PowerPoint gets too much attention! Everyone who delivers PowerPoint presentations does more than just that -- they work on Excel and other applications all the time, research data, create reports, interact with their boss, clients, subordinates, and others -- and delivering a presentation is just a small part of their everyday work. Yet, how everyone else within and outside an organization looks at them is mostly perceived through their PowerPoints, and the skills they use to deliver these PowerPoint presentations. We all agree that this importance that PowerPoint gets is entirely disproportionate to its abilities! Yet, the fact is that this is so true, and matters will remain the same way for a long, long, time to come.

So why are we discussing this issue at all? That's because awareness is an important emotion -- just by ignoring the facts, we cannot make them go away. Try to be better with your PowerPoint skills not because you have to show how good you are at PowerPoint, but also to show how good you are at everything else! So that's the thought of this week: PowerPoint's returns may be disproportionate but what you explain through the slides is certainly all your knowledge that you gleam and learn from everything else you do. PowerPoint is just the medium to express that knowledge.

Do you have any questions related to PowerPoint and presenting, or do you want to answer some questions? Or maybe you just want to go and explore! Go to our LinkedIn and Facebook groups, and share your thoughts!

Do let us know how we are doing -- we love to hear from you! Also please do help us improve Indezine by filling in our two-minute survey -- thank you so much! And if you enjoyed reading any content on Indezine.com, please do like them on Facebook and other social platforms, click the Google +1 buttons on all these pages, and tweet them all so that you can share these joys with others -- and keep your feedback coming! Have a fabulous week.

Ppted.com is giving away 5 copies of their Random Ribbons collection of PowerPoint templates. To win, all you need to do is fill in this form. This giveaway ends on July 9th.

Random Ribbons is among our newest collections -- and part of our best-selling series of PowerPoint templates that you can see on Ppted.com. Ppted is a site owned by Indezine.

The winners of the Ppted Swirls giveaway we announced in the last issue are Anita Giddings, Jim Mitchell, Charles Fritz, and David Raymond. Also do check out the feedback we received for the giveaway - thanks to all of you for your kind words.

Tom Bunzel specializes in knowing what other presenters need and how to make technology work. He has appeared on Tech TV's Call for Help as "Professor PowerPoint", and is a featured speaker at industry events each year. Tom is also a "technology coach" and does presentation and video consulting in southern California. Tom's new eBook, Presence of Mind: Journey to a New Operating System is now available online. You can also visit his site, The Presentation Professor and his BunzBlog blog. In this conversation, Tom discusses how you should create a new presentation from scratch, and also his new book. Read this conversation with Tom Bunzel.

Cliff Atkinson sent me a copy of the third edition of his Beyond Bullet Points book, and when you open the book, you'll find that the obvious change in this new edition is a whole new chapter right at the beginning which talks about how a multi-million dollar court case was won by using the principles discussed in Cliff's Beyond Bullet Points book. To paraphrase the entire case in a few small paragraphs can be a challenge -- let me try - and of course, you can get a copy of Cliff's book to read this entire incident in full detail. Read about a landmark trial that involved PowerPoint.

Silhouettes are amazing, and yet so practical to use. They don't tell too much and yet that is sometimes just what you need. Here are some businesspeople silhouettes ready to use within your PowerPoint presentation slides. In the sample PowerPoint presentation that you will download, you will find these silhouettes in both black and white colors, contained within two separate slides. You will also find one more slide that contains some variations of these businesspeople silhouettes applied with some fills, lines, and effects, which will help you to start with. You can edit them further using PowerPoint's fills, lines, and effects to make them appear coordinated with your slides.

Download and use this presentation.

These businesswoman silhouettes are ready to use within your PowerPoint presentation slides -- and have been provided in both black and white colors. Both variations are contained within two separate slides in one presentation that you can download. Copy the silhouettes graphics (clip arts) of your choice from the downloaded presentation, and paste them into your PowerPoint presentation slides. All these silhouette graphics can be used and customized with Shape Styles just like any other PowerPoint shape. You can also paste them into a Word document, an Excel worksheet, or any other program.

Download and use this presentation.

Crop Video
Resize, Rotate, and Flip Videos

Using Custom Textures as Slide Backgrounds
Pattern Fills for Slide Backgrounds
Adding Animation to a Slide Object

Our Ppted.com site is providing you 20% off any PowerPoint template collection -- go to the special landing page on Ppted.com to learn more.

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