I have been trying out with some Android Apps recently as I have just got my hands on HTC Desire Z, running on Android 2.2, Froyo (a happy consumer indeed). Some applications that I have tried out include presenters for android, which come handy for those who are unwilling to buy a presenter which can be costly depending on the brand you are looking at. With the right keywords, you should be able to find many presenter applications out on the Android Market. Several are not free and may be tagged with a price not exceeding $10. However, we are going for free apps and I will be recommending you one great presenter for your android phone - Gmote 2.0. 

So what is Gmote? Gmote is basically an application that allows you to turn your android phone into a remote control for your computer. It is simple to setup and serve as a reliable tool for your presentation. To get Gmote 2.0 working, you will first need to enter the Android market from your phone and search for Gmote. Install the Gmote client application and once you are done, head over to your computer or laptop. Go to Gmote's official site and download Gmote Server installer (works for Windows 7 even though it is not listed there). Install the server application on your computer or laptop, and then set the password of your preference.

Now, to link your Android to your computer or laptop, you will need to have both of these device connected to the same (wireless) network. This is also how most of the presenter applications work. Thus if you are not in a wireless workspace, using your Android phone may not be possible. To do so, launch Gmote from your Android and bring up the menu options. Go to Find Server and select your computer or laptop. Once you get them connected, go to the menu options again. This time, bring up Gmote Touch by selecting Touchpad. Moving around the empty space on your screen will allow you to your cursor while tapping will serve as a left click command. 

To use it as a presenter, simply open up your presentation and start the slide show. As mentioned earlier, the basic advance key would be to tap on your Android screen. If you are looking for more functions, bring up the virtual keyboard by selecting the keyboard icon on the top left of Gmote Touch. You can then tap on the backspace key to go back to your previous slide, or enter a number followed by enter key to proceed to a specific slide. In short, all the PowerPoint slide show navigation shortcuts should work as they are supposed to.

The only downside is the lack of timer if you are interested to keep track of your time. Understand though, that this is a multipurpose remote control rather than a designated presenter for Android which in fact, works a lot better (and of course, free) than many of the presenters for Android on the market. If you are interested, do give Gmote a try. Happy tapping!

It is always important to know who you are presenting to. Your audience can be a group of students, professionals, managers, entrepreneurs and etc, but sometimes, knowing just that is not enough. Demographics information such as gender and race are equally essential to you, especially for preparing your presentation slides. Now, imagine that you are going to create a presentation on family values. If your audience is a group of Asian executives, slides showing Asian families will bring them deeper into your presentation. They will also feel more familiar to what you are showing them and helps relate it to their lives. Likewise, if you are showing images of non-Asian families to them, it creates a gap between you and your audience, making them feel distant to your presentation.

The three slides below are provided to help you better visualize the differences. On the first slide, it shows a happy Western family, while the second shows a happy Asian family. And if you are presenting to a group of students or teenagers, the third slide should suit them well. Take a look at these three slides and decide which image helps you better familiarize and connect yourself to the content. 

Another good reason to upgrade to PowerPoint 2010. When it comes to software, you would normally want to have absolute control over settings, especially the minor details. Just a few months back, I came to realize that PowerPoint 2007 does not offer diagonal wipe transition, instead, it has diagonal strips transitions where the edge is checkered instead of straight. What's the fuss, you may ask? Firstly, the position where I have placed my title and the template I am using, a diagonal wipe is the perfect transition to use. Secondly, I have to port it over to a seminar room with only PowerPoint 2007 installed. Now, if you are working with PowerPoint 2010, you may not realize this because the wipe transitions are available for all directions and that they all have blurred edges. The downside is that if you port it over to a PC with PowerPoint 2007, it will automatically use the diagonal strips transition - which uses a checkered edge. This is something very different and may not be what you are looking for. There's no direct workaround as far as I know, except to replace it with a fade effect, or perhaps, use PowerPoint Viewer 2010 instead.

