Time for the free Christmas PowerPoint template link roundup: First, Get Your Christmas Lyrics. Paste the lyrics into PowerPoint, and you're set to lead the chorus. Next, Download Christmas PowerPoint Templates. All sorts of free Christmas PowerPoint Template Oh, the Christmas season is upon us yet again. You can find lyrics to your favorite Christmas carols online.

The BBP  story template helps you organize and outline your thoughts for a presentation before working with PowerPoint. I recently created a presentation on the value of Twitter to businesses, and worked through the sequence of Act I: the Setting, Role, Point A, Point B and Call to Action slides. Act I sets up your story with key elements to identify the setting, main character and conflict.

During the last month I have seen some seriously challenged PowerPoint Slide decks. But I’ve recently noticed there are still pockets of stubborn “old school” PowerPoint users who simply refuse to change. Most people know what a poorly constructed and staged PowerPoint presentation can be. Part 1: The Seven Deadly Sins   For a while there things were looking up in Silicon Valley; people were using more pictures, less text, more color, and congruent graphs.

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 templat It really needs work.

Many of you have probably heard of a variety of “methods” to creating a PowerPoint presentation.  What I want to accomplish in this post is to simply expose you to a variety of PowerPoint design methods so you can choose which method (or aspects of them all) you subscribe to.   I believe that effective presentation design is about freedom.  PowerPoint templates have confined presenters for years to slides riddled with bullet points. I’ve often been asked, “What’s the best method?”  Along those same lines I also hear, “How many slides should I have? 

On Monday evening, I ran a PowerPoint Karaoke contest at the Cape Communicators Toastmaster Club. We had about 10 people who were each given a random deck of PowerPoint slides, and they were given about three minutes to present a presentation using their slides. It is a great way to both practise your impromptu speaking skills, and to have some practise with PowerPoint. This is the first one that I have ran, and it was a fantastic evening! It was all in good fun, and we had some very interesting takes on the topics.

It is imperative that presenters get training on the basics of communicating a clear message and presentation skills in order to understand that PowerPoint should just be a tool to support their message, not the message itself. Presenters not being prepared The second most commented area was presenters who were not prepared either on the topic or the slides. That is why I suggest using the break down and zoom in technique to explain complex visuals. Poor or non-existent template design The final issue that was popular in the comments was the impact template design plays on the

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! Simply change the fill color to all boxes as needed for the template custom color scheme. 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:

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: Today, our current approach to PowerPoint is: - Overloading our audiences with too much information - Throwing in everything but the kitchen sink - Just doing a data dump - Usually not communicating a good story - Being too generic - one deck fits all - Not succeeding at helping an audience remember key messages - Creating decks that don't get used, or just one or two slides are pulled - Not producing a crisp communication package Where would

On the Road: My Experience Teaching PowerPoint   This is a guest post from Kirk Mossing, PowerPoint™ Consultant and Trainer.   What do Audiences REALLY Think About PowerPoint?   Travelling across the nation and working with clients like Google and Stanford University, I routinely ask my students one key question: “As an And 100% of the time I hear: “There are too many words on a slide.” Followed up with: “I can’t read it.”