Thursday, April 29, 2010

Add progress bar to a PowerPoint slide show

Adding a progress bar to your PowerPoint will let  your audience know at any given point that how much has been covered and how much still left.


If you want to add a progress bar similar to one shown above, follow the steps provided below.

Make progress bar using shapes in PowerPoint
  1. Insert two rectangular shapes of same dimensions(Height*Width).
  2. Fill one with some color(color you want to use for progress bar) and the other one matching the background color of your PowerPoint.
  3. Make sure both have same outline color. Place filled shape on the one matching the background color so that both give a impression of a single shape.
  4. Now, on slide 1 re-size the filled shape so that both shapes give an impression of single shape filled somewhat.
  5. Select both shapes with Ctrl key and paste on all slides at same co-ordinates on each slide. Increase the size of filled shape on subsequent slides and make it completely filled on last slide.
Using VBA code to add shapes

As mentioned on some PowerPoint communities, you can also  add a progress bar using VBA code. You just need to enable Macros and add a new Macro to your PowerPoint. You can find Macros under developer tab in PowerPoint 2007. Once you have added the Macro either click Visual Basic icon under developer tab or press Alt+F11 keys. Paste follwoing code:

Sub AddProgressBar()
On Error Resume Next
With ActivePresentation
For X = 1 To .Slides.Count
.Slides(X).Shapes("PB").Delete
Set s = .Slides(X).Shapes.AddShape(msoShapeRectangle, _
0, .PageSetup.SlideHeight - 12, _
X * .PageSetup.SlideWidth / .Slides.Count, 12)
s.Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(127, 0, 0)
s.Name = "PB"
Next X:
End With
End Sub

Close the VBA code and return to PowerPoint. Click Macro, select the one you created and click run. A progress bar will get added to your slides.

You can download sample presentation from authorSTREAM.

Friday, April 16, 2010

View PowerPoint presentations on your iPad or mobile

authorSTREAM, the PowerPoint sharing platform which recently launched win-iPad contest has come up with an iPad compatible version of presentation output. As mentioned on authorSTREAM blog, all latest presentations are iPad compatible and loads in a HTML player.

ipad powerpoint
This means that now authorSTREAM presentations can be viewed on any non flash browser running on iPad, iPhone or other mobile devices.

Only downside is that iPad output don't have any animations or sound. authorSTREAM claims that they will be adding animation and sound capabilities to iPad output soon.


Thursday, April 8, 2010

Zoom your presentations with pptPlex

pptPlex 2Image by Jinho.Jung via Flickr

Microsoft's lab product pptPlex is the coolest PowerPoint add-in which lets you give presentations in a quite astonishing way. pptPlex with zoom in and zoom out effects is quite similar to Prezi which offers similar functionality online.

pptPlex uses Plex technology to zoom in and out of slide sections and move directly between slides that are not sequential in your presentation. You can arrange all slides on a stunning canvas and can zoom in or zoom out slides during presentation besides navigating in a non-linear fashion. You need not to go slide by slide, just double click any slide thumb on the canvas and slide will appear with smooth zoom effect.

pptPlex also lets you add live content from other Office documents(Word, excel) in your PowerPoint presentations. Live content means if you have added some excel sheet and source data gets changed, your presentation will always have the updated data as will read the data from excel sheet itself.










Get Microsoft Silverlight




You can download pptPlex from Microsoft labs. You would also require to download and install XPS or Save as PDF add-in in order to use pptPlex on PowerPoint 2007.

pptPlex is quite easy to use and for sure it will add some seasoning to the way you give presentations.
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Friday, April 2, 2010

Win an iPad contest from authorSTREAM

PowerPoint sharing website authorSTREAM has come up with "Tweet and win an iPad" contest. The contest came just in time with the scheduled launch of Apple iPad on April 3rd.

You just need to tweet any of the tweets mentioned on their contest page or your own tweet having #PowerPoint and @authorSTREAM keywords to be eligible for draw of lots.


Prizes

1st Prize - An Apple iPad Wi-fi, 16 GB model and authorSTREAM Premium membership for one year

1st Runners up - iPod and authorSTREAM Premium membership for one year
2nd Runners up - iPod Nano and authorSTREAM Premium membership for one year

All participants will get authorSTREAM Video Credits worth $4!

Contest starts on 3rd April, 2010 and ends on 17th April, 2010. authorSTREAM has one more offer on the platter. If you have any feedback or just want to see authorSTREAM guys, here is an offer.

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