Turn the snap to grid and snap to object options on or off

Turn on the snap-to options

1. On the Home tab, in the Drawing group, click Arrange, point to Align, and then click Grid Settings.  Tip   You can also right-click on an empty area of the slide (not a placeholder (placeholders: Boxes with dotted or hatch-marked borders that are part of most slide layouts. These boxes hold title and body text or objects such as charts, tables, and pictures.)) or the margin around the slide, and then click Grid and Guides.
   
2. Do one or both of the following:
   
   • To position shapes or objects (object: A table, chart, graphic, equation, or other form of information. Objects created in one application, for example spreadsheets, and linked or embedded in another application are OLE objects.) to the closest intersection of the grid, under Snap to, select the Snap objects to grid check box.
   • To position shapes or objects to grid lines that go through the vertical and horizontal edges of other shapes or objects, under Snap to, select the Snap objects to other objects check box.
   
   

  Notes  

• To temporarily override the snap-to options, hold down ALT while you drag the shape or object.
• If you want the current settings in the Grid and Guide dialog box to be the default settings for all presentations, rather than just this one, click Set as Default.
• If the Snap objects to grid check box is selected, you can draw in straight lines when you draw a freeform shape. 

Turn off the snap-to options

1. On the Home tab, in the Drawing group, click Arrange, point to Align, and then click Grid Settings.  Tip   You can also right-click on an empty area of the slide (not a placeholder (placeholders: Boxes with dotted or hatch-marked borders that are part of most slide layouts. These boxes hold title and body text or objects such as charts, tables, and pictures.)) or the margin around the slide, and then click Grid and Guides.
   
2. To turn off Snap objects to grid or Snap objects to other objects, clear the respective check box. Note   If you want the current settings in the Grid and Guide dialog box to be the default settings for all presentations, rather than just this one, click Set as Default.
   
   
   http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA102352611033.aspx
   

PowerPoint Tips - Drawing with shapes

You can duplicate a Shape by holding down Ctrl and dragging the shape to a new location.
You can use the format object to format many objects by double clicking it.

PowerPoint 2007 Short-cut Keys

There are a few short-cut keys that I have been wanting for a long time, but I didn't know they were available.

Group - CTRL + G
Ungroup - CTRL + SHIFT + G
Paste Special - CTRL + ALT + V

Create a better PowerPoint template

PowerPoint’s default blank template is annoying! It really needs work. And with more and more people using white backgrounds, you’re probably using the blank template more often. Here’s what to do to make a better template.
Here are the steps:

1. Open a new presentation file, which uses the default blank template. In 2007, it’s the default blank theme.
2. Press Shift and click the Normal view icon to enter the slide master. Note: In PowerPoint 2007, to change the slide master for all layouts, click the larger layout at the top and format that. (Formatting an individual layout only affects that layout.)
3. Titles are usually centered by default; and because they are different lengths, their left side is different for each slide. It’s better to left-justify the titles and they’ll stay in the same place and give the magical appearance of changing without moving. Click in the title placeholder, and click the Align Left button on the Format toolbar. (In PowerPoint 2007, right-click in the title placeholder, and click the Mini toolbar’s Align Text Left button.) You may want to left justify the title slide also.
4. Some titles are 1 line and others are 2 lines. You’ll see the titles jump down when you display a 2-line title after a slide with a 1-line title. Instead, give them a vertical justification of bottom and that bottom left corner will stay steady. Double-click the placeholder to open the Format Placeholder dialog box. On the Text box tab, set the Text Anchor Point to Bottom. Click OK. (In 2007, right-click the placeholder and choose Format Shape. Click the Text Box category and set the Vertical alignment to Bottom. Click Close.)
5. By default, titles are in Title case, which means that the first letter of most words is capitalized. The initial cap slows down reading; I suggest using Sentence case, in which only the first word of the title is capitalized. This isn’t a setting; just avoid capitalizing all the words in the title.
6. When setting the font size for titles, if some of your titles will be long, make the text size smaller. The title text doesn’t need to be much bigger than the slide text. The default is 44, which severely limits the amount of text you can fit. I suggest using 40— or even 36 if your titles are very long. Select the text and use the Formatting toolbar (mini toolbar in PowerPoint 2007) to change the font size.
7. Another thing you can do if your titles are long is to make the text placeholders wider. You can drag one “notch” to the left and to the right.
8. Since you should have some idea of the color of your background, make sure that your title and body text is legible against it. Very legible. Use black or dark blue text against light backgrounds and yellow or white text against dark backgrounds.
9. Delete the 4 levels of sub-bullets; you should never use them.
10. Get rid of the footers, too, they just distract from your main point and are too small to read any way. Just select and delete. If you want slide numbers, though, leave the bottom right footer. Move it way over to the right. You now have room to make the slide text placeholder larger by dragging its bottom edge down.

When this is done, save the result as a template so that you won’t have to make these changes again. Here’s how:

1.  Return to Normal view.
2. Click the Save icon.
3. From the Save as Type drop-down list, choose Design Template (PowerPoint Template). The folder should automatically switch to the default Templates folder.
4. To keep the default template, insert a name in the File Name text box. I use MyBlank.
5. Click Save.

