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Original content by AlexAnndra Ontra and James Ontra
Enhanced by Geetesh Bajaj
In the previous part of this Presentation Management series of posts, we explored the future of presenting. In this concluding part, we will look back and paraphrase what we learned.
We’ve been presenting to each other before the word “present” ever made it into our vernacular. And we’ve forced ourselves to adjust and adapt to whatever technology was available at the time.
Cave paintings were likely the earliest form of presentation. Moses’ Ten Commandments on two stone tablets were a form of presentation. Today, they might very well be two slides with five bullet points each. Then we evolved to paintings on wood and canvas, to still life photography and four-color printing, and then video.
Image: 123RF
Filed Under:
Guest Post
Tagged as: AlexAnndra Ontra, Geetesh Bajaj, Guest Post, James Ontra, Presentation Management
Today, we are going to explore how you can quickly create Harvey balls within PowerPoint using think-cell. Before we explore how to do so, let’s do a quick recap about what Harvey balls are, and where think-cell fits within the picture. Harvey balls are round ideograms or pictograms that show different states of a ball with quarters added or subtracted to attain five states between start and completion. They have been named after Harvey L. Poppel, who started using them in the 1970s. They are often used in business reports, documents, and presentations because they show progressive data at a quick glance.
We have a detailed article on Harvey balls, which also tells you how you can create them in PowerPoint.
Filed Under:
Add-ins
Tagged as: Add-in, Charts, Graphics, Graphs, Harvey balls, think-cell
PresenterMedia is a vendor of PowerPoint and presentation-related design assets that you can use in your slides in many ways. They are based in Sioux Falls, SD, United States, and we have featured them frequently on this site before. Recently, they announced the updated PresenterMedia add-in for PowerPoint, which provides access to all their assets right inside PowerPoint without having to go to their website and download them individually.
Filed Under:
Add-ins
Tagged as: Add-in, Clip Media, Judd Albrecht, Presenter Media
It won’t be unusual to say that think-cell is among the most full-featured PowerPoint add-ins out there. This add-in has been licensed to nearly a million users in over 23,000 organizations worldwide, and there are a large number of business professionals who would not be comfortable creating slides without think-cell installed. In fact, it’s quite normal for PowerPoint trainers to be asked to impart training in think-cell as well.
think-cell is one of those programs that’s like a habit. Users across organizations have been trained to use its powerful features to create aesthetic, well-laid slides that live up to company-branding standards. These users are now used to working a certain way. Let’s compare them with typical PowerPoint users who haven’t worked much with think-cell yet. They are not so well-versed with think-cell’s interface elements, which are not too PowerPoint-like. So yes, there’s that initial period when think-cell newbies get a little intimidated with its interface and features. However, if they are persistent, they discover the amazing potential that think-cell provides, helping them create slides that would take hours in mere minutes.
On the other hand, I have witnessed over the last few releases of think-cell, a distinct improvement in making the product more friendly to new users. This is a welcome move that’s sure to attract many more users. In addition, think-cell’s features keep getting more powerful.
Finally, there’s a perception that think-cell’s licensing terms are more oriented towards larger organizations rather than towards individual presentation designers or freelancers. How true is that perception? We will find out soon.
Filed Under:
Add-ins
Tagged as: Add-in, Charts, Robin Jung, think-cell
Learn how you can install fonts temporarily to work on a one-time project or task.
Have you come across a situation where you open a PowerPoint presentation or a Word document or any other file where a font has been used that you don’t have installed on your system, like in this case, the text, Six Secrets is using a font called Capture It, which is actually not installed on my system at this point in time. When we install the font, you’ll see it looks completely different than what it looks now. So the simple solution is you can just go and install the font.
Filed Under:
Techniques
Tagged as: Fonts, PowerPoint, Video Tutorial
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