Lesson for the day: Always remember to test your presentation on different versions of PowerPoint if you have them. Otherwise, do a test run on the system that you are presenting on before doing the actual presentation. The best solution however, is to bring your own laptop so that you can reduce any issues that may possibly arise.

If you have been following through the growth of PowerPoint, you will notice the introduction of several Picture Effects such as soft shadows, reflections, bevel and many other effects in PowerPoint 2007. However, you are limited to the presets given to you and therefore are not allowed to adjust these effects in anyway you like. PowerPoint 2010 fixes this issue and opens up lots of new editing options. In this article, we will explore the Reflection Options and various ways you can play with the new feature.

There are two ways to bring up the Reflection option, either by right clicking and select Format Picture | Reflection, or double click on the picture, select Picture Effects | Reflection | Reflection Options. You will now see 4 editing options available to you right after the Reflection Presets:

1. The transparency setting is similar to our usual fill transparency. Setting it to 0% does not bring the reflection to complete opaque though, instead you will still see a slight translucency in it. Setting it to 100% will bring it to a transparent state.

2. The size setting controls the height of the picture's reflection. Setting it to 0% will thus show no reflection, while 100% will show an almost full reflection.

3. The distance setting controls the distance between your picture and reflection. Max setting is 100 point. 

4. The blur setting is something totally new, which gives you the option to blur your picture's reflection. 

There are 2 tricks you can try out with these new options:

1. The Picture Reflection-Transparency trick - If you are a regular user of PowerPoint, you will realize that it does not offer a direct way to set transparency for pictures. The most common workaround, and probably an authentic solution would be to use the Emphasis | Transparency animation to control the picture's transparency. The downside is you will probably have trouble navigating back and forth in the presentation when you press backspace (which the picture will turn back to normal). The second workaround is to use picture fill from shapes. Insert a rectangle and go to Format Shape | Picture or texture fill. Select your picture and set the transparency you prefer. The downside of course, is that you are filling your picture into the shape, and there will be high chance where your picture will look over-stretched either in the width or height.

With PowerPoint 2010, there's a new way through the reflection option. Still cumbersome process, but eliminates the time you have to spend to adjust the width and height. First, open up the Reflection Options, then set the transparency of your choice. Set the size to 100% so that it shows a complete picture. Distance can be around 10 point while blur should be set to 0 point. Now, flip the picture vertically. Do a Ctrl-X to cut out the picture and paste special | Picture (png). Crop out the actual picture and we are done. Downside still exists though, remember this is a reflection, setting to 100% size won't give you a full reflection, thus a small portion at the bottom of the picture will fade out.

2. Alternate Blur - The Blur under Artistic Effect allows you to do a blur effect on your picture. The blur effect however, only caters for inner blur, that is to say, your edge will not be affected. If you are looking for complete blurring of your picture, including the edges, try out the Picture Reflection-Transparency trick again, but instead, make use the blur setting this time round.

Most of you may have seen anaglyph images showing stereoscopic 3D effect when viewed with 2 color glasses (red and cyan). This is not what we are trying to achieve in this article though. Instead, we are going to leverage on this term to create an anaglyph-styled animation. This form of animation is nothing new and has been widely used in anime or horror movies. One example is the ending song of an anime, K-On!!. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKaLm-30-Ss

To achieve this effect in PowerPoint, you will need two duplicates of the original image, then using the recolor feature, set the first duplicate to red, while the other to green. If you have PowerPoint 2010, you can also make use of Artistic Effect > Blur to soften the effect. As for the animation part, you will need to tone down the background and original image by using transparency effect, then play around with the appear and disappear animation. A ppt demonstration has been provided below. The first slide is done using PowerPoint 2007 (without the blur effect), while the second one is done using PowerPoint 2010 (with the Artistic Effect > Blur). Feel free to dissect the animation through PowerPoint's animation pane. The image used is drawn by Jeremiah Lee, so all the credits for this fantastic artwork goes to him. 

