PowerPoint Tips Blog

Helping you with presenting, PowerPoint, and speaking

New SmartArt layouts, including numbered lists and Meet the Team options

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SmartArt has been around a long time with no significant changes, but finally, we have some new SmartArt layouts!

First of all, let me say that I’m a big fan of SmartArt. It’s a way to turn a boring-looking bulleted list into something that looks like a graphic. SmartArt will make your slide more easily digestible for your audience.

It’s a great option for non-designers.

I have an old post, My Favorite SmartArt faves, that will give you some ideas, if you haven’t been using SmartArt.

Numbered SmartArt lists!

I’ve been wanting numbered SmartArt for a long time. Yes, I created a workaround but it was a bit time-consuming. It was 6 steps!

[Read more…]

New Remove Background options in PowerPoint

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Microsoft is actively working to make the user interface and features of PowerPoint easier to use. This is good news!

One new feature is the Edit Picture dialog box.

With a selected image, you get to it by clicking the Picture Format tab and then choosing the Edit Picture icon.

However, two of the features in the Edit Picture dialog box have their own icons: Remove Background and Erase.

Here is the full Edit Picture dialog box…

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Managing complex backgrounds

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Sometimes, you may be in a situation where you have a complex background that includes graphics that cover part of the slide.

Maybe you were given a template by your company. Maybe you used one of PowerPoint’s templates or you bought a template.

The problem is that this type of background can interfere with adding large images that can make your slides more powerful.

In this video, I explain several ways to manage complex backgrounds. After the video, I briefly summarize the techniques.

The video is about 17 minutes long. (Note: This is a video I created quite a while ago, so the PowerPoint interface may be a little different from what you see, but the principles and instructions are still valid.)

[Read more…]

Format multiple headshots for consistency

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Sometimes you need to show a head shot of several people, such as a departmental team or the presenters for a presentation.  The problem is that you ask them for a head shot and they all look different, like this. What are you going to do?

powerpoint-tips-format-head-shots-1

Don’t just resize them to make them the same size. Instead, you need to crop them so that they include approximately the same view, the same amount of head, shoulders, and body.

Here’s the result after cropping. [Read more…]