You may claim to be a PowerPoint know-it-all. Perhaps you know how to create a slide. But do you know how to insert a video file into a slide or instantly blank the screen during a presentation? In this article, veteran trial presentation consultant Timothy Piganelli shares his top ten favorite little-known features of PowerPoint. Do you need specialized software for your next trial presentation? — read on to find out why Tim doesn't think so.
Top 10 Hidden Features of PowerPoint for Litigators
By Sara Skiff | Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Top 10 Hidden Features of PowerPoint for Litigators
By Timothy Piganelli
Introduction
While sitting in the audience of a trade show seminar, you think that the presenter used some highly specialized program to produce some of the cool stuff you see — not PowerPoint. But actually the presenter has found and uses features of PowerPoint that don't normally jump out at the casual user. For this reason, I present my top 10 "hidden" features of PowerPoint.
1. Insert Image Files with "Click And Drag"
For those of us who use PowerPoint in trial or other litigation venues, we often insert document image files into our presentations. PowerPoint has always had a menu driven method for inserting files into a slide. But, you may find it easier to open Windows Explorer to the location of the image files then click on the image file you want to insert and drag the file from Windows Explorer directly into a slide. The file will insert into the slide at its original size. You can then shrink, crop, or move it as desired. Make sure you don't drag and drop your file into an area of the slide that has a text box or a pre-defined "media" box. (This feature appears in PowerPoint 2003 or XP and may not appear in the 2002 or 2000 version of PowerPoint.) You can do the same thing with some video files such as AVI. You can also click and drag Adobe PDF files directly into PowerPoint.
2. Insert Video Files into a Slide
In the above case I talked about the click and drag. But you can also insert a video file by using the Insert menu item. Go to "Insert," then "Movie and Sounds," then "Movie From File." In the browse window, search to the desired movie file. Using this method, you can insert many video file types into your slide. Once you have inserted the video file, a dialogue box will appear so that you may choose between the option to manually start the video with the click of your mouse or have it automatically start when you advance in presentation mode to that slide.
The catch: you must make sure that the video file resides in a location you can access when working remotely from your office or your network. For example, the file must exist on your local hard drive, or on an external storage device that attaches to your laptop when you run your presentation. You should insert the video file from that location. Unlike image files, which load into the ppt file itself, a video file in a slide "links" to the file location. If you don't have the video file with you, it will not play when you get to that slide.
3. Eliminate Certain Colors, Like Background Color Around the Graphic for a Cleaner Look, After Inserting a Graphic
The Set Transparent Color feature enables you to wipe any one color from the picture or graphic and keep the others in tact. To avoid having to manipulate your images in a photo editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop, you can quickly and directly, in PowerPoint, wipe out a color with this feature. To activate this feature right mouse click on the photo or graphic. In the dialogue box that appears, go to "Show Picture Tool Bar." This tool bar will appear in a "floating window." The second tool from the right side is the "Set Transparent Color." Click on the icon once to activate, and then click in the area of the graphic where the color you wish to remove exists. That color will then instantly become transparent.
4. Control Exactly How Slow or Fast Animated Objects in Your Slide Show Move
We all know about the animation tools in PowerPoint but did you know you can control precisely how fast your objects, text, graphics, images, etc., move beyond the basic options of "Very Slow," "Slow," "Medium," "Fast," or "Very Fast"? To customize the time it takes to zoom or any other animation effect, go to "Slide Show," "Custom Animation." The "Custom Animation" box will appear on the right side of your screen. Once you have selected the object and chosen the type of animation, find the animation step you want to customize from the list and click on the arrow to expand the animation options. Choose "Show Advanced Timeline." You will then see a horizontal bar that indicates the total time of that animation effect. Click on and drag the time bar to customize the animation time. As you click and drag, you will see the time increase or decrease in seconds (indicated by "s").
5. Display Your Presentation on an External Screen While at the Same Time Having PowerPoint's Edit Screen Display on Your Laptop
Dual monitors enable you to "extend your desktop" to another display device, i.e., monitor or projector & screen, via the VGA port out of your laptop. Those of us who use laptops to present evidence in court find this feature particularly valuable. Publishing your PowerPoint presentation in "Dual Monitor" mode enables the audience to see the presentation through the "external" display connection while your laptop screen shows you the presentation in working mode. Activating the extended desktop or dual monitor varies depending upon the graphic card and drivers in your laptop.
The following steps will typically enable you to activate dual monitor mode on your laptop:
First, from your laptop's desktop view, right mouse click on any part of the Desktop that is not an icon. Select "Properties," then go the "Settings" tab. You will see two "screens" in the window. For some laptops, simply right mouse clicking on the second "screen" to "attach" will work. For others, you may need to go through some additional steps. Additionally, in "Settings," you should see a box near the bottom of the active window labeled "Advanced." Click on "Advanced." This step will open the option to modify your Display Settings. Laptops may vary in how to adjust the monitor settings but typically the Display option in the Advanced window provides more specific display settings for the primary and secondary monitors in dual monitor setting.
