Time for the free Christmas PowerPoint template link roundup: First, Get Your Christmas Lyrics. Next, Download Christmas PowerPoint Templates. All sorts of free Christmas PowerPoint Template madness abounds online. This is close, though: Twelve Christmas PowerPoint Backgrounds from Philip Martin Eleven Oh, the Christmas season is upon us yet again. You can find lyrics to your favorite Christmas carols online.

Weighing in at 350 pages, the book includes a new CD with a bonus chapter, an updated BBP Story Template and Storyboard Formatter, plus PDF versions of ground rules, checklists and technical guidelines. Although the book updates BBP for PowerPoint 2007, even if you have PowerPoint 2003 you'll still find the book a signficant resource to guide you through the BBP process. I'm pleased to announce that the latest edition of Beyond Bullet Points has just arrived! The new book is a thorough revision of the first edition, including 7 new presentation examples, expanded explanation of key concepts and many new tips and techniques you can apply to your BBP presentations.

That's headline news for those of you using BBP, because the approach requires that you write complete sentences in the story template, which then become the headlines of the frames of your PowerPoint storyboard. (Read Does it really matter what you put at the top of your PowerPoint slides? Absolutely, according to researcher Michael Alley, who tested two designs for teaching slides on two groups of students -- one design with the conventional category heading at the top, and another with a complete sentence headline at the top.

The reality is that PowerPoint is culture, and at any organization it is a specific culture of pre-determined templates, fonts and expectations. I recently gave a pilot workshop at a large corporation that is considering adopting BBP training on a wide scale. I asked the group where they are with their current PowerPoint approach, and where they would like to be, and they came up with this list:

If you develop PowerPoint templates, this new add-in from OfficeTips ( PowerPoint MVP Shyam Pillai ) is a MUST HAVE. Adding a custom color scheme is a tedious process that is now super easy, just fill in the swatches with the colors needed for the template, click apply, done! Install the free 'Color Swatch' add-in (PPT 2007, 2010) and it adds these 2 options to the ribbon: Click 'Create Swatch Slide' and this slide is added to the presentation: Simply change the fill color to all boxes as needed for the template custom color scheme.

One such project was a PowerPoint template for the upcoming ThunderCats movie. Then I pulled in a number of images and started developing the basis for the template backgrounds in Photoshop. After a number of revisions and input from client the background art was imported into PowerPoint 2007 and all template options set. Always fun to work on projects that allow me to creative license to create something super dynamic. My first stop was lots of research to familiarize myself with this cartoon series I overlooked in the 80's.

PowerPoint’s default blank template is annoying! 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. Open a new presentation file, which uses the default blank template. It really needs work. Here are the steps:

If you’re looking for an easier and faster way to format your BBP story template, Alexis Brouard has created a couple of new tools that will make your life easier. The free version of his BBP Toolbox is an Add-In for Microsoft Word 2007 that will take care of reformatting your story template so you can manually import it into PowerPoint. The paid version of the BBP Toolbox is an Add-In Imports your unformatted story template from Word Applies custom layouts to the new slides according to their location in the story template

Here is my sample slide, using PPT 2007's Civic template. On a recent show I was asked (minutes before needed onscreen) to display a timer for some group interaction. Of course the answer was 'no problem'... and I got to work.

Last week, the two authors released an exciting, full-color book called Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit . Actually, this action-packed new release is more "kit" than a "book", as it contains a CD chock full of music, pictures, templates, themes, and more. If your organization has upgraded to PowerPoint 2007, make sure your presentation design approach keeps pace with a 2008 look and feel. How do you tell your boss or colleagues that they need a makeover? I'm not talking about their clothes, hair, or makeup.