Creating Slide Shows - Power Point & Picasa

Some basic Power Point Info...

WHAT IS POWER POINT:  Gives you the ability to create a slide show combining your photos, text, animation, sound and more… to make your information much more enjoyable.  Power Point presentations have been used in business for years, but today you see them being used at weddings, showers, birthday parties, reunions, memorial services and by groups & organizations.  Students as young as 3^rd grade are using power point presentations to enhance reports and projects.

POWER POINT APPLICATION SOFTWARE

Can be bought individually or it is included as part of the MICROSOFT OFFICE bundle.  The Power Point Application Software is always required for you to create and or modify a power point presentation.

POWER POINT VIEWER: This is a free software offered from Microsoft that allows you to watch power point presentations sent to you via email.  You can then save them on your computer to send to someone else, you cannot however change or modify them in anyway or create your own without the full Power Point Application Software Program.

ADD POWER POINT VIEWER TO YOUR COMPUTER: Go to www.Microsoft.com – on right hand column – choose Downloads & Trials, search for “Power Point Viewer” and when wizard opens up – choose DOWNLOAD NOW button – in a few minutes this free software will be on your computer – follow directions as it adds it…

CAN YOU MAKE SLIDE PRESENTATIONS WITHOUT POWER POINT?? Yes, use Picasa (a free photo editing software program from Google, if you don’t have it, go to www.picasa.com and download for free).  Picasa’s version 3, has both a slide show & movie making application to use and they are easy to work with.. For those with Windows XP or Vista, your windows software has a free program called Windows Movie Maker which works in much the same way as power point and the Picasa applications… and if you have Windows 7 or 8 you can always search for and download

In our next posting we will talk more about using PICASA to create slide shows.. 

PowerPoint Tips: Slide Background choices

Adding color to the background of your slides makes them more interesting. Simple is better so step back and review your presentation and think twice before using “wild colors” that detract from your slides.. Doing this in earlier versions of PP (2000-2003) is a little different from the newer PP 2007-2010, so we've given you notes for both...

To add color to your slide backgrounds:

If you have PP 2000 OR 2003:

• Select "Format" - "Background".
• A "Background" dialog box appears and you can left click on the pull-down menu to choose from one of a few selected colors, "More Colors", or "Fill Effects"

More Colors

• If you choose "More Colors" it opens a dialog box with several tabs which shows you different standard colors or you can choose “custom colors” which shows you the color prism and the colors RGB values if you are trying to match a specific shade of a color
• When you are done, click "OK" to close the dialog box.

Fill Effects – This option opens another dialog box with several tabs for different fill types:

• Gradient – One – two and preset multicolor gradient fills and there are different fill type, colors, transparency, shading styles, and variants.
• Texture – There are a variety of textures, or click "Other Texture" to import a texture graphic of your own
• Pattern – There are different pre-made patterns and you can adjust the pattern foreground and background colors
• Picture – This allows you to select your own photo for your presentation background
• When you are done, click "OK" to close the dialog box.

Apply your Changes:

When you are happy with your changes, decide if you want the background graphic to appear on printed slides (doing so increases print time and requires more toner/ink), but if not – you can check "Omit background graphics from master".

Then click "Apply" to apply the changes to the current slide only, or "Apply to All" to apply the changes to all slides.

If you have PP 2007 or 2010:
As with earlier versions, backgrounds can be applied to individual slides or to all the slides in a presentation - choices in 2007 & 2010 are located on the Design Ribbon. To access the Design Ribbon:

• Click on the Design Tab and you will see the Design ribbon options & features
• Hover your mouse over any of the design themes shown
• The design is reflected immediately on your slide
• Click the design theme when you find one that suits your needs

To change the Background on an individual slide:

• Click on the background button on the right end of the Design ribbon
• This opens the Format Background dialog box
• If you want to apply your choice to all the slides in your presentation, once you make your choice, be sure to choose the “Apply to All” button at the bottom of the dialog box

Like earlier versions - you now have choices of colors and effects, but the newer versions have more choices in easy – such as the Gradient Fill now has multiple choices to play with:

• Linear - the gradient colors flow in lines which can be from preset angles or a precise angle on the slide
• Radial - colors flow in a circular fashion from your choice of five different directions
• Rectangular - colors flow in a rectangular fashion from your choice of five different directions
• Path - colors flow from the center out to form a rectangle
• Shade from title - colors flow from the title out to form a rectangle

Be careful using Background Textures: they can be very busy and make text difficult to read, which can detract from your message. If you do use a textured background, choose a subtle design and be sure to choose a text color that will stand out from the background.

