Note: Due to limitations in older versions of PowerPoint, video backgrounds are designed to be used in PowerPoint 2010, or PowerPoint 2011 (Mac) or Keynote 09 (Mac).

Covered in this video:

• Download and Insert a Video Background in PowerPoint
• Using the Selection Pane to select or hide items on a slide
• Using the Animation Pane to control the visibility of items on a slide over time.

View all our video backgrounds for PowerPoint.

While there are several options available for converting a PowerPoint presentation into a format that can be watched anywhere. Probably the best option when dealing with a presentation containing animation, video or sound is to convert the entire presentation to a video file.

PowerPoint 2010 makes this easy with a Save As Windows Media Video function directly as an option when you save the presentation.  Many of the videos on our website were originally saved as .WMV files from PowerPoint 2010.  Keynote 09 also has an Export feature that allows you to save your presentation as a easily watched Quicktime video.

Here is a sample video from PowerPoint 2010:

After you have the final video, you could easily use a service like YouTube to display your final presentation video.

If you are using a different version of PowerPoint, you can still save your final presentation as a video by using a screen capture program.  I use Microsoft Expression Encoder 4′s Screen Capture program to record my video tutorials. If your presentations are less than 10 minutes long, you can get by with the free version of Microsoft Encoder 4.

For Mac users not using Keynote 09, TechSmith, the makers of Camtasia, has a nice screen recorder called Jing.  You can record up to 5 minutes with the free version.

Here is more on creating a video of your presentation from Microsoft Office’s blog.

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:

Download Flip4Mac Here.

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.

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.

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.

You can download the templates used in this video here.

Mac PowerPoint 2008 and 2011 instructions.

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.

Check Keep Design of Original Slides

Behavior:

A .PPT or .PPTX file downloaded from the Internet will not open up in PowerPoint 2010.  PowerPoint 2010 gives the error: “PowerPoint found a problem with content”

This error occurs because some browsers flag a file downloaded from the Internet as potentially dangerous and set a security block on it.  In some cases, PowerPoint 2010 does not know how to handle the security block.

If this is affecting you , the good news is there is an easy work around.  After you have downloaded the file, follow these quick steps.

1.Find the icon for the downloaded file, right click on it and choose “Properties” from the menu that appears.

Right-click on PowerPoint file and choose Properties

2. In the Properties Dialog Box that appears, look at the bottom of the window to see if there is a security block present.  Click “Unblock” and then Apply.

Click Unblock to remove the security block

3. Open the file in PowerPoint 2010 and enjoy!

From what I can tell this affects only some PowerPoint 2010 users, and I would think that the bug will be fixed in a future update for PowerPoint 2010.  A special thanks to PresenterMedia member Jason N. for bringing this to our attention.

Download animated templates for PowerPoint 2010.

The animated PowerPoint Template used in this tutorial.
Download animated templates here.

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.

Good Presenting!

Art Holden

PresenterMedia Partners with Microsoft's Office.com

You can check out our complete selection of  Templates for PowerPoint 2010 here.

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.

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.

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