Why I Write in #PowerPoint | HBR + Book Written Entirely In PowerPoint Aims To Reinvent How Businesses Communicate | FastCompany #business #communication


 

When writing business documents (aside from emails), most people turn to word-processing software. That’s not the only option. You can do everything — outlines, drafts, revisions, and even layouts, if you’d like — in PowerPoint or similar presentation programs. That’s what I’ve used to write my books, internal documents, sales collateral, and web copy, for several reasons. READ MORE: Why I Write in PowerPoint | Harvard Business Review

Raise your hand if you like sitting through slide-show presentations. How about reading dense, jargony business documents? These are the staples of modern business communication, and yet they’re enjoyed by precisely no one. Enter Nancy Duarte, CEO of Duarte Design. Duarte thinks she can redesign business communication with Slidedocs, a new concept she defines as “a visual document, developed in presentation software, that is intended to be read and referenced instead of projected.” Think of it as a kind of a hybrid between slide-show presentations and prose documents—but one that eliminates the most annoying qualities of each. Duarte’s new book on Slidedocs, which she wrote entirely in PowerPoint, has just been released as a free download on her website. READ MORE: Book Written Entirely In PowerPoint Aims To Reinvent How Businesses Communicate | FastCompany

GTA Tips & Tricks: PowerPoint Presentations & Wondershare – Embedding YouTube Videos versus Inserting as Files


If you want to get fancy and use YouTube videos in your PowerPoint (PP) presentations this is the tip for you!
Using Wondershare to download YouTube videos and then insert into PP is more advanced and might be the most useful information, so scroll down below for that section.
Embedding Videos
Embedding YouTube videos is not complex yet sometimes they fail because PP does not like the embed code.
Press Share under the video to grab the code. Check “Use old embed code.” Then press the Embed button. Copy the code in the box. Note: Don’t use the tinyURL link. These links have never worked for me in PP.
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On the Insert tab in PP, click on the Video drop down menu and choose “Video from Web Site”. Paste the embed code into the box that appears. Cross your fingers and hope it works and a video appears in your PP!!  Note that you will not be able to adjust start time and end time for embedded videos. Instead you need to Insert them as files. See below for a way how.
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WonderShare AllMyTube
There is a free trial of WonderShare for YouTube for both Windows and Mac OS X 
(www.wondershare.com/pro/youtube-downloader.html)
The free trial allows you to download YouTube videos as .FLV files (flash video). In YouTube if you hover over the right corner of a video a Download button will appear, once Wondershare is installed in your computer.  Make sure you choose in preferences in the the AllMyTube application the folder where you want your files to be downloaded and saved.
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You will need to convert the files from .FLV to either .AVI or .WMV.  I’m not going to discuss file conversion in this post. There are many and often operating system specific. Search for one, install and convert the .FLV file. (Alternatively you can purchase the full WonderShare YouTube program, which has a file converter built in. I would recommend this for heavy users of PP.)
Once you have your .AVI or .WMV file make sure the filename has no special characters or quotations. PP does not like the characters and an error will pop up.
Go back to this icon on the Insert tab and choose “Video from File…” from the menu. Navigate to the file and click on Insert.
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A Video Tools Menu should show up when clicked on a video in PP.  Note the Crop tool on the right on the Format tab. Very useful!!!
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This is the Playback tab of Video Tools. Clicking on the Trim Video icon allows you to specify the Start Time and End Time for your videos. Another very useful feature.
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Ok, that’s it!   Now you can elevate your PP presentations to the next level.