How to compress images in Word and Powerpoint

Inserted images in Word and Powerpoint may appear small, but they are actually stored as their original size unless compressed. This can cause printing to take a long time and needlessly increase file sizes. Thankfully there is a way to compress images in both these applications.

Office 2000, XP and 2003

Open the view menu and select 'Pictures' from the 'Toolbars' sub-menu. The picture toolbar, as shown below, should appear.

Click on the 'Compress pictures' icon (highlighted in orange on the above picture).

This opens the following window.


Select 'Web/Screen' for the highest level of compression, or 'Print' for a lower level. Make sure that 'Apply to' is set to 'All pictures in document', and click 'OK'.

You may then receive the following warning. If you do, click the 'Apply' button.



Office 2007 and 2010

Click on any image to enable 'Picture Tools', and click the 'Format' tab shown below.


Click the 'Compress Pictures' button (highlighted in orange on the above picture), to open the following window.

Select whichever level of compression best suits your purposes. Make sure that 'Apply only to this picture' is not selected, and click the 'OK' button.

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Posted in: PowerPoint,Printing,Word Processing

Free PaperShow for Teachers Demo

Join me on Monday November 29th at 10 am EST for a free demonstration of PaperShow for Teachers.Find out how this innovative presentation tool can be used in the classroom, boardroom, or for webinars. Click here to sign up.PaperShow for Teachers is a cost effective tool to spice up lessons, presentations and webinars. Learn how you can use PaperShow for Teachers for brainstorming sessions or for capturing ideas in the classroom. Once you have captured the information you can easily share it as a PDF file. PaperShow for Teachers also lets you annotate images or your PowerPoint slides to make for richer and more engaging presentations. So sign up for this free webinar and learn about the power of this cost effect presentation tool. Click here to sign up.  Once you sign up you will receive a link for the webinar. Hope to see you there! Brian

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Posted in: Papershow,PaperShow for Teachers,PowerPoint,presentations

ShowMate-PowerPoint Presentations from your BlackBerry

The mobile application space has really been incredible to watch and while the Apple App Store gets a lot of press there are some really unique applications in the BlackBerry world as well. As someone who does a lot of presentations, I was intrigued by a product called Impatica ShowMate, which would allow me to present my PowerPoint presentations directly from my BlackBerry Curve. The ShowMate itself is extremely small and portable(3.5" x 2.5" x 1") with built in Bluetooth that you plug into your VGA cable that is attached to your data projector. Once your Impatica ShowMate is connected to your projector you can launch your PowerPoint presentation from your BlackBerry and view it. Your BlackBerry communicates to the ShowMate via the Bluetooth connection and allows you to control your slide presentation directly from your BlackBerry.

When you order the ShowMate, in the box you will find a CD to Install the Impatica Software, the ShowMate itself and a USB power cord along with some international receptacles that you can use when you travel abroad. In order to use the ShowMate the first thing you will need to do is install the Imaptica for PowerPoint software on your computer as well as the Impatica Presentation Viewer on your BlackBerry. I was able to download the Impatica PowerPoint Viewer directly over the air directly from my BlackBerry using my BlackBerry browser. While the CD to install the Impatica for PowerPoint software is in the box, Impatica suggests that you go to their website and download it to insure that you have the latest version. I was very familiar with the Impatica for PowerPoint software having done a review of it several years ago and within minutes I was up and running. The Impatica for PowerPoint software, formats your existing PowerPoint presentations (.ppt and .pptx) so that when they are outputted, can be run from your BlackBerry. The software significantly reduces the original size of your PowerPoint presentations while maintaining transitions, links, and animations. Once you have converted your presentations (works with Macintosh & Windows) with the Impatica for PowerPoint software the software lets you easily transfer your presentation directly to your BlackBerry via a USB Cable.

Once your PowerPoint presentation lands on your BlackBerry you can preview it using the Impatica PowerPoint Viewer. Making the Bluetooth connection from my BlackBerry Curve to the ShowMate was fast and easy to do. When I projected my PowerPoint presentation all of the links, transitions, and animations were preserved as if I was running it from my computer. I should mention all of the text and images were clear with excellent fidelity. Using my BlackBerry I could move forward or back through the presentation if I needed to. While doing my presentation I could also access my slide notes, if I choose to. Having access to a really portable way to present is now possible- just add this solution to the 3M MP 120 pico presenter and you could leave your laptop at home. So if you are looking for a really portable way to do your presentations from a BlackBerry then you need to look at the Impatica ShowMate. For more information about the Impatica ShowMate click here.

