How to PowerPoint

Here are a series of tutorials that offer some nice techniques on creating picture frames in PowerPoint.

Picture Frame Example

Bruno De Pace of Evolve Training  & Consulting has a couple of good examples of picture frames created in PowerPoint.  You can see it by itself or on a desk in a scene.

Picture Frame in Action

View the PowerPoint picture frame.

Part of the Scene

View the picture frame tutorial.

Picture Frame Tutorial 1

Stephanie Harnett of ICE offers two cool tutorials on how to create some funky picture frames.  Check out her two tutorials.

Funky Frame 1

Click here to view the tutorial.

Funky Frame 2

Click here to view the tutorial.

Picture Frame Tutorial 2

I was watching Tracy Hamilton’s tutorial on nudging objects and it made me think about a few ways to create the picture frame look she desired.  So here’s my simple picture frame tutorial.

Click here to view the tutorial.

So there you have.  A whole series of tutorials on creating picture frames in PowerPoint.

I build elearning courses with PowerPoint and publish with Articulate Presenter.  This is typically called rapid elearning.  I write about it on my work blog, The Rapid E-Learning Blog.

Traditionally, elearning courses are built in Flash or other applications.  Because of this, when people hear that courses are built in PowerPoint they’ll immediately think that it’s boring bullet point slides.  And I can understand why because there’s so much of it out there.

To show you that PowerPoint is an effective tool for building elearning courses, I recreated a course that was originally built in Flash.  For my demo, I built all of the graphics and assembled it in PowerPoint alone.  Then I published it with Articulate Presenter.

Here’s a link to my version of the course, if you want to see how it works.

And here’s a tutorial that walks through the original and how the PowerPoint version works.

PowerPoint E-Learning Demonstration

Click here to view the demonstration.

I like to use PowerPoint for most of my basic graphic design work.  First, I don’t need to leave the application and open something else.  Second, PowerPoint’s a pretty decent program for some simple graphic design.

I needed to create a stack of papers for a project recently, so I built this quick tutorial to show you what I did.  As you can see, it’s pretty easy to do.

Once you have the graphics built, just right click and save them as image files.

PowerPoint Tutorial

Click here to view the PowerPoint tutorial.

The only way you’re going to improve your PowerPoint skills is through practice.  There’s really no substitute.  If you want to be a PowerPoint superstar, you’ve got to take it up a notch and create something that makes people go, “Wow!”

The only way you’ll become a superstar is by learning to really use PowerPoint.  Here are some tutorials featured on the Rapid E-Learning Blog recently that help you learn more about PowerPoint.

PowerPoint for Rapid E-Learning

• Create interactive animated scenarios.
• Create a click and zoom effect to view images.
• Create a pan & zoom effect for your elearning scenarios.
• Working with hyperlinks in PowerPoint-based elearning.
• Create interactive scenarios in PowerPoint.
• Snapshot focus effect.
• Animated text effect to highlight key words.
• Animated effect to introduce new scenes or information.
• Lighting effects from the award winning guru course.
• Create a lightbox effect.
• Re-use animations to save time in your course design.
• Continuous animation effect for elearning.
• Why it’s a good idea to create hyperlink shapes in PowerPoint elearning courses.
• Production tip: how to view in slide show and edit the slide at the same time.
• Hide and reveal background fill and an alternative example using Tagxedo.
• Create custom email links for your elearning course.

• Use PowerPoint as an image editor.
• Tips on manipulating images in PowerPoint.
• Use hidden slides as a working canvas.
• How to create custom drop shadows.
• Easily extend a photo’s background.
• Get more out of the free images you get from Microsoft Office.
• Get more mileage out of your PowerPoint clip art.
• Two tutorials on creating depth and perspective: tutorial 1 and tutorial 2…and a bonus tutorial while we’re at it.
• Create 3D perspective using the rotation feature.
• Simulate a pop-up light box effect.
• Create a faded image.
• Use gradients to control focus on the screen.
• Creating a faded background to frame your content.
• Removing backgrounds using shape fills.
• Make text stand out by filling it with an image.
• Masking and composition effect.
• Create a spotlight effect.
• Advertising effect for visual foreshadowing.
• Visual surprise and slicing image effects in PowerPoint.
• Add contrast to characters to make them stand out.
• How to remove the background in PowerPoint 2007.
• Remove background images using shapes and clipboard fills.
• Using fill effects to enhance free notebook template
• Graphic design tip using cropping and soft edges.
• Use gradient fills to create areas of focus.
• Use background fill effect to create see though image.
• Create an animated social media-inspired menu in PowerPoint
• Use the freehand drawing tool to trace images for custom clip art.
• Modify clip art to create custom characters for elearning.
• What to do if the ungroup clip art feature doesn’t work for you.
• Ungroup clip art and apply image filters.

• Create a TV monitor.
• Create a flat screen LCD panel.
• Create a TV style frame.
• Create an iPhone or iPad graphic.
• Create an iPhone scrolling effect in PowerPoint.
• Create the front and back of an iPad; and then build the interface one and two.
• Glassy marble effect in PowerPoint
• Create an envelope graphic.
• Building a briefcase in PowerPoint
• Easy photo corners to hold images.
• Make images look like they’re magazine cutouts.
• Create transparent tape objects.
• Polaroid page curl effect
• Page curl sticker images.
• Create a stack of paper.
• Create a push-pin graphic.
• Create a calendar graphic.
• Create index card graphics.
• Create a South Park style character.
• Create a magnifying glass.
• 3D spotlight effect to go with the magnifying glass.
• Use Wordle to create silhouette graphic fills. Wordle site
• Create a whiteboard graphic.
• Create a chalkboard graphic.
• Create a picture frame.  And then create funky picture frames and more funky picture frames.
• Create a torn image effect and an alternative approach.
• Customize clip art in PowerPoint.
• Tips while working with custom clip art.
• Simple way to create silhouette characters.
• Create advanced text graphic effect.
• Create folders to use in your elearning course.