Download: http://pptheaven.mvps.org/experimental/3DGlassAnaglyphEffect.zip

1. First, draw a rectangle that covers the entire slide master.
2. Double click on the rectangle, set fill color to 99%. Line color to no line.
3. Click Ok.
4. Right click on the invisible autoshape, select Action Settings.
5. Select Mouse Over tab, set it Hyperlink to the Slide 1.
6. To make the mouse over work, Click Add Effect > Entrance > Appear.
7. Set the Start from "On Click" to "After Previous".
8. Double click on the added effect.
9. Select Timing tab, set the delay to lets say 60 seconds (equiv to 1 min) or a time of your preference.
10. Click Ok.
11. Close Master view once you are done. Now, the invisible linking (kiosk reset) will apply to the entire presentation.

A user posted an interesting question on the Microsoft Office Online Discussion Group, asking whether it's possible to insert hyperlinks in Notes page.  

There's no function for you to do that in PowerPoint.
Now, here's a tricky workaround create hyperlink to play with.
To create the hyperlink, first go into normal view and type your link or
email on a textbox. Once you get the hyperlink, highlight the link and click Edit > Copy.
You can either go into View > Notes page, or click on the "Click to add
notes".
Then, click Edit > Paste Special > HTML Format or Formatted Text (formatted
text only works in View > Notes page) and viola, you can now have hyperlinks in the notes page!

Here is a survey by Ellen Finkelstein. If you have any Death by PowerPoint experience, why not share it with us on this survey? By taking up this survey, you will also get a free copy of Ellen's e-booklet, 7 Steps to Great Images.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=8btaxwZWsjzcfZf2i5Qjog_3d_3d

Note: The link to get the free e-booklet is in small print at the end of the survey.

PowerPoint Heaven eConvention 2008 is a day where PowerPointers get together to discuss, review and submit their latest PowerPoint works. PPTH eCon 2008 (abbrev.) is an annual online convention, which will be held on 27 September, a month after PowerPoint Heaven Anniversary.

There are several events for PowerPoint Heaven eConvention 2008. The events include: eCon Awards 2008, Contributor of the Year, Submissions @ eCon, Discussions @ eCon. Check out PPTH eCon 2008 now for more information!

The eConvention starts off with the voting of eCon Awards 2008: Animation/Artwork/Game/Broadcast of the Year, which involves works submitted on PowerPoint Heaven in year 2008. The voting process is a pre-eCon event starting from 1 - 26 September. Vote for the Animation/Artwork/Game/Broadcast of the Year now! Winners will be announced on 27 September.

PowerPoint Heaven 3rd Anniversary! Time files, and PowerPoint Heaven is now 3 years old. It feels really good to see PowerPoint animations, games and artworks getting better and better over the past 3 years. In recent years, you can slowly see a wide variety of games coming up. Here's a few examples of PowerPoint games by fellow hardcore PowerPointers: Pointer's Way (maze game) by Mohammad Ahmed Fikree, Music ver. C (music rhythm game) by KDC, Ultimate Sniper (shooting game) by Ted Thayer, and the upcoming highly anticipated Eight Eclipse (RPG game) by Anthony Barfield.

Artworks are catching up quickly. With the introduction of PowerPoint Heaven Discussion Board, you can see a significant improvement and interest on drawing techniques. Several works by our board members (Alex F, Ben Belford, James Niedfeldt and Zum Zum) have also made their way to PowerPoint Heaven Contributors' pool. Also, not to forget our PowerPoint Artworks Specialist, Jeremiah Lee, with his recent work Squall 3D, which has proved to the PowerPoint community that PowerPoint can be a very good drawing platform.