Editor's Note: You can also use the ShowMate to present any of your applications or contents on your BlackBerry. In order to use ShowMate in this manner you can download the free Impatica Connector application to your BlackBerry over the air. Once installed you can now connect via Bluetooth to the ShowMate and see the view the contents of your BlackBerry and through the data projector. When used in this manner, the ShowMate makes for a great training tool!

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Posted in: 3m,Blackberry Curve,Impatica 4 for PowerPoint,MP 120,pico projectors,PowerPoint,research in motion

Customising the Quick Access Toolbar

In a recent post about adding buttons to the toolbars in Microsoft Office applications I pointed out that there is no way to add buttons to the new 'ribbon' that has replaced the old toolbars. Nevertheless, it has come to my attention that there is still one customisable toolbar in the latest versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint. This is called the 'Quick Access Toolbar'. If you wish to add extra buttons to this toolbar you can do so by following the instructions on the 'Microsoft Office Online' pages. [http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA012341051033.aspx]

I do not have a copy of MS Office 2007 myself, so I do not know whether you can add a button for the useful 'Past Special' function. If you have a copy of any of the Office 2007 applications, please let me know how you have got on when adding buttons to this toolbar.

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Posted in: Excel,PowerPoint,Word Processing

Putting new buttons on toolbars in MS Office (before the 2007 version)

A while ago I published an article that suggested that rather than printing directly from web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, it is better to copy the information that you want into a word processor and print it from there. In that article I mentioned the use of the 'Paste Special' in Word, which enables you to remove formatting from the information that you paste. In this article I will explain how to put a button for 'Paste Special' onto the toolbar in Microsoft Word 2003 and other earlier versions. This technique can also be used to add any of the other available buttons onto any toolbar.

Open up Word and right-click on one of the toolbars, which are at the top of the screen below the menu and look something like this:


From the menu, select 'Customize...', which will open a dialog box. Click on the 'Commands' tab.


Select 'Edit' from the left-hand menu, because the 'Paste Special' tool is listed in the 'Edit' menu. Scroll down through the list on the right-hand until you see 'Paste Special' then left-click on it and hold the mouse button down. The mouse pointer should change to an arrow pointing at a rectangle with a square to the bottom right, which will have an X in it initially.

Move the pointer up to the toolbars and release the mouse button when it is in a suitable position: next to the normal paste button for example. You will notice that the mouse pointer changed appearance again when you hovered over the toolbar, with the X being replaced with a + to let you know that the new button can be placed there.

Your toolbar should now look something like this:

If you wish to remove a button from the toolbar, follow the instructions above for opening the 'Customize' dialog, but rather than drag from the dialog box to the toolbar, click on the button you wish to remove from the toolbar and drag it into the dialog box.

This process also works in the other Microsoft Office applications such as Excel and PowerPoint. With Office 2007, Microsoft have replaced the old tried-and-tested menu and toolbar arrangement with something called 'ribbons' (as pictured below) and there is no way to customise these in the same way as detailed above.

This is an edited version of a post that first appeared on Bloody Computer! on 19th November 2007.

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Posted in: Excel,PowerPoint,Word Processing

Adobe Presenter 7- Making eLearning Come to Life

While attending the NECC 2008 Conference this summer, I had the opportunity to sit through several of the Adobe presentations to see what new applications were on the horizon. Adobe was tauting their latest application called Adobe Presenter 7 which is a plug-in to PowerPoint. I would like to thank Roman from A & R Edelman for providing me with a review copy of Adobe Presenter and for his support. In a nut shell, Adobe Presenter 7, lets you convert your legacy PowerPoint applications into a Flash based presentation or PDF file. That being said, there is a lot under the hood of Adobe Presenter 7 which can turn your PowerPoint slides into a dynamic eLearning environment complete with video, navigation, attachments, quizzing, and audio. PowerPoint 2007, Adobe Presenter 7 installs a new Ribbon with all of the features. Adobe Presenter 7 is part of Adobe Acrobat 9 Extended version. Using the Help menu it was rather easy to build my first Adobe Presenter 7 presentation which included video, Flash based video tutorials that were authored in Captivate 3, and audio. Using a webcam I was able to include a video of myself introducing my company and services, which gave my piece a nice touch. Adobe Presenter 7 allowed me to customize the look and feel of the final project and even let me include PDF attachments which can make this a great way to deliver eLearning material on the web.

Having created Flash based software tutorials in Captivate 3, I could easily embed them in my PowerPoint slide presentation with complete control of how they behaved with the controllers. When thinking of the future of training, I for one am very excited by the fact that I can now embed Flash based videos directly into a PDF file which can be viewed with nothing other that the free Adobe Reader 9. This is a new feature with the release of Adobe Acrobat 9 this spring. Think about that for a moment. That is very powerful! With nothing more than Adobe Acrobat Reader 9, your students or clients will be able to take advantage of video and audio with the confidence it will just work. As long as you have Flash installed on your computer you can be sure that your presentation will deliver the content. According to the surveys more than 98% of all computer users have Flash installed. This is very exciting for me just thinking of all the possibilities of building engaging and interactive environments for others to learn new skills.


