Blog Post

5 Tips for Stress Free Presentations

  • By Ellen Smith
  • •
  • 19 Jan, 2016
  • •

Helping your get more from Microsoft PowerPoint

Many companies use PowerPoint daily as a key part of their sales, marketing and internal communications processes. Our training programmes focus on helping you maximise the impact of this tool and one of the questions we get asked most often is how to alter slide layouts so they are consistent throughout a presentation – particularly when you are copying slides from existing files.

Here are five top tips to help you do this quickly and easily.

1. Invest time to save time - use the right theme/template

Begin by creating a new presentation based on your company’s theme/template where appropriate. This is key as it will provide your future work with a consistent look and save you valuable time if you need to copy slides from one presentation to another (see point 3 for more on this). Additionally, when other users are involved in customising or re-creating presentations, it ensures you retain a consistent look and can produce tailored content fast!
2. Make Slide Master your new best friend!

Use the Slide Master to make formatting changes fast. The Slide Master can be accessed via the View tab and displays the masters or templates for all the slide layouts offered when you click on the New Slide button. Make your formatting changes here, ideally on the parent master right at the top of the list, if you want them to be applied consistently across all slides in your presentation. For example, if you want the titles on every slide to be centred, bold and blue – make this change on the first master slide.

Slide Master View – controls the formatting across your presentation

Slide Layouts – available when you create a new slide and controlled by the Slide Master

3.   Use the Reuse command to copy slides from existing presentations

You can use the traditional copy and paste commands to copy slides between files it’s true. The Reuse Slides command makes the process easier by allowing you to access slides from other presentations without leaving your current screen.

Click on the New Slide button on the Home tab and select Reuse Slides.

Click on the Browse button and then on Browse File. Navigate to the presentation that contains the sides you want to use.  The slides will be displayed in the Reuse Slides panel on the right-hand side of the screen.

Ensure that the Keep source formatting tick box remains unticked so the incoming slides know to follow the Slide Master of your current presentation.

Review the newly added slides to ensure that the layout is in keeping with your presentation. If all is well, the incoming slides will adjust to your Slide Master and assume the look and feel of your current presentation. Note: You may still need to tweak the size and position of certain objects.


 4.   Reset

If you find that the font, bullets or colours of the incoming slide do not follow your Slide Master, it may be because the text or bullets were changed directly on the slide in the original presentation. The Reset button overrides any direct formatting that may be on the slide and forces it to follow the Slide Master of the current presentation.

If the Reset button fails to bring the text slide in line with the current Slide Master, it may be that the actual slide layout needs to be changed. Clicking on the Layout button will display the current slide layout.

In this example we can see that the Title Only layout was selected so the text being displayed on the slide must have been created using text boxes. Text boxes do not follow the Slide Master.

To resolve this problem change the layout to Title and Content

Copy the text from the text boxes into the automatic placeholders using the Keep Text Only option. The placeholders follow the Slide Master. Remember to delete the original text boxes

If you are interested in learning more about how PowerPoint Slide Masters, Themes and Templates can save you time and help you create professional looking presentations, contact one of our team who can help you select the right training option.  

Microsoft OneNote – Your digital notebook

By Ellen Smith • 23 May, 2017
I have had a great response to the Microsoft OneNote workshops I have been delivering recently, which has inspired me to use it as the focus for this month’s blog.

The Advantages of Creating Professional Looking Videos for your Business

By Ellen Smith • 19 Apr, 2017
Have you considered giving your message more impact by using videos? The innovative presentations you are able to create using Camtasia Studio can help to give you the edge over your competitors.

Support for Career Development - The West London Mental Health Trust

By Ellen Smith • 30 Mar, 2017
We have a had a great couple of days supporting The West London Mental Health Trust at their annual Career Development Open Days at Broadmoor and Ealing.

Individual Coaching

By Ellen Smith • 18 May, 2016

What is Individual Coaching?

For many individuals, group development coaching is not appropriate for addressing their specific needs within the business, particularly if they hold senior positions with a lot of responsibility. In order to maximise the value and talent that these employees can bring to the company, a one-to-one relationship, completely bespoke to their requirements is essential. Individual coaching responds to them as they outline personal and business goals and challenges, addressing key concerns and constantly reviewing progress.

How Could Executive Coaching Improve Your Business?

By Ellen Smith • 18 Mar, 2016
Executive coaching is a developing field. As such, its definition is still the subject of discussion and debate among practitioners, researchers, and consumers. Executive coaching involves an executive, his coach, and his organisation.

Thinking about making the switch to Office 2016?

By Ellen Smith • 28 Jan, 2016
We can help you harness the power of Office 2016 and get the most from your investment. This post details the top five highlights of Office 2016.

New Year, New Brand, New Website

By Ellen Smith • 04 Jan, 2016
2016 marks our 21st year in business and to celebrate, we've embraced the recent advances in the technological world by investing in a fully mobile optimised website.  This new platform brings with it a number of new features including this very blog which we will use to keep you updated and informed.

Along with the new website, you may be aware that we have unveiled a new brand for the company which has given us a fresh new look, fit for the modern technological age and symbolises our continued commitment to the development of our clients.  We'll also be expanding our presence on social media networks so watch this space!

As we move on from our old logo, we look ahead with an abundance of positivity to running even more training sessions for our growing list of fantastic clients.  We thank you for your on-going referrals and here's to helping you and your teams to develop and become even more effective with the software at your disposal!

6 Reasons to Use Excel Table Functionality

By Ellen Smith • 21 Dec, 2015

Often when people tell us they are having problems getting the reports they want from their Excel logs or tracking sheets, the heart of the problem rests with the starting point, the source data, and in particular the way it’s laid out. They are keen to make the initial data clear and easy to read but also want to be able to manipulate the data and get answers fast.

With Excel’s Table functionality your data can still look good and be manipulated and analysed quickly.

Here are six good reasons to try this technique.

1.      Clarity

2.      Integrated sorting and filtering

3.      Headings that are always visible

4.      Simple selection and navigation

5.      Dynamic data range

6.      Automatic analysis

 

What do you need to get started?

The easiest approach is to keep the initial information in a simple table layout with the headings in the first row and data entered consistently in each column.

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