A great feature in the new PowerPoint 2007 & 2010 is DESIGN & COLOR THEMES

• This changes not only the backgrounds but totally coordinate the colors, font styles and sizes used for a total look… These are similar to the design templates which were available in earlier versions of Power Point.

What I like, is that when you are choosing a design theme in the new PP 2007 & 2010, you will immediately see the effect on your slides, so you can decide before making your decision final…

PowerPoint Tip: Stop the Black Screen at the End

Typically when we watch any slide show made with PowerPoint, it ends with a “black screen that shows a message at the top: “End of slide show-click to exit”.

If you don’t want to see this screen, just stop it from happening by changing a setting. Note thought, that this setting only applies to the PowerPoint software running on your computer. It is not a setting that is saved with the slide show presentation file itself.

So if you create a slide show presentation and take it to another computer, you’ll want to change this setting again on that computer.

If you have PowerPoint 2000-2003:

• Choose Tools |Options.
• Choose the View tab.
• Uncheck the box for the option End with black slide.

If you have PowerPoint 2007 or 2010:

• Click on the Office button in 2007 and File button in 2010.
• Choose the PowerPoint Options button (at the bottom of the window).
• Choose Advanced from the left side of the next panel.
• On the right side find the Slide Show section.
• Uncheck the box for the option End with black slide.

So remember, if you make this change it's on your computer only - if you take the slide show to another computer, you would have to change the setting on that computer also..

DOWNLOADING PICASA 3

PICASA (a Google product) is a FREE award-winning software used for working with photos, on your PC, from emails, disk, CD-Rom and digital cameras.

**PICASA’S NEW VERSION 3, can only be used with Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7. If you are using an older “Operating System” such as Windows 98, 2000, ME, then you will continue to use Picasa Version 2

Downloading Picasa to your computer is quick and easy and again FREE - Just open your Internet and on the Internet address toolbar, type: http://www.picasa.com/

• Click on the button that says “DOWNLOAD PICASA”
• This brings you to a dialog box where you must choose whether to “RUN” or “Save” the file, Click “RUN”.
• Depending on your Internet service speed, this may take a few minutes
• Another dialog box will appear asking: Do you want to RUN the software? Click RUN
• The software should be installed on your computer. If you’re asked other questions, respond “yes” or “OK”. Picasa 3 will be installed on your PC
• Picasa then will search over your whole computer for pictures or merely look in the “MYPICTURES” directory. I prefer the MYPICTURES directory only, but you can choose whatever option you wish
• The Picasa Icon is now created and on your desktop (and you can add it to your Quick Launch)
• The Picasa Media Detector should be installed on the system tray in the taskbar toolbar. This is necessary so that Picasa 3 can add any new photos that are added to the MyPictures folder.

Picasa software allow you to:

• Create quick & easy photo Slide Shows- with or without music
• Easy to view Photo Library
• Numerous quick & easy photo editing tools including red eye reduction, cropping and changing photos form color to black & white or sepia
• Photos can be sorted by folder or timeline
• Great tools for printing - wallet, 4 x 6 or full page
• You can convert you photos to movies with sound & motion
• You can easily upload your photos to an online web album for easy sharing
• Or identify all "faces" in your photos for easy sorting-called tagging
• and much much more...

Once you have download the free software, like all Google products, there are great tutorials which will help you learn to use the software - or join us in class...

What is Picasa Movie Maker?

Picasa is a free “Google” digital photo editing software for anyone who has a PC or MAC. For anyone using Picasa Version 3+, there is a wonderful feature “movie maker” that allows us to quickly and easily convert any photo folder on Picasa into a slideshow/movie..

Picasa software is easy to use, but a few tips on using Movie Maker..

Once the Picasa folder is highlighted, simply choose the “CREATE MOVIE” icon which is:

• located above every Picasa album and also located in the action bar at the bottom of the Picasa screen

Once this icon is selected the movie is created and you can now make other enhancements to personalize your movie...

You can enhance your movie by uploading a song - an audio MP3.
When you add music, you will have several options as to how the music will work with your photos - If you choose ‘fit photos into audio’, Picasa will space your photos to fill the length of the song you have chosen

You can choose various transitions, how your slides will appear on the screen, such as “PAN & ZOOM” seems to be the most popular

You can also rearrange your photos, you can add captions, you can add slides that contain just text AND throughout the process, you can “view” your movie to see how it looks and sounds…

When you are finished you can save it to the computer, send via email, share with Skype, save to your Picasa web albums for easy sharing, or export/upload directly to YouTube or other social networking sites…

Your finished movie is saved and will then be uploaded as a.mov file.

And you can re-edit the movie later if we want to change –remove or add photos..

Try it today – go to www.picasa.com