• Three ways to animate in PowerPoint.
• How to create a pivot animation.
• Create re-usable animated hands for elearning.
• Zoom effect in PowerPoint.
• Grow and shrink for animation effects
• Animating a clip art character’s head.
• Create rolling screen credits.
• Create a game show spinner.
• Animated domino effect.
• Animate your custom clip art.
• Create an Etch-a-Sketch animation.
• Polishing animation to bring content into focus.
• Create an animated table one row at a time.
• Combine animations in PowerPoint with an alternative version.
• Animated hands applied to a folder theme design.

• How to move objects on a slide.
• How to quickly swap images in PowerPoint.
• Here’s the difference between PNG and EMF images.
• How to generate random text in PowerPoint.
• How to save as a PowerPoint template.
• How to reduce file size by saving slide as a PNG.
• Duplicate objects with CTRL + drag.
• Animate with motion paths.
• Basic animation tips.
• Working with the slide master.
• Create custom image and clip art collections.
• How to minimize the ribbon.
• How to use the format painter.
• Create a transparent background.
• Edit points in PowerPoint shapes.
• How to compress images in PowerPoint.
• How to use selection pane to manage layers in PowerPoint.
• How to embed fonts in PowerPoint.
• Use slide masters to apply universal image effects.
• Understanding accent colors in PowerPoint 2007+.
• How to use the slide background fill feature.
• Controlling layers with the selection pane in PowerPoint 2007.
• Add hyperlinks to PowerPoint slide masters.
• Customize the quick access toolbar in PowerPoint 2007+.
• How to fill shapes with images.
• Use the ruler to adjusting spacing on numbered text.
• Using masters to customize the screen layout.
• Tour of Microsoft Online and how to find images.

David Anderson offers some really good tips on how to get rid of your bullet points.  First he offers a two part series on get ridding of text and replacing it with the right visual elements.

Reduce Screen Clutter

Part 1: How to reduce text on my slide?

Click here to view the first tutorial.

Part 2: Replace text with graphics

Click here to view the second tutorial.

Use Progressive Reveals

By progressively revealing information you can sync your graphics and text with your narration.  Using timed animations also means you can get rid of that standard PowerPoint bullet point look.

Click here to view tutorial.

By following David’s ideas you can make your slides less text-heavy and more visually interesting.  You also dump that typical bullet point look that so many complain about.

Not sure I mentioned this or not, but I pulled some of the PowerPoint tutorials together that I’ve written for the Rapid E-Learning Blog.  Here’s a link to the resources.

You’ll find some tutorials and free templates.

• PowerPoint for E-Learning: PowerPoint-based posts
• Graphic Design Tips: I also have a bunch of posts on using PowerPoint for graphic design.  You’ll have to dig through them.

Unless you’re a typographer fonts aren’t usually that exciting.  But they’re everywhere and it’s important to understand how to use them on your slides in PowerPoint.

Since I don’t really like to bore people, I’ll leave the nerdy font lesson to my buddy, David Anderson.   So, here are a couple really useful font tutorials that will help you build more cohesive PowerPoint presentations and slides.

Use a Single Type Font Family

Click here to view the tutorial.

Alignment Tutorial

Just in case you’re not completely bored, here’s a great tutorial on aligning numbered decimals for consistent spacing.

Click here to view the tutorial.

Here’s a quick tutorial that I did for a friend who wanted to know how to customize clip art characters.

Basically steps

• Select the character
• Ungroup the clip art
• Customize it
• Select all and group to make a single image
• If you like, save the character as a distinct graphic file. EMF = keeps it vector so you can scale.  If you’re using gradient colors, you might want to save as a .PNG.

Clip Art PowerPoint Tutorial

Click here to view the tutorial.

In Hollywood, when they make movies that require special effects they’ll use the infamous blue screen (although many times it’s a green screen).  What they do is shoot the scene and then later replace the colored screen with a different image or video.

They choose a color screen that can easily be selected and replaced.  Today, you’ll learn to do something similar in PowerPoint. 

Let’s say you have a PowerPoint shape and you want to put a hole in it.  In the example below, we’re going to create a piece of paper that looks like a 3-ring binder page.  What we want to do is have the holes in the page be transparent.

• Create the piece of paper in PowerPoint using the rectangle tool.
• Then add three circles.
• Fill the circles with a lime green (or any other color).
• Get rid of the outline color.
• Select the object and cut it from the screen (or CTRL+X).  This places it on the clipboard.
• Select Paste Special and paste it as a .PNG file.  By pasting as a PNG file, you’ll maintain the image quality and retain any transparency.

• Select the Set Transparent Color feature and click on the green color.  That will make the green color transparent and you should end up with a see through hole.

That’s basically it.  The transparent tool in PowerPoint 2007 and lower can only work on one color, that’s why you want the fill to be solid and to be a color that is no where else in the image.  PowerPoint 2010 has a more sophisticated transparent tool feature.

Once you master this technique you’ll find all sorts of uses for it, like getting rid of backgrounds.  Here’s a tutorial that shows it in action.

PowerPoint Tutorial

Click here to view the PowerPoint tutorial.

Save to PDF

I already covered this in a little bit of detail in a previous post on
What You Need to Know About Image Types in PowerPoint.  But there’s no reason not to share this excellent tutorial by David Anderson. 

In the tutorial he covers how to save the assets you create and use in your PowerPoint slides.  One of the benefits of creating your graphics in PowerPoint is that you can easily share the development files.

He also discusses three image formats and how they work in the slides.

PowerPoint Tutorial

Click here to view the tutorial.