[techtalk] Tech-Talk: PPT/G-Slides - New Feature "Design Ideas" Creates Amazing Slides

Wed Dec 5 14:29:28 PST 2018

Greetings and welcome to this week’s edition of Tech-Talk!

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 This Week's Topic: POWERPOINT / G-SLIDES
1. VIDEO ... New Feature "Design Ideas" Creates Amazing Slides
2. ARTICLE ... New Feature "Design Ideas" Creates Amazing Slides
3. COMMUNICATING ... Don't give away your power ... skip the justification

[Design Ideas]

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PPT / G-Slides: New Feature "Design Ideas" is Amazing
Intermediate

I was working on a new PowerPoint presentation shortly after I upgraded to Office 365. When I added an image to a slide, something happened that I had never seen before! To the right of the slide a new column appeared generating cool design ideas using the image I inserted.

[Design ideas]

[Design idea]

I hadn't even picked a PowerPoint theme yet... or added any text. And I wasn't even sure how I was going to use the image on the slide, but the new ideas sparked my creativity instantly!

I picked a design idea, added some text, and in less than a minute I had a stunning slide to start my presentation!

Then something else happened… the Design Ideas tool detected the text I had added and offered even more slide layouts to choose from giving me more options.

Not only did it incorporate the text I had initially entered, but it pulled colors from the image to use in the layout choices. And it used some of the artistic effects that PowerPoint offers to change the look of the picture.

[Design ideas]

How Can You Get This Feature?

I'm sure you may be excited to peek at this cool new tool if you don't know about it already. However, it's only available in Microsoft 365 subscriptions, PowerPoint 2016 and newer. (See below for other options if you're using older versions).

NOTE: This option must be turned ON. If you have Microsoft 365 or PPT 2016 and the Design Ideas feature does not engage, go to File, and select Options at the bottom of the menu. In the General tab, check the box to turn on PowerPoint Designer. And if you want more "suggestions" (as we'll discuss below in this article) turn on the Office intelligent services also.

[turn it on]

Let's Get Creative!

To use this new intelligent tool that automates the creation of slides and presentations, there are a few ways to engage it.

Insert an Image to Auto-Generate Ideas

The easiest way is to just insert a Picture into a slide.
·     The Design Ideas task pane will appear to the right of the screen.
·     Scroll through the options and select a design layout.
·     Add some text and the Design Ideas pane will reveal new options.

TIP: We started with a blank theme, but if you have a theme selected, your Design Ideas will incorporate the colors and style of it. Changing your theme? No problem! The Design Ideas will morph with new suggestions.

Or Find Design Ideas Manually

While you're adding content to a slide, Design Ideas works in the background to match your content to creative layout ideas. NOTE: These are different from the slide layouts you're used to when adding a new slide.

To engage the Design Ideas tool...

·     Go to the Design tab
·     In the far right, in the Designer section, click on the Design Ideas icon.

[Design ideas]

·     Even in a slide with text only, this intuitive tool uses "Office intelligent services" (as we turned it "on" in a step above) to suggest layout options. It detects the meaning of words on your slide and suggests icons and images that correlate.

For example, in the image below you'll see at the top a simple slide with only a heading and a bulleted list. The four images underneath it are only half of the cool suggestions that Design Ideas gave! It even incorporated icons to match the concepts in the bulleted list.

You can see below that the first slide is what I wrote, the others are the suggested treatments for the text.

[design ideas]

Additionally, when you pick a theme, or change themes, and then refresh the Design Idea suggestions by clicking the icon, the ideas will adjust to the new colors and layout.

In this presentation, we didn't change anything from the above example, except to select a theme. The Design Ideas suggestions changed appropriately.

[theme change]

Not Just for Pictures

When we first started playing around with the Design Ideas function, we thought it was just for pictures… but it offers much more!

When you add any of these items, it gives suggestions for layout and cohesiveness with your theme:

·     Images
·     Shapes
·     Charts
·     Tables

Below, we added a Table to our blank slide. To see new design choices, we went to the Design tab and clicked Design Ideas icon on the right to see new choices. The theme we used has turquoise as the base color, so the options incorporated that shade in the suggestions.

[table ideas]

In addition, Design Ideas can turn text such as lists, processes, or timelines into an easily readable SmartArt graphics.

We started with a simple list of dates and actions... and after picking a theme and engaging the Designer Ideas, we ended up with this:

[plain list]

[smartart timeline]

Don't Have Office 365 or the Newer PPT 2016?

If you have an older version of PowerPoint and want to enhance your presentation, there are other options to make your slides have a greater impact. Look at some of these Tech-Talk articles for inspiration (Use the login info at the top of this article to access them.)