We have also receive large amount of submissions from Korea's PowerPoint Expert Club, all thanks to Mr. Francis Lee, Admin of PowerPoint Expert Club and a former Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, who has been assisting us in communicating with the cafe's members. Contributors from PowerPoint Expert Club have created magnificent masterpieces. Of all the masterpieces, one which is definitely worth mentioning, is Optimus Prime 3D by anubis0129, showing how the head of Optimus Prime from Transformers can be drawn and animated in 3D, all in PowerPoint.

Behind this success is all the PowerPoint Heaven contributors who have been spending millions of hours in exploring the depth of PowerPoint and contributing to the PowerPoint Entertainment community. Since the set up of PowerPoint Heaven, we now have 25 contributors who are constantly maximizing PowerPoint's capabilities. We sincerely appreciate their efforts and contributions. Without them, PowerPoint is simply a presentation tool :)

To celebrate this anniversary, we present you 3 new updates:
PowerPoint Game, Pixel Scene by Anthony Barfield.
PowerPoint Artwork, Kuchiki Byakuya by Boo Jia Hao.
PowerPoint Tutorial, Realistic Walk by Zum Zum.

Coming up next will be the PowerPoint Heaven eConvention 2008, our first eConvention. Stay tuned and get ready to vote for the Animation/Artwork/Game of the year!
Check out the PPTH eCon 2008 forum for more information.

Lets say if you are running a slide that has multiple animations on it. Halfway through the presentation, you may want to pause the animations to explain something. A simple way to do this is to press the "b" key which will black out the screen. Then, press "b" key again to resume the presentation. The downside is that you won't be able to see the content on the screen.

To resolve this, you can make use of VBA. To do so, click Tools > Macro > Visual Basic Editor. Copy the code as shown below:

Sub pauseshow()
  ActivePresentation.SlideShowWindow.View.State = ppSlideShowPaused
End Sub

Sub runshow()
  ActivePresentation.SlideShowWindow.View.State = ppSlideShowRunning
End Sub

Close the editor once you are done.

Now, create two autoshapes.
Right click on the first one and select Action Settings. Select Run Macro > pauseshow. Click Ok.
Right click on the second one and select Action Settings. Select Run Macro > runshow. Click Ok.
Clicking on Shape 1 will now pause the presentation, while clicking on Shape 2 will resume the presentation.

Well hidden feature here, which you may not came across unless you chanced upon it. If you have inserted a table in PowerPoint 2007, then gave it a border, you will realize that there's no direct way to change the border color of your preference as compared to previous versions of PowerPoint. It can be done though. Here's what you should do:

1. Double click on the table to bring up the Table Tools > Design tab.
2. Under 'Table Styles', set the table to 'No Borders'.
3. Now, under 'Draw Borders', set it to a different 'Pen Color'.
4. Set the table to 'All Borders' again.

To give each cell different colors, you can also select 'Pen Color' of your preference. Next, hover over the table border, click and hold. Ensure that the border is highlighted, then drag it to apply the color to the rest of the cells. If it doesn't work, increase the zoom level and try again.

There are several ways to link presentations from one to another. The downside of linking however, is the fear of link breaking when moving the files from one location to another. A solution to resolve this is to make use of embedding.

To embed a PowerPoint in a PowerPoint, click Insert > Object. Select Create from file, then click on Browse. Look for the ppt file you want to embed. Then click Ok twice. The file will then be embedded with the first slide shown as a thumbnail. There are two ways to open the embedded presentation during slide show view. The first one is to click on the thumbnail, which will open up the embedded presentation.

If you prefer to have it open automatically, click Slide Show > Custom Animation. Select the thumbnail, click Add Effect > Object Actions > Show. Lastly, set the Start from "On Click" to "After Previous".

I have chanced upon this interesting application while surfing through the web. TVanima, currently in its alpha stage, is an online 3D application that allows you to create a TV news program by inserting media such as photographs, images, narrations and videos. There will be a news presenter who will do the talk for you. You can then publish you finished work onto the web. If you have a PowerPoint presentation that you want to put on web, try TVanima.

