PresenterMedia’s animated PowerPoint templates work great with Mac PowerPoint 2008 and 2010, and they will also work with Apple’s Keynote software. In fact some people claim that the templates actually look even better when played from a Mac computer.
There are a couple of items to check if you plan to use Mac PowerPoint 2008 to play our animated templates.
1. Check for Updates
First of all, you need to make sure that you are running the most up to date version of your PowerPoint software. Microsoft has release several updates to Mac PowerPoint 2008 and some of them are essential for the animated features to operate properly.
It’s easy to check if to see if you are currently running the most up to date version of your software, simply go to the Help Tab in PowerPoint, and click “Check for Updates”. Install any of the updates you are missing.
Checking for Updates in PowerPoint 2008
2. Flip4Mac
The second item that any Mac user will need is the free Quicktime plug-in called Flip4Mac. This plug-in enables Quicktime to play Microsoft’s .WMV video files. This also has the added bonus of allowing our templates to be cross-platform compatible. Microsoft distributes Flip4Mac for free and it can be downloaded from their site here.
After you have installed any updates and the Flip4Mac plug-in, shutdown and start up your computer and away you go with awesome multi-media templates for PowerPoint.
An example of an animated PowerPoint template for either the Mac or PC versions of PowerPoint.
We’ve had several questions about creating an animated PowerPoint on Mac computer and then playing it on a PC and vice-versa. There has been a long running compatibility problem with video formats playing consistently across both platforms. PowerPoint on the PC favored Windows Media Video (.WMV) and the Mac liked Quicktime (.MOV). This was always a big drawback to using video in PowerPoint.
Enter a cool free plug-in for Quicktime on the Mac. Flip4Mac enables WMV files to be played by Quicktime on a Mac.
Flip4Mac is free and distributed by Microsoft. Here is the link:
The Flip4Mac wmv plug-in will allow PowerPoint 2008 and 2011 users the ability to use our PowerPoint 2007 and 2010 templates. This is a great way to make cross-platform compatible presentations and retain the animations for both PC and Mac users.
PowerPoint 2011 for Mac is new and it is good. It takes all the best things from PowerPoint 2010 and incorporates them into an awesome presentation system for the Mac.
So how does PowerPoint 2011 work with our animated templates you ask? Very well indeed. You can simply download any of the templates for PowerPoint 2010 and start using them in PowerPoint 2011. No more linked video files. All the files are embedded directly in the templates.
Our animated video templates for PowerPoint contain .WMV files. For Mac you will need to make sure Quicktime has the free plug-in, Flip4Mac, to allow WMV files to play on your Mac. It’s a free download distributed by Microsoft.
You can also use our templates with Mac PowerPoint 2008. There are just a couple of things to check if you experience any difficulties getting the template to animate properly.
1. Make Sure PowerPoint 2008 is Up To Date.
Our animated templates require that Mac PowerPoint 2008 is running certian updates and bug fixes that Microsoft has released over the last couple of years. If you are experiencing difficulty with the animations playing properly, most likely the cause is your software need to be updated. This is a simple process. In PowerPoint 2008, click the help tab on the top bar, and then select “Check for Updates”. Be sure to install any updates you are missing. Restart your computer after any updates.
Checking for Updates in PowerPoint 2008
2. Install Flip4Mac
Our templates are designed to be cross-platform compatible, and therefore we have used Microsoft’s .WMV video format for the video animations. In order for Mac computers to play Windows Media Files, the free Quicktime plug-in, Flip4Mac, is required. You can download this quick to install plug-in from Microsoft’s website here.
Discover the future of PowerPoint presentations with our animated templates for PC and Mac versions of PowerPoint. Here are some examples of the newest animated templates we have created.
We’ve had questions about the possibility of combining several of our templates into one presentation. Essentially, how do you mix and match slides from different animated templates?
It’s actually very easy to do if you are using PowerPoint 2007 or newer. I’ve put together a video tutorial about how to use the “Reuse Slides” function in PowerPoint 2010 and PowerPoint 2007 to combine slides from various templates.
Click Play to watch Video Tutorial
Note For Combining Several Animated Templates Together.