In the presentation that I created you will see how all of these elements have come together. I was able to include video from my webcam, audio from a lapel microphone, and Flash video tutorials, along with some training PDF files. What I'm most impressed about the product is just how well it wraps everything up and when you are finished you get a very professional looking presentation to share with the world. I found Adobe Presenter 7 easy to learn to use and without so much as a manual I was creating this highly interactive eLearning materials. Adobe Presenter 7 is a wonderful integrator, helping you to bring all of the pieces together to make for an exciting and interesting elearning experience. I for one really enjoyed putting this project together. Click here to view the presentation, right within your browser or if you want you can download the presentation as a PDF file here. The PDF file is 11 megabytes and will take a little time to download. This will give you some idea of the power of Adobe Acrobat in its current release. You will need to download Adobe Acrobat 9 Reader to view this presentation. Adobe Presenter 7 also allows you to create quizzes for the purpose of assessment, with a variety of different types of question formats that can be integrated into your learning management system (LMS). I will tackle this feature in another blog post later next week. You can download a trial version of Adobe Presenter 7 from the Adobe website.

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Posted in: Adobe,adobe presenter 7,Assistivetek,brian friedlander,captivate 3,elearning,PowerPoint

Keyboard shortcut of the week: Sub and super

Occasionally we have to make use of subscripts or superscripts in our documents. The most common use of these is with dates, as in 20^th. There the 'th' is a superscript; that is, smaller text that is raised. Subscripts are most often used in technical language such as if we refer to water as H₂O. There the subscript is the '2'; smaller text that is lowered.

To switch to subscript mode or to change the selected text to a subscript, hold down the Control key and press the = key. This same combination will also set selected subscript text back to normal and switch out of subscript mode, as with the keyboard shortcuts for bold or italic mode.

To switch to superscript mode or to change the selected text to a superscript, hold down the Control key and the Shift key, and then press the = key. As with subscripts the same combination switches back to normal text to if presses again.

This tip applies to Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, but unfortunately not to Excel.

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Posted in: Keyboard shortcut,PowerPoint,Word Processing

Putting new buttons on toolbars in MS Office

A while ago I wrote an article that suggested that rather than printing directly from web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, it is better to copy the information that you want into a word processor and print it from there. In that article I mentioned the use of the 'Paste Special' in Word, which enables you to remove formatting from the information that you paste. In this article I will explain how to put a button for 'Paste Special' onto the toolbar in word. This technique can also be used to add any of the other available buttons onto the toolbar.

Open up word and right-click on one of the toolbars, which are at the top of the screen below the menu and look something like this:


From the menu, select 'Customize...', which will open a dialog box. Click on the 'Commands' tab.


Select 'Edit' from the left-hand menu, because the 'Paste Special' tool is listed in the 'Edit' menu. Scroll down through the list on the right-hand until you see 'Paste Special' then left-click on it and hold the mouse button down. The mouse pointer should change to an arrow pointing at a rectangle with a square to the bottom right, which will have an X in it initially.

Move the pointer up to the toolbars and release the mouse button when it is in a suitable position: next to the normal paste button for example. You will notice that the mouse pointer changed appearance again when you hovered over the toolbar, with the X being replaced with a + to let you know that the new button can be placed there.

Your toolbar should now look something like this:

If you wish to remove a button from the toolbar, follow the instructions above for opening the 'Customize' dialog, but rather than drag from the dialog box to the toolbar, click on the button you wish to remove from the toolbar and drag it into the dialog box.

This process also works in the other Microsoft Office applications such as Excel and PowerPoint.

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Posted in: Excel,PowerPoint,Word Processing

Sounds & videos in PowerPoint on a different PC

If you are setting up a PowerPoint presentation that has audio or video content, make sure that the media files will be available when you give the presentation. For example, you have a slideshow that plays an mp3 when a certain slide is shown. You must make sure that the mp3 file will be accessible wherever you want to show the presentation, that is, if you are using a USB memory stick make sure that the media files are on the stick before you create the link to them in PowerPoint, or if you are using a CD-Rom, make sure all the media files are in the same folder as the PowerPoint file and then burn them all together in the same folder on the CD-Rom.

