginative as you select the photographs to place in the segments. The segments within the circle can also be animated to switch out with other photos, creating a dynamic graphic with a broad visual message.

How much time should be spent proofing a presentation? There is no short answer. There is only a basic set of guidelines to help direct the proofing for each production development process.

Presentations should be developed so that the messages are from “one voice.” The one voice is not only the presenter standing in front of the audience, but it is the on-screen text and graphics that support the presenter. The one voice is also the company’s voice, not the team’s or individual’s voice who developed the presentation. Proofing is the insurance policy that all your presentations have “one voice.” Proofing is also the insurance policy that the presentation is error free, because the presenter’s credibility is directly connected to the quality of the material being seen on screen.

First and foremost, the content needs to be accurate. Every effort should be made to ensure that the ideas, data, quotes, references, interpretations, and concepts are researched until a fairly high level of comfort can be reached that the message is without flaws. Proofing content happens in a few different ways.

• Data in charts and tables. Just because the spreadsheet is solid before it is input into the table or chart doesn’t mean that it will be solid after if it is input. Proof all tables and charts against the input-ready materials to be sure that the translation has been accurate. Also proof to make sure that the units are identified and the data is sourced and dated. Additionally, you’ll want to perform specific types of proofing for charts and tables.
  • Proofing charts. Proof for numerical rounding issues. Be sure that the values for the bar, column, and pie segments actually sum to the total amount provided. Be sure that the labels are correctly applied to the data sets. Use colors consistently and as a tool in data-driven charts: assign colors to recurring segments so that a theme is established.
  • Proofing tables. Make sure the data labeling is correct and the vertical and horizontal alignments are accurate. Incorporate any color schemes in charts into the data presented in tables.
• The trickle effect of data. Numerical statistical data that trickles through a presentation needs to be proofed for accuracy. Making sure that the data is solid is sometimes more difficult than you would imagine. Research, calculations recalculations, and modeling impact numerical statistical data.

  Many times calculations are being made and remade at the same time the presentation is being developed. This means that old data needs to backed out and replaced with the new data. Proofing for these types of errors omissions oversights is critical and sometimes difficult. Numbers that might be easily trackable on a chart may not be that easy to recognize in the text interpretation that accompanies the chart. Make sure that someone on the team is dedicated to proof for these issues.

• Names of people and names of companies. Whenever individuals or companies are named in a presentation, be sure to honor them with an accurate spelling. Check individuals’ names and companies’ names in case studies being cited, sources, quotes, lists of individuals or companies, etc. You can be sure that there will be someone in the audience that knows the correct spelling. Sloppiness in this area detracts from the credibility that you’re trying to establish.
• Errors of omission. Proofing doesn’t only happen at the end of the presentation-development process. Errors of omission happen early on and usually when one person is inputting the writings of another. It can also happen during a cut-and-paste editing session, however. Proofing to catch these errors is important. Caught too late can sometimes impact a deadline. It’s time-consuming to go back and find the original or early drafts of a presentation for the omitted text. The best way to catch errors of omission is double proofing, although it seems to be a lost art these days. Double proofing is two people sitting down with production style sheets, style-authority references, the original first-draft hand-drawn or faxed presentation. One person reads to the other; and the corrections and marked, possible edits are discussed, and questions posed for the team to answer clarify. Many initial drafts are composed on a computer, so it is assumed that double proofing is unnecessary. It is still useful and necessary in the correct circumstances.

There is a well-respected principle of making one point per slide. This principle is important because it prevents slides from becoming overly ambitious and cluttered. With every principle come exceptions. Sometimes it is important to present a complicated concept in a broad stroke and then break it down into smaller, more explainable and digestible parts. We’re going to look at a couple of techniques for creating and presenting a complex concept on a single slide:

• Semitransparent overlays
• Animated reveals.

Semitransparent overlays are not widely used, which is a shame. They are such a great way to build a complex concept without obscuring the previously presented part of the slide. These slides use semitransparent overlays to convey three concepts:

1. There will be a global rollout
2. What needs to happen before a global rollout can take place
3. The geographical order for the phased global rollout.

This slide does not get into the specifics. Those will be presented in subsequent slides. This slide just provides the overview.

First layer of information

This is the beginning view. You can use a photograph of earth or other symbol you like better to represent the world. The symbol will have overlays, so choose something that does not have a great deal of detail.

A clipart globe is used here.

Second layer of information

The next stage of information explains what needs to be in place in order to begin rolling out the global offering. A round puzzle cut into four pieces is used to overlay the globe. Each piece of the puzzle can be added individually with a click so that the presenter can offer information about each piece.

The puzzle can be found in series sg003 in the PowerFrameworks library.

Third layer of information

The last stage of information is another overlay in the form of a target. The order of the phased rollout is revealed by clicks, starting with North America (the center) and radiating out. This is the finished slide. All of the layers are visible, so the audience still has access to all of the information presented.

The concentric circles can be found in series sg034 (”halos”) in the PowerFrameworks.

When you need to present a complex issue, remember this concept and see if it will do the job. Have fun putting this concept to work in your presentations.

Making visual connections between objects is an important presentation concept. The use of color is always a good way to make connections between objects. The examples below use color to illustrate a connection between one of the segments in the stacked column and the pie chart. Beyond color, the usual method of connecting two objects is an arrow. In many instances arrows work well, especially when there is a flow involved from one object to the other. But when a simple connection needs to be made, an arrow may imply a flow that does not exist. In these situations consider, instead, using one of the three techniques below.

1. Connections between two objects that are aligned can be made by using a shape from the Basic Shapes menu. Notice that the pie chart has been centered horizontally on the segment to which it is going to be connected, making it easy to connect using the shape on top of the chart below. This shape is the third shape on the top row of the Basic Shapes menu, and it has been rotated 90 degrees to the right. Then the right-hand side of the graphic was sized to match the pie chart height. See the little yellow handle on the left-hand side of the graphic? This handle can be moved up and down, allowing for perfect sizing to the column segment on the left. These connectors work well when they are semitransparent and/or have a gradient. If you want to use a gradient, apply the gradient before you flip the graphic on its side, otherwise the direction of the gradient will be off.
   
2. The example below shows a connection between two objects that are not perfectly aligned. This connection is drawn using the polygon tool - (a) start at the top right corner of the stacked column segment and draw a line to the top of the pie, (b) draw down to the bottom of the pie, and then end at the lower right corner of the stacked column segment. Apply a color, gradient, and or transparency and send the graphic to the back.
   
3. The example below shows an expanded connection between two objects. Instead of just connecting the stacked column segment and the pie, this connection includes all of the pie’s associated text. This is a good method of you want to the connection to include descriptors or explanations.