·     Make Your Messages POP with Typographic Art. Read This Article<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001tCHcy5NHWpNarFCANqiepFMFu7sqrBUAss_j3UGdRhHPfDMnIcD29-ZdRKTFURxFjdDZr7hx3DommaVUnjBkKsJx0PnjvEgS71mnX7N8bjDuUuBkGmvY0i0RrMiyBDqNWi_F0B4JNq-ONAoDCl-i8xf6z1aanCZLThrtBjplHGSZPlg3kltO3orHAYgPYXCp-r5OeyVaJq6NqQ06wz-SKtiCzaQZUFvT&c=q666bVwCyNueIJ0VQrfzwLdCmoJRfCYm37gYzrHIw3SMKAkflzdOxg==&ch=yIP282XVwFOnwslcJzVy7_9E-FqgjzSloPR8VVfVsibz--xBw5eN_Q==>

·     Use Photos as Your Background. Read This Article<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001tCHcy5NHWpNarFCANqiepFMFu7sqrBUAss_j3UGdRhHPfDMnIcD294eHj6XnOlXOHg8sRBqK-A4NvaWSGE-y88RI7c_GIFKf0JnAk8a8LQuYZRSPgGMyD5lQoQpmktM-CygnJVeKxS1fE0XXqvuUd4R8nWLxOS3eZAbqtx_BFSPx1u2QIUEOPLeNz-14bfrblsk7e3rp_Ug=&c=q666bVwCyNueIJ0VQrfzwLdCmoJRfCYm37gYzrHIw3SMKAkflzdOxg==&ch=yIP282XVwFOnwslcJzVy7_9E-FqgjzSloPR8VVfVsibz--xBw5eN_Q==>

·     Stylizing Your Images in PowerPoint (and Word). Read This Article<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001tCHcy5NHWpNarFCANqiepFMFu7sqrBUAss_j3UGdRhHPfDMnIcD294eHj6XnOlXOy5gApXnfi8EcDR9qYndy5M2vmZIlGWHl69xduHWjgzjApqRFTtSDNd-d2eVLpeKJEyCtjHRGzui8FjL1fBWGOi2sFmZLw3tS00CVg4Vw8RFZ3E5T6T9emz3mKKe-txAE&c=q666bVwCyNueIJ0VQrfzwLdCmoJRfCYm37gYzrHIw3SMKAkflzdOxg==&ch=yIP282XVwFOnwslcJzVy7_9E-FqgjzSloPR8VVfVsibz--xBw5eN_Q==>

Google Slides

Although Google Slides and PowerPoint have very similar capabilities, there is, currently, no equivalent to the Design Ideas function in Slides because it's brand new.

Here are some things you can do using G-Slides to get fresh designs:

1. You can create the presentation in Office 365 or PPT 2016 and upload it to Google Slides. If you lose some of the design effects (it can happen sometimes), there is a way around this problem.

On the PPT slide that has the special design that is not converting, save the whole slide as an image - a .jpg file. (Use the Save As function and pick the image option. Then you can import that image into Google Slides. (Need more detailed directions for this, see this Tech-Talk.com article<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001tCHcy5NHWpNarFCANqiepFMFu7sqrBUAss_j3UGdRhHPfDMnIcD294eHj6XnOlXOqdZWTTTpb0kWCnpbi0yBfmxPMpr-Xvri8FODS_LX6exGpoP_A1JS3L8aYFr_gkDejUOewM72dnZNmrt0YYDCCzuIj7za124G1Supjd-M5ykHqaRNG9mGJavMy1h9wuJr&c=q666bVwCyNueIJ0VQrfzwLdCmoJRfCYm37gYzrHIw3SMKAkflzdOxg==&ch=yIP282XVwFOnwslcJzVy7_9E-FqgjzSloPR8VVfVsibz--xBw5eN_Q==>.)

2. Don't have access to PowerPoint? You can get creative slide themes at SlidesCarnival.com. There you'll find no charge Google Slides and PowerPoint templates with fresh designs.

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Communication: Email and Talking
Power talk - skip the justifications

I'm writing an email to colleagues, alerting them to my plan of action. I want to be respectful and not come on too bossy so I may attempt to soften my intent.

Have you ever found yourself starting a sentence with...

"Just wanted to ... let you know, tell you, ask you about..."

How often have you diminished the power of what you want to say by starting with "Just wanted to..."?

How do each of these sentence starters come across to you?

Just wanted to let you know that … the meeting has changed.

Wanted to let you know that …. the meeting has changed

Letting you know that … the meeting has changed.

Does each one feel a little more authoritative? You don't want to come across bullish, but at the same time, you don't want to diminish your ideas by starting with an undermining justification.

I heard an expert on power talk speak about this. If you want to let someone know about something, tell them that.

·     You don't need to tell them you wanted to let them know, tell them what you want them to know.

·     Don't slip in the little word "just". It lessens the impact of what you have to say and makes people think you don't feel confident in your position.

TIP: It's OK if you type "Just wanted to tell you..." in an email, but catch yourself before you send it. Go back and edit out the diminishing verbiage. Be confident in your communications. Others will respect that.

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