- Today we are going to talk about
three PowerPoint features
that meet the tech trifecta,
and blow my clients' minds every time.
(upbeat folk music)
Hello, I am Doctor Echo Rivera
of Creative Research Communications,
and I help academics, scientists, researchers,
and evaluators, communicate their work more
effectively and creatively.
One of the ways I do that is through one-to-one
private video sessions.
My training and technical assistance video calls.
And I almost didn't do this video
because I have a favorite moment
that happens on those calls, and by making this video,
I might not have that moment anymore.
So here's kind of what happens.
We're on our call, I've been showing them a lot
of stuff in PowerPoint, and then the moment arrives.
The moment where I can finally tell them
about this feature in PowerPoint
that they probably haven't heard about before.
It goes a little something like this.
We're in the call and I say "Hey, check this feature out.
"Did you know that PowerPoint could do this?"
And at first people are usually skeptical.
Like, "What is this, is this gonna be complicated,
"or you just really love PowerPoint Echo,
"maybe you're geeked out about it but I won't be."
And, but then I show them the thing,
and they're like "Wait a minute.
"That was so easy."
And I'm like, "I know right?"
And they're like "I'm gonna save so much time."
And then we have a party and then there's fireworks
and we're both just so excited because of this feature.
So, yeah, I wasn't sure if should make a video
about these features, just to let everybody know,
because maybe that moment won't happen on my calls anymore.
But I decided that I would create this video
and let everybody know because over the past few years
of working with a lot of clients,
I've noticed a common challenge that gets in their way.
And it's that people feel like they really can't
possibly learn the tech stuff.
That, you know, some people feel like it's gonna be
too complicated and it's too advanced
and they just can't learn it.
But most people feel more like I'm really busy, right?
Again, I work with academics, and scientists,
and researchers, and everyone's really busy.
So a lot of people are worried
it's gonna be too much of a learning curve
and it's just gonna take too much time to learn it.
And that makes me really sad because it's just not true.
First of all, I know you can definitely learn these things,
but second, they don't take a lot of time.
Which brings me to the tech trifecta.
Have you ever heard of this before?
(hems and haws)
Probably not because I kind of made it up for this video.
So, let's talk about what the tech trifecta is.
Okay, so, a tech trifecta is when a feature,
one, makes you're slides look good,
which is actually important,
two, is easy to do,
and three, saves you time.
When a feature meets all three things
we have officially achieved the tech trifecta
which is actually pretty rare.
So you can usually get one or two of these things
but having all three is really rare.
So let's talk about the first feature.
This is that you can perfectly align objects in PowerPoint.
So I'm gonna show you a video,
and it's gonna go by really fast
because I didn't want this video to be too long
so, make sure you're paying attention.
And I'm gonna show you it in a few different ways.
Okay, so, first, you always select all
of the objects on your slide, so I'm gonna do that,
now hit the arrange button, go to align,
and I'm gonna choose align to the top.
Let me show you again aligning to the bottom.
Again, click everything, arrange, align,
and then align to the bottom.
Let's do it a few different ways.
Okay, click all of them, click arrange,
and then align, and then align to the left.
One more time, click them all, click arrange, click align,
and align to the center.
Ah, how cool is that?
I used to have to like, I would insert a line in PowerPoint
and then manually, you know, move all
of the objects to meet that line.
It was time consuming, it didn't work very well,
it was really annoying to do.
So now, with just a couple clicks,
you can arrange objects perfectly.
All right, feature number two.
You can also perfectly distribute objects in PowerPoint.
So it's actually gonna start the same way,
but the last thing you choose is going
to be a little different.
And there's two options.
You can distribute horizontally or vertically,
and I'm gonna show you both twice, are ya ready?
Okay, again, it always starts with selecting
all the objects, hit arrange, go back to align,
and choose distribute horizontally.
One more time, click all of the objects,
go back to arrange, align, distribute horizontally.
Now let's switch it to vertically.
So click all of those objects,
arrange, align, and distribute vertically.
One more time, click all of these objects,
arrange, align (sighs) vertically.
Ah, so if you can't really tell what is so great about this,
what happens is when you distribute perfectly
you get the same amount of white space between each object.
No more guessing, no more just trying to do it by eye,
it'll be perfect every single time.
Okay, let's talk about the last feature.
Did you know that PowerPoint has built-in, free icons?
And, not only just that, they're not clip art.
They're modern and flat, and really well designed.
Let me show you how to find them.
This is going to be in the insert tab.
So you click insert, and then you go right next
to shapes and click icons.
And then you get this window that pops up,
or it'll be on the side.
And look at all these great icons.
You have a lot to choose from.
I think they're about to add more.
And then you click a few, or just one,
you click insert and there they are on your slide.
And even better, is that you can actually click the icon,
go to graphics format, and change the color.
You change the graphic's fill,
and you can make the icon match your color scheme.
Uh, these are fantastic,
I highly recommend that you use them.
Now, some bad news, icons are not available
in all versions of PowerPoint.
It is available in Office 365.
It's PowerPoint 2016, I'm not sure about,
I think PowerPoint 2019.
Either way, search online
to see if your version should have them.
And if you do search and see that your version
of PowerPoint is listed but you don't actually see them
check in with IT because it does need the internet
to connect to the icon library.
So IT might have blocked it.
So send them an email, reach out to them,
get them to unblock that feature for you,
it is worth it, I highly recommend that you use those icons.
So there you have, that's the tech trifecta.
And three features that meet the tech trifecta
in PowerPoint.
So, whataya think?
Are you excited or did you already know about these?
And most importantly, what other features in PowerPoint
meet the tech trifecta?
Let me know if you know of any,
and maybe I'll make a video about those.
All right, so a lot of people ask me
what I use and how I make my presentations.
So just to give you some stats,
this video was made in PowerPoint.
Even the animations, I'm not using After Effects
or anything like that.
It's Office 365 on a Windows made in November 2019.
All the visuals were free and legally used.
I do not use Google Images, it's such a waste of time
and you don't even find the best visuals that way,
so I found them in other ways.
The walkthrough recording where I show you
aligning everything, I made that ahead
of time using SnagIt.
And this short video had 22 slides.
Now, if you were shocked
I just said Google Images is not efficient
and doesn't even get you the best visuals,
check out my free online course
that shows you haw to create a visual database
not using Google Images.
And, if you are a member of my online course,
then be sure to check for behind the scenes information.
So I'm sharing with you, you know, where I found the images
and the links to the images if I can.
You're gonna be able to download certain slides
so you can click through and check out
how I set up the animations.
And I made a bonus video where I
tell you about how I set things up,
and I explain some of the more advance design
and animation techniques shown in the video.
So, yeah, thank you so much for watching.
If you found this helpful, please like,
and share, and subscribe, and all that good stuff.
Be sure you check out me free online courses
if you haven't already.
And hey, if you are an academic, scientist,
researcher, or evaluator and want
to have better presentations,
well, book me for a group training.
I can train your entire department or organization.
Or book one of those one-on-one calls
I mentioned at the beginning.
Or, hey, I can also just design your presentations
for you if you don't have time.
So, either way, thanks again for watching.
Have a great day, I'll see you in the next video, bye.