 Thanks to Ellen Finkelstein for this great post

Create a theme in PowerPoint 2007 that changes colors

When you place AutoShapes on the slide master in PowerPoint 2003 and then change the color scheme, those AutoShapes don’t change their color. Only AutoShapes that you place on a slide (as opposed to the slide master) change their color.

However, in PowerPoint 2007, when you place shapes on the slidemaster and change the theme colors, those shapes change color. That is, if the colors of the shapes are available from the current theme colors. (I’ll explain what this means in a minute.) This feature makes it easy for you to quickly and change the look of a presentation completely just by changing the theme colors.

Check out Ellen Finkelstein's website for how to do this.

Putting Flash in PowerPoint

1. Write down the location of the SWF file you want to use.
2. Choose View>Toolbars>Control Toolbox.
3. Click the Hammer button (More Controls).
4. Choose Shockwave Flash Object from the menu.
5. Drag a box across the screen to get the desired size and location.
6. Right click the box and choose Properties.
7. In the Properties window, click the top line, Custom. Then click the ellipsis at the right.
8. In the Property Pages dialog box, type the location of the SWF file that you wrote down earlier. Use the full path.
9. Set the other parameters, if you wish, for example, Quality: best; Scale: show all; Window: window.
10. Click Embed movie if you want to make sure it’s always included with the PP presentation.
11. Click OK.
12. Close the Properties window using its close box.
13. Choose Slide Show view to see the movie. If your movie didn’t appear in Normal view, it will appear when you return to Normal view after running the slide show.

Related Tips:
Match the movie background to the background of your PowerPoint template/presentation.

If the Flash movie doesn’t play, open the Properties window again and look at the Playing property. If it says False, click Playing, then the down arrow and change the Playing property to True.

Note: PowerPoint can’t recognize any mouse clicks on top of Flash object, so don’t make the Flash object the full size of the slide so you have some area to click to the next slide.


There is a well-known bug that automatically changes the Playing property to False if the Flash movie is not set to loop. Here are two solutions to this problem:

Save the presentation as a PowerPoint Show

This is the simplest method.

1. Reset the Playing property of the SWF file(s) to True. To do this, select the Shockwave Flash object, right click it and choose Properties. On the Playing row, click so you see a drop-down arrow, then click the arrow and choose True.
2. Save the presentation as a Show. First save your presentation, then choose File > Save As. From the Save as Type drop-down list, choose PowerPoint Show (*.pps). Keep the same file name and click Save.

From now on you can play the presentation by opening the .pps file and the Flash movie will always play. 

Create some Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code to control the Playing property

This method is more complex but lets you present from the original presentation file. Use this method if others will modify the PowerPoint presentation.
Follow the same steps to insert the Flash movie. After step 10, uncheck the Loop checkbox. Now follow these steps to create the VBA code:

1. On the Control Toolbox toolbar, click the View Code button. The Microsoft Visual Basic window opens.
2. Choose Insert > Module.
3. In the main window, enter the following code, where the number in the 3rd line after the word "Slides" is the number of the slide containing the Flash movie. (Thanks to Christopher Contois at www.2cinteractive.com for reminding me of this point. Don't forget to customize the slide number!)
4. That's it! Return to your presentation and play it through in slide show view to test it.

Sub OnSlideShowPageChange()
Dim obj As ShockwaveFlash
Set obj = _ ActivePresentation.Slides(2).Shapes("ShockwaveFlash1").OLEFormat.Object
obj.Playing = True
obj.Rewind
obj.Play
End Sub

Note: If you put lines 3 and 4 on the same line, omit the underscore.)

Note: Be careful about the 4th line of code because it hard codes the slide number (2 in the example). Therefore, if you move that slide or add or delete slides before it, you need to remember to change the slide number.

As you can see, the code simply sets the Playing property to true, rewinds the movie, and plays it.
Note: if you want more than one Flash movie in a presentation, you need to give additional movies unique shape names in the 4th line of the code. The 2nd one could be "ShockwaveFlash2" for example. Then, in the Properties window, give the object the same name in the Name row (which is just under the Custom row).
Next, go to the slide containing the Flash movie. From the Drawing toolbar, insert a blank Action Button. In the Action Settings dialog box that opens, choose the Run Macro option, choose the macro from the drop-down list (“OnSlideShowPageChange” in the previous example), and click OK. With the action button still selected, type some text on the button, such as “Play Movie” to label the button. Now, whenever you need to play the movie in slide show view, you can simply click the button.
Your macro security settings may stop the VBA code from running. Make sure it isn't set to high. (Tools > Options > Security > Macro Security.) In addition, coding in the Flash file itself may stop the movie from playing.

This post has been modified, but was originally taken from http://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/

Making Better PowerPoints

I am a educational course developer for a large software company. I develop PowerPoints on a daily basis. I am constantly looking for tips ans tricks to make my PowerPoints better. I am happy to share my knowledge with you in this blog.