PowerPoint Notes

Is WRM Safe for XML-based PowerPoint Files?

All the new Microsoft Office file formats that were introduced with Office 2007 are essentially XML-based. These new formats are distinctive with their X suffixes, so that PPT evolved as PPTX (similarly DOC as DOCX, and XLS as XLSX) — these new file formats continue being used in all subsequent versions of Office on both Windows and Mac. However, they are all essentially ZIP files. The ZIP file acts as a wrapper that contain plenty of XML files and other media content.

So how far would any WRM (Windows Rights Management) protection help? Won’t savvy users be able to unzip those files and get to the content, even without using any WRM credentials? We tested this scenario by adding a ZIP extension to a WRM protected PowerPoint PPTX file, and then tried to unzip the file.

However, the unzipped folder showed up as empty! Follow these steps to see how this process works:

1. Make a copy of any WRM Restricted PowerPoint file, and save it to a folder that is easy to locate, such as your Desktop.
2. Ensure that your system is set to show file extensions. Now, right-click the PowerPoint file, and choose Rename (or just press F2). Add a “.ZIP” without the quotes right after the name of the file – for example if your original file name was:

   Restricted PowerPoint.PPTX

   It would now be renamed to:

   Restricted PowerPoint.ZIP

3. Windows will warn you that renaming the file extension could render this file unusable — but since you are just working on a test file for now, go ahead and ignore this error by clicking the Yes button that you can see in Figure 1.

   
   Figure 1: Change the file extension?

4. Now that you have changed the PPTX to a ZIP file, go ahead and try to unzip the ZIP. We just right-clicked the ZIP file, and chose the Extract option in the resultant contextual menu.
5. Surprise! This brings up a message window that indicates that the compressed (zipped) folder is empty, as shown in Figure 2.

   
   Figure 2: An empty Zip file!

6. Even double clicking the ZIP will bring up an error message, as shown in Figure 3.

   
   Figure 3: Just a ZIP, no unZIP!

This indicates that your WRM (Windows Rights Management) protected presentation is actually fully protected!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Add Circular Text to Target Diagrams (any Shape) in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

Received a question from an Indezine reader: Can you help me? I have built a target diagram using your tutorial (Thank You for this). However, I now am trying to write text within each of the target rings. Is it possible to shape the text to circular text?

Sure you can! Follow these steps:

1. Select the circle for which you want to add circular text. Type some text — by default the text is inserted right at the middle of the circle as shown in the Figure below.
   

Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tagged as: Shapes, Text, Tutorials

Data Assistant Warning in PowerPoint 2007

If you get a Data Assistant warning when you run PowerPoint 2007, here’s what may be actually happening.

Data Assistant was something Microsoft provided for PowerPoint 2003 users so that they could insert and manage graphical data objects such as Visio drawings, and Excel charts and named ranges into PowerPoint presentations. They stopped providing the Data Assistant, and I’m guessing this has not been updated for PowerPoint 2007 — you’ll need to disable it.

You can also remove Data Assistant altogether from your computer:

1. Click the Start button in Windows, choose Control Panel, and then select the Add or Remove Programs option.
2. In the list of currently installed programs, click Microsoft Data Assistant 1.0, and then click Remove.
3. Follow the instructions to remove Microsoft Data Assistant 1.0 altogether.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tagged as: Add-in, PowerPoint 2007

Select Multiple Objects in PowerPoint 2003

I’ll tell you an easy way to get frustrated, and an easier way to overcome it!

Get hold of a PowerPoint slides that has many animated slide objects that overlay each other. Now select the object stacked right at the bottom of the other objects. Does this have to be so difficult?

To select objects that are not too easy to access, you should use the Select Multiple Objects tool (if you use PowerPoint 2007, this does not apply to you). If you haven’t heard of this animal, I won’t blame you because it’s not visible by default. First you need to customize your Drawing toolbar to see this option:

1. If the Drawing toolbar is not visible, choose View | Toolbars | Drawing.
2. Then choose View | Toolbars | Customize. This will summon the Customize dialog box that you can see in Figure 1.

   
   Figure 1: Customize

3. Now select the Drawing category in the left pane, and the Select Multiple Objects option in the right pane. Drag this option to the Drawing toolbar, as shown in Figure 2.

   
   Figure 2: Drag the icon to the toolbar

4. Click Close to exit the Customize dialog box.
5. Now when you have too many objects on a slide, just click the Select Multiple Objects option, and you’ll see the dialog box that you can see in Figure 3.

   
   Figure 3: Select Multiple Objects

6. You can now select one or more objects on the slide — and you can also select any object on the slide!

Note: PowerPoint MVP Shyam Pillai creates the Shape Console add-in that adds a miniature floating window inside PowerPoint — this displays the current selected shape on the slide. Shape Console is a free download.

Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tagged as: PowerPoint 2003, Shapes, Tutorials