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Posted in: PowerPoint

Impatica 4 for PowerPoint

While PowerPoint has become a standard in many classrooms for creating presentations and multimedia projects it is often more difficult to share these presentation over the web. Many of us who want to embed photographs, audio and transitions to our PowerPoint presentations soon learn that when we attempt to put them on the web that the files become incredibly large and cumbersome to work with. This is where Impatica 4 for PowerPoint comes in. It is an extremely handy utility that not only compresses your PowerPoint files but optimizes it for streaming over the Internet. Impatica 4 for PowerPoint often can compress your PowerPoint files by up to 95% which really impacts on the time it takes to view them on the web. Moreover, Impatica 4 for PowerPoint will convert your PowerPoint files into a small Java application so that your PowerPoint presentation can be viewed by anyone who has a Java enabled browser. This means that you don’t have to be concerned if the individual viewing your presentation has a compatible copy of PowerPoint. Right within the browser, individuals can view the presentation complete with graphics, sound, narration and transitions as it was intended to be viewed. As a faculty member at a college, I am always concerned about others reusing my intellectual property and with Impatica 4 for PowerPoint, I know that individuals will only be able view my PowerPoint presentations but that they can not edit or make changes to it.

You might be saying to yourself well how does this work? The truth be known, using Impatica 4 for PowerPoint is a very easy application to use. To use Impatica 4 for PowerPoint you simply double click on the icon and it brings up the application. You are now ready to add your PowerPoint presentation. You can accomplish this by clicking on the Add button or better yet, simply drag your file into the application to get started. Impatica 4 for PowerPoint is available for both Macintosh and Windows and works equally well on both platforms.

Some of the new features for Impatica for PowerPoint version 4 include:

* Support for the PowerPoint 2007 file format
* Support for Intel-based Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows Vista computers
* Support for Palm OS viewing and projecting with the Impatica ShowMate
* Adjustable, scalable playback window
* Full screen viewing capabilities
* Enhanced logging
* Support for PowerPoint 2007 multi-stop gradients such as rainbow
* Expanded audio support in the PowerPoint 2007 file format (any audio format supported by QuickTime)
* New graphics and color scheme for user interface
* New installer mechanism for Windows computers


Once you have added the file you can customize how your viewers will interact with your PowerPoint presentation by having Impatica add playback controls. By clicking on the Media and Animation Tab you can easily configure your video and sound that viewers will be accessing.. You may need to play around with audio compression feature in Impatica to derive the best results once your PowerPoint is streamed to the web. One of the really nice featured that is built into Impatica 4 is its integration with Blackboard. If you are a college faculty member you will really like this feature. Impatica 4 for PowerPoint is capable of creating an archived file for Blackboard that adds a significant compression factor and allows you to upload the final file compressed. When the student is ready to view the file Blackboard is able to decompress the file so the student can view it.

Once you have set all of the features you simply click on the Translate button and your PowerPoint presentation is processed. Once your PowerPoint presentation has been processed you can now connect to your server from within Impatica and upload the files. Having a built in FTP client is really a fantastic feature and makes it very fast for uploading the files. Once your have uploaded your PowerPoint presentation Impatica creates a html file and places all of the necessary files on the server so that your presentation can be viewed with any Java enabled browser. This point should not be missed. Now that you have used Impatica for PowerPoint and placed the files on the web anyone with a web browser can view your files and don’t need to have PowerPoint installed on their computer. Likewise, if you are concerned about putting your PowerPoint presentation on the web and giving others access to your intellectual property, then this is the perfect solution for you. Now users can view your PowerPoint presentations, but don’t have access to change it. I have found Impatica 4 to be an easy to use tool that has lots of uses for the work and teaching that I do. If you are using PowerPoint as part of your teaching or professional development then you will want to use Impatica 4 for PowerPoint and give your viewers access to your presentations regardless if they PowerPoint installed on their computer or not. Impatica makes PowerPoint accessible from any browser and compresses it so that they are previewed quickly through any Java enable browser. For more information about Impatica for PowerPoint go to www.impatica.com/offers/inclusiontimes/


If you are interested in supporting the work that I do on the blog, please click on the link above to get special discount pricing. To take a look at a sample PowerPoint presentation that I put on the web click on this link.

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Posted in: Impatica 4 for PowerPoint,PowerPoint

Google Launches its Presentation Application

Google today officially launched its presentation tool that rounds out Google Docs and Spreadsheet. Now it is possible to create a slide presentation and view it on the web or have others collaborate on it. Google Present allows you to upload your PowerPoint presentations that can then be modified or viewed on the web. Pretty cool! What a great tool for classrooms and business folks who need to collaborate or publish the presentation to the web. I hope to be able to look at it more carefully from what I see it looks like Google has hit a home run with their online suite of applications.

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Posted in: Google,PowerPoint,presentation,Presenter