We are happy to announce that PresenterMedia has partnered with Microsoft’s Office.com as a featured PowerPoint template provider. Several of PresenterMedia’s templates for PowerPoint are now available through Office.com. The release of PowerPoint 2010 makes it easy and fun to incorporate multimedia, video and animations into your presentation.
PresenterMedia Partners with Microsoft's Office.com
You can check out our complete selection of Templates for PowerPoint 2010 here.
It’s here. The release version of PowerPoint 2010 arrived today as part of Office 2010 in stores for everyone. If you’re thinking about making the jump to PowerPoint 2010, we think you’ll be well pleased. We’ve been working with the beta version of PowerPoint 2010 since January and have found it to be well worth it.
If you are used to PowerPoint 2007, moving to 2010 is so easy and so worth it. The ribbon which Microsoft introduced with 2007 remains and its even easier to use. Microsoft has also given PowerPoint an awesome set of multimedia tools, including the ability to embed video in your presentations.
It’s this new multimedia support that really has excited us here at PresenterMedia. PPT 2010 allows us to stretch the definition of what a PowerPoint template is. Now we can utilize video and 3D effects in ways never possible before in PowerPoint.
Check our our complete selection of PowerPoint templates for PPT 2010. These all featured animated and static slide layouts.
Example of text and elements over video in PowerPoint 2010
Download this animated template here.
This is Part 1 of a series about building PowerPoint Templates.
Creating a Custom Color Theme in PowerPoint
A great template for PowerPoint can make building a presentation so much easier and quicker. I thought I would explain the steps I go through in building templates for PresenterMedia. In this tutorial I will explain the method for creating a custom color theme in PowerPoint. I am going to be using the newest version of PowerPoint 2010, but the steps are virtually the same for PowerPoint 2007.
While creating a color theme or palette is easy, choosing good colors to use can be difficult. So I am going to start with explaining how I choose colors to use in my templates. If I’m working for a client I typically try to start with a color in the the clients logo or other reference material the customer provided.
Lets take this sample logo for example.
Sample logo to use in a PowerPoint Template
I am going to build a color palette around the bright blue rings. In choosing colors for a presentation I like to choose a variety of neighboring and complementary colors to the main color I have chosen. I have a couple of favorite sites I use to generate complementary colors for my templates. A great tool is the Color Scheme Chooser at Websitetips.com.
I opened the logo in PhotoShop and determined the RGB value of the rings was 0 112 255. Using the online color generator I was given these complementary colors related to main color.
Screen Shot of on-line Color Chooser
Now that I have a good selection of colors to choose from, I go to PowerPoint and create a custom color theme. Under the “Design” tab on the ribbon, choose “Colors > Create New Theme Colors”
Create a Custom Color Theme
This opens up the various customizable colors the presentation will use for everything from your text to background colors to the colors used in your charts and graphs. From the list of colors I generated, I will choose the colors to use as my accent colors and as my Text/Background – Light/Dark 2. I typically leave the first two settings alone as you almost always want a black and white setting.
Custom Color Panel in PowerPoint
Once you have filled in the color values for the various accent colors, give your new theme a name and click save.
There you have it, you’ve created a custom color theme that you can use for your template or any other presentation you may make. This is especially helpful if you have a set of corporate colors you need to use for business communications. Once you’ve created the color theme for your company you can use it over and over again.
Here is a sample of the color theme I created:
Sample slide using custom colors.
I will continue this series of tutorials on building PowerPoint templates by discussing how to set up your slide master and page layouts.
Good Presenting!
Art Holden
Check out the templates for PowerPoint I’ve created here.
We recently had a question about how to remove the animation from one of our animated PowerPoint templates. We utilize the themes feature of PowerPoint 2007 and 2010. In most of our animated templates for PowerPoint we have included two complete themes. The first theme is the animated theme, but there is also a complete set of layouts (a theme) which has all the animations removed and replaced with static imagery.
So how do you change between one and the other you ask? It’s really easy. Simply right click on top of the slide you wish to change the layout on and choose “Layout” from the menu that appears.
Here is a screen-shot of what you should see:
Choosing a Layout theme in PowerPoint 2007 and 2010
Most of our animated PowerPoint templates come with up to 19 pre-designed slide layouts. Then each of those layouts has an animated and a static versions.
All of these layouts can be edited to your needs in the Slide Master view. Find the slide master under the View tab.
I’ve found that its best to save your animated slides for special occasions where you need to call attention or you want to add a wow effect. For most of your slides it is best to stick with a static page. With PresenterMedia templates its easy to switch between a static and animated slide with a simple click of the mouse.
View our animated templates for PowerPoint here.
Good Presenting!
Art Holden
We just had a nice lady from the UK ask about changing the color of an image. For example, she wanted to change to color of this superhero’s cape to match different departments for her presentation.
Image: Super Hero with a Red Cape
If you are using PowerPoint 2007 or newer, you can easily recolor the image to any of your theme’s colors. This is a great way to make the graphics in your Presentation look custom made and professional.
1. Open up PowerPoint and insert an image into your presentation.
2. Click on top of the image and select “Format Picture”
Step 2: Choose Format Picture
3. Choose the Pictue Color Option and then choose Recolor.
Step 3: Choose Picture Color Options
In PowerPoint 2010, you will get a nice display of what the image will look like with each option. With PowerPoint 2007, you are given a simple color picker so there is a bit more trial and error involved.
That’s all there is to it. Have fun recoloring images!
Here is a sample of the Superhero in a couple of different colors.
Final Result - Recolored Images in PowerPoint
