Powerpoint Books for Dummies

Dave Ferguson and Janet Clary reminded me of an important addage… It’s about the learner, stupid! They were more polite than that, of course. Please read the comments and Dave’s incredibly helpful blog post . I’m still processing their comments, but they helped a lot. My original thought, and one I need to revisit, is having the students bring one of their original PowerPoints . Preferrably a smaller one. Do the initial basic conversion DURING the training. For most of the students, this should take care of the basics of using Captivate. There is no reason for me to …

Marshal McLuhan
Slide 163: Powerpoint , audio, video, podcasts, simulations to
augment lectures
Slide …

Thinking aloud…..advice and recommendations welcome….. ———————————- We have been getting progressively more demand from both within our IT group and from outside departments to convert their 100+ slide information-heavy PowerPoints into 100+ slide information-heavy Captivate projects that they can put on our LMS. In response – the Director asked me to help develop a plan that would make our SMEs more independent. Essentially, letting them do the conversion themselves. Of course – I twitched a little. The thought of having hundreds of dull …

I had a conversation recently with someone that referenced a post I did back in June (It Takes A Lot Of Images). I showed this capture of my prepared images for 1 presentation:

There is a lot there, especially considering it was all for a 90 minute meeting. But my point is that if we go back to PPT 2000 the number of images would easily be twice as many. Back to PPT XP/2003 it would have at a minimum a 3rd more.

PPT XP/2003 with the semi-transparency features eliminated a large number of accent graphics that needed to be prepared in Photoshop and imported. Now with PPT 2007 I now do a lot of the image preparation (custom bevels, strokes, reflections, shadows, etc.) right in PowerPoint. So with each new version I accomplish more working directly in PPT, minimize the production time and have more material for tutorials and tips for ThePowerPointblog!

- Troy @ TLC

YawnBuster, just launched by Harbinger, “brings alive your PowerPoint slides with Group Activities such as
audience polls, games, group exercises and competitions. Now you can
get your audience to think, enjoy, participate and identify key
takeaways quickly and easily.”
With YawnBuster, you get Flash templates for group activities, which are embeddable right inside PowerPoint . You can sign up for a free trial to download.

Important: You must install all critical Windows updates and all Office updates before installing the Compatibility Pack. Otherwise it may not install or run correctly. In fact, an incomplete installation of the Compatibility Pack causes this same error message. You may be able to double-click the file to open it, though.

How to update PowerPoint 2003

As mentioned, before you can install the Compatibility Pack, you need to make sure your copy of PowerPoint is up to date.

• From the main menu bar, choose Help, Check for Updates.
• This takes you to The MS Office Online Downloads page
• Near the top of the page, you’ll see a “Check for Updates” link under the Office Update headline. Click it.
• Install any suggested Critical Updates.

Note: If you have disabled Online Content, Check for Updates won’t work. To re-enable it:

• Choose Help, Customer Feedback Options.
• Click Online Content in the list on the left.
• Put a checkmark next to “Show content and links from Microsoft Office Online”.
• Click OK.
• Quit and restart PowerPoint. Help, Check for Updates should now take you to the correct web site.

Other reasons you might see these error messages

The file was created in PowerPoint 2002/XP or later and password protected

See PowerPoint 2002 (XP) vs PPT2000/PPT97 incompatibilities
The password protection feature was introduced in PowerPoint 2002 (XP). Earlier versions can’t open password-protected files. No Mac versions of PowerPoint can open password protected files.

Possible solutions:

• Have the file’s author open and resave the file without a password.
• If you have access to a computer with PowerPoint 2002 or later, try using it to open the file. Depending on the password protection level, you may be able to view and print the file, even if you don’t know the password.

Microsoft has a knowledgebase article, You receive a “PowerPoint can’t open the type of file” error message when you open a PowerPoint presentation in a version that is earlier than PowerPoint 2002 that offers a few more details.

The file’s on a network drive and is open in a Mac version of PowerPoint