Remember that the more animated templates you combine the larger your presentation will become. A number of video files will make your presentation quite bulky. This could be a problem if you are distributing the completed presentation.
Please leave a comment if you find this tutorial helpful or have any questions.
In Mac PowerPoint, inserting slides from other presentations or templates work pretty much the same way but the command is labeled differently. The function is located under the “Insert” menu. Look for Insert/Slides From/Other Presentations. See screen shot below:
Insert Slides from other presentations in Mac PowerPoint 2008 and 2011
In the slide finder, be sure to check “Keep Design of Original Slide” to retain the formatting, animations and other graphic elements. Otherwise PowerPoint will only copy the text and not slides design.
I was recently asked the questions about how to remove elements from one of our animated PowerPoint templates. Specifically, our subscriber wanted to remove the globe and keep the rest of the animation from this template. But she also wanted to keep the globe animation in other slides.
This is a great question, and it gives me an opportunity to better explain how the slide master works.
This tutorial applies to PowerPoint 2010, 2008(mac) and 2007.
The Slide Master Explained
The heart of a PowerPoint template is the Slide Master. To view the slide master – choose View>Slide Master.
Slide Master View in PowerPoint
It controls all the default layouts and various pre-designed slides that are included in our templates. Each Slide Master can have any number of layout pages beneath it. Think of the Slide Master as the template for the template. You can have multiple Slide Masters, and each Master can have multiple layouts attached to it. It’s powerful but a bit confusing at first.
Take a look at this screen-shot, the slide at the top is the Master, everything beneath and indented is a layout attached to the Master.
The Slide Master and the attached Layouts
Adding and Subtracting Items from the Slide Master
An element or image placed on the Slide Master is copied to any layout page attached to the Master. (There is a way to hide Slide Master graphics on the attached layouts. This is explained at the end.) So in our example, if you remove the globe from the Slide Master, the top slide in the illustration above, it is also removed from all the layout pages of the template.
That’s great if you don’t want the globe to appear anywhere in the template, but the original problem was we wanted the globe animation to appear only on select slides, not get rid of it completely.
There are a couple of things you could do at this point.
1. Cut the animation from the Slide Master and then Paste it into the individual layouts where you want it to appear.
Any element you place on a layout slide, will only appear in your presentation when you choose that layout. This is a fine, but if you start adding elements to the layouts, it can quickly get confusing where the final resting place for that element is. Is that picture on a actual slide, on a layout, or is it on the Slide Master?
2. Duplicate the Slide Master
This is my favorite option. Because you can have multiple Slide Masters in your template, you can duplicate the Slide Master.
Choose ‘Duplicate Slide Master’ from the menu after you right click top of the Slide Master. Now with this new Slide Master, in our example, you can have a complete set of new layouts without the globe animation, and a complete set with the animation.
A second Slide Master is created with the globe animation removed.
Now after exiting the Slide Master view, you have a completely new set of layouts available to you in the normal PowerPoint view.
Your new Slide Master layouts now appear when you select Layouts
Hiding Graphics Used on the Slide Master
You may notice that by deleting the globe from the slide master that the globe still exists on the Title Slide Layout. This is because the Title Slide Layout has its own graphical elements and all the elements from the Slide Master are hidden.
The Title Slide Layout is hiding the graphics from the Slide Master.
If you right click on the layout you wish to edit, you can choose ‘Hide Background Graphics”. This effectively removes all the graphical elements from the Slide Master. In this example a different version of the globe animation has been added directly to the Title Page Layout so the template has another look.
Hide Background Graphics to remove Slide Master graphics from layout pages.
One note of warning, if you hide the background graphics you will need to copy and paste any images or videos you wish to continue to use directly into the layout you are modifying.
In Closing
It can be confusing, but once you have worked with the Slide Master and it’s layouts it gets pretty easy. Just remember when editing our templates, first start editing on the Slide Master. If you cannot remove or change what you want there, then move on to looking at the attached Layout slides. If your still have questions, feel free to contact our customer support.
This blog is managed by the creative artists and owners of PresenterMedia. We'll show you how our templates work and give you reviews of new PowerPoint features and applications. We'll also share our PowerPoint knowledge through tutorials and examples.