If you have a YouTube video which you want to play it during the presentation, you can make use of the Shockwave Flash Object ActiveX Control.

To do so, open up PowerPoint.
Click View > Toolbars > Control Toolbox.
Click on the last icon, 'More Controls'.
Scroll down and look for Shockwave Flash Object.
Select the object, then insert it onto the slide.
Once you are done, right click on the object and select Properties.
Open Internet Explorer and look for the YouTube link. Copy the URL which should be something like: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0_jjLOqm2L4
Go into PowerPoint and double click on Custom in the Object's Properties.
Paste the URL under Movie URL.
Amend the url by replacing 'watch?v=' to 'v/' : http://youtube.com/v/0_jjLOqm2L4
Ok your way out and close the properties dialog box.
Now, you will be able to view the YouTube video in slide show!

You can insert an Organization Chart by clicking Insert > Diagram > Organization Chart. You will though realize that if the shapes are in incorrect order, you cannot reposition or reorder the shapes in the organization chart while AutoLayout is on. Here's one simple and neat trick to reorder the shapes.

Lets say you have 3 subordinates, 1, 2 and 3.
What you want to achieve is to reorder the subordinates in such a way so that it becomes 2, 3 and 1.
To achieve this, select subordinate 1 and drag it onto any of its co workers (either 2 or 3) so that subordinate 1 is under one of them.
Now, drag subordinate 1 onto the superior (the one at the highest).
The order will now become 2, 3 and 1.

First updates for Year 2008!

Added 3 new PowerPoint Showcases from the members of PowerPoint Expert Club:

• AutoShapes Art: Inspiration, by pso2850. AutoShapes Art: Inspiration is an inspiring piece of artwork done using PowerPoint AutoShapes and well synchronized with the beat of the music.
  
  
• Text Animations: Marry Me - KDC, by KDC. Featuring advanced text animations mirroring an excerpt of Ellegarden's (a Japanese rock band) motion video, Marry Me.
  
  
• Text Animations: Marry Me - Bugycraxone, by Bugycraxone. Another similar showcase featuring advanced text animations making use of the lyrics in Ellegarden's Marry Me.

Added new PowerPoint Artworks, Vita, by Zzangdol, which shows an anime character, Vita, fishing besides the pond.

PowerPoint Heaven wishes you a Happy New Year!

What is a flv video?
Flash Video, also known as flv, is a file format that is used to deliver video over the Internet. It uses the .flv file extension. Video sharing sites such as YouTube and MySpace make use of Flash Video format.

Inserting flv video into PowerPoint
There are several programs which allow you to view Flash Video. One example is VLC Media Player, which is free and can be downloaded at http://www.videolan.org.

To insert flv video into PowerPoint, one way is to make use of the VLC Media Player.
First, install the VLC Media Player.
Once done, create a folder.
Move the presentation and flv video to the folder.
Now, open the presentation.
Go to the slide which you want to have the Flash Video inserted.
You will need the control toolbox to be displayed.
Click View > Toolbars > Control Toolbox.
On the toolbar, click on the last icon which should be "More Controls". (For PowerPoint 2007, Click Developer tab. Under Controls, click on the icon "More Controls".)
Scroll right to the bottom and look for VideoLAN VLC ActiveX Plugin (both v1 and v2 is fine).
Click Ok.
Now, right click on the control that has been added, select Properties.
This will bring up the properties dialog box.
Under MRL, enter the filename (e.g. abc.flv).
Once done, close the dialog box.

 Visit PowerPoint Heaven for more PowerPoint tutorials, animations, games and artworks.

Anthony's 2 upcoming titles, Eight Eclipse and Pixels Neon 3 are currently under development. For those who have been following Anthony's games, here are some preview:

Eight Eclipse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bny3rYyAneY
Pixels Neon 3: http://www.mediafire.com/?0zn0schze1b (A little bug here which requires you to rename it to .ppt, then open up the file and start from slide 2 manually).