A tutorial on how to create compelling presentations using (and not abusing) PowerPoint 2008 for Mac. We covered these topics:
- Changing a Presentation Look (working with master slides)
- Slide Animation
- Adding Sounds and Movies to a Slide
- Printing Presentations, Notes, and Handouts
- PowerPoint Best Practices
Question 1) I've had trouble making presentations work that I've created on a Mac and then transferred to a PC.
Answer: To address the question about music and video working when presentations are shared between Mac & PC users, the file formats that are compatible with Mac (m4a, like we use in the video, for example) won't be compatible with PCs (and vice versa). You can use http://mediaconverter.org to get video or music into the correct file format for the type of operating system you're using. Here is a very quick tutorial on getting a YouTube video into the right format for Mac and saving it to your computer using http://mediaconverter.org.
Question 2) If I create a custom them and want everyone in my organization to have access to it, how can I share it?
After a bit of investigation, it looks like there isn't an easier way to share organizational custom themes than to email it out and to ask staff to save it to their PowerPoint application. In fact, it may be best to customize a theme that is already available in PowerPoint because of the funky way PowerPoint deals with new themes/colors, etc.
Here's a YouTube video URL that we embedded in our presentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXwB9FlkNXA
Click here to see Lawrence Lessig in action, a well-known great presenter who really knows how to use PowerPoint.
Check out Guy Kawasaki's blog post about the 10/20/30 rule.
And here's one more resource to help you avoid 5 common mistakes of PowerPoint presentations.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Sample Presentation.pptx | 118.19 KB |