In dual monitor mode, in PowerPoint, select "Slide Show," then "Set Up Show." In this dialogue box you will see the settings for "Multiple Monitors." Under "Display slide show on" click the down arrow and select the down arrow and choose "Monitor 2." This will ensure that the presentation will display through the external display connection. You will now see the presentation on the external display and PowerPoint will remain in "edit" mode on the main screen of you laptop. Now you can review all your slides on your laptop screen in the edit mode while your audience views the presentation. You also have the ability to make changes to slides while your presentation runs. You even have the ability to make changes on a slide displaying to an audience and those changes will appear in real time.
6. In Dual Monitor Mode, Have Your Slides Advance on Your Laptop Screen Along with the Slides Displaying in Your Presentation
In "normal view" on your laptop, you will have thumbnail slides to the left, and a single slide on the right. When you want to begin your slide show, with Slide 1 displayed on the right, single slide, side of the screen, click on the single slide, then activate the presentation. As you proceed through the presentation, you will see each slide advance on your laptop screen. If you have animation effects built into your slide show, those animation effects will only appear on the presentation side. A benefit to the presenter, you can see the full slide and thereby will know what animation effect to anticipate.
7. During a Presentation, Advance to Any Slide in the Presentation
This may seem a simple feature, but it is worth mentioning. I find that many users of PowerPoint feel trapped in their presentations by thinking that they must go from the first slide in succession to the last slide. Thus, if they want to skip from slide 1 and go directly to slide 7, they think they must advance one slide at a time showing their audience slides 2-6. Not so. By simply keying in a chosen slide number on your keyboard and hitting the "Enter" key, the presentation will advance to that slide. Immediately your presentation will jump from slide 1 to 7. You can also get to other slides by right mouse clicking in the presentation mode. A sub-menu will display with all the slide numbers and their titles, if you created a title. By clicking on the slide number, your presentation will advance directly to that slide.
8. While in Presentation Mode, Quickly Blank the Screen
Many situations arise during a presentation when you want the presentation screen to be blank. In trial, an objection or directive from the judge may require that the screen be blanked, or during a presentation the court may decide to break, but you may not want to exit out of presentation mode. Or, you might want to divert the audience from the screen to focus on the speaker. By simply hitting the "B" key on your keyboard the screen will go black. Similarly, by hitting the "W", the screen will give you a White screen. Using either of these two methods will quickly and temporarily blank out the view of your presentation. To get back to showing the slide show, hit same key again, "B" to remove the black screen and "W" to remove the white screen. It's quick, easy, and helps control the focus of the audience on speaker and screen.
9. Highlight in Presentation Mode
As much as you try to plan and perfect your presentation, occasions may come up when you want to make some additional annotations. In most litigation presentations, we insert black and white exhibit images in our slide shows. The all familiar highlight we see used in computerized trial presentation systems can now be incorporated in a PowerPoint slide show. To activate the yellow highlighter in presentation mode, right mouse click in the presentation screen, a dialogue box will appear, choose "Pointer Options," then "Highlighter." Now that the highlighter is activated, pretend you are electronically highlighting the chosen area of the slide by holding down the left mouse button and dragging across text. You can also choose to activate a felt tip pen or a ball point pin feature. This works on images as well as typewritten text. When you exit out of the presentation, the program will ask if you would like to keep the highlights or annotation or discard them. If you choose to keep them, the annotations will remain in place until you manually delete them. Be aware that depending on your computer's graphic card, the yellow highlight comes up as a yellow transparency, but on most, it works and keeps the highlight.
10. Use "Package for CD" Feature to Copy a PowerPoint File from Your Laptop, with Embedded Images and Video, onto a CD
This feature goes out and grabs all the media files you have inserted into your PowerPoint file, packages it all in one location and prepares it to burn to a CD or DVD. Once produced, this CD or DVD will be "self-contained" with all the files and the PowerPoint file so a user can run the presentation directly from the CD or DVD. To do this you go to the Pull-Down menu "File," then "Package for CD." The dialogue box that comes up give you options to produce your presentation on CD or DVD. You can type in your own name for the CD or DVD. You can also add other ppt or pps files. From here you can hit the "Copy to CD" button, insert a blank CD or DVD into your CD/DVD drive (assuming you have a CD or DVD writer), and burn your presentation. If you select the Copy to Folder option, PowerPoint will copy the entire presentation to a folder on your hard drive for later use or future burns. The CD or DVD you create will have an auto-run feature in it. When the CD or DVD goes into the drive, it will automatically run and reference all the correct files for any video or audio playback. The computer playing the CD or DVD doesn't even need to have PowerPoint. The CD or DVD is totally self-contained.
Conclusion
Utilizing these 10 features can help in employing PowerPoint presentations in any litigation arena. Hopefully any one of them will serve you in your next presentation to enhance your capabilities and experience.
About the Author
Timothy Piganelli is CEO and founder of Legal Technology Consulting, Inc.. He is a nationally recognized speaker and author as well as one of the country's top trial consultants in the areas of trial strategies, trial presentation, courtroom technology, and computerized litigation support. Tim's vast trial consulting experience provides expert insight to clients on strategies for the best use of technology to create effective illustrative presentations for jury comprehension. He is also an adjunct professor at Sacramento's McGeorge School of Law, Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles, and University of Denver, teaching Computer Assisted Litigation.
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