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questions for you PowerPoint users

I asked Entourage questions last time, so it's PowerPoint's turn ...

  1. Do you use slide themes? If not, why not?
  2. Do you use a built-in theme, one that was given to you (say, a theme your company requires you to use), or one that you made yourself?
  3. Do you ever tweak a theme? What changes do you make?
  4. Do you settle on the same theme (or small set of themes), or do you use lots of different themes?
  5. Do you have a favourite theme in Office 2008? Least favourite?
  6. What do you like about the built-in themes? Dislike?
Published Wednesday, September 03, 2008 3:03 PM by nadyne
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Comments

# re: questions for you PowerPoint users

I must note that I use it for scientific presentations, so — no company-wide theme.

1) Yes. Themes are like styles — they let one keep everything simple and uniform.

2) My colleagues and me use the same theme for more than 5 years, I don't know where it came from — blue background with something like a little puddle, and waves running around, yellow letters. I think, one of my colleagues borrowed it from a ppt file he found online some years ago. It's quite easy to read.

3) Yes, yes I do. Depending on how many material I must present, I might change some fonts, some colors — mostly to make things bigger, simpler and more readable.

4) Same theme for years.

5 and 6) I like "Office Theme" pretty much and "Exhibit" isn't that bad. They're clean (especially the white one) and are easy to read. And "Revolution" is the worst one — people usually use white or gray fonts with it.

So, I'd like to see more scientific-oriented themes (our blue one get kind of old), and that doesn't mean "themes with molecules and clipart microscopes". Something highly contrast, with a lot of free space in it.

Thursday, September 04, 2008 2:39 AM by Boris

# re: questions for you PowerPoint users

1 - Not really, they look really nice, though.

2 - I usually use the plain white background. Dull, I know.

3 - Usually I switch fonts to Rockwell, and usually make them bigger.

4 - I usually use the same theme.

5 - Favorite: Meridan (love the bold, simple colors) Least favorite: Forte (reminds me of a PowerPoint 97 theme).

6 - Excellent starting points, that look like they were from a design department. It would be nice if it was easier to make my own from some clip art or photos...

//k

Thursday, September 04, 2008 12:50 PM by macfixer

# re: questions for you PowerPoint users

1.  No, but I may now that I just learned about them.

2. No, my company specifies a standard theme that was developed in-house.

3.  Yes, modify the size of he default text box to fit that last line on the same page and often reduce the font size of the title so it will fit on one line.  Modify background colors on he rare occasion I can use a built-in theme.

4.  See #2.

5.  Fav- Breeze  Least Fav- Codex

6.  Like- Clean starting points.  Dislike-bright (hideous) background colors that beg to be changed.

Thursday, September 04, 2008 9:35 PM by Mike

# re: questions for you PowerPoint users

Hello Nadyne,

To answer your questions:

  1. Do you use slide themes? If not, why not?

Uhhh, you mean "document themes", those options in the Formatting palette, right? Honestly, no. The reason why is because I'd never used them before in previous versions of PowerPoint (did they even exist before?), and I'm used to just creating my own color scheme. But now that you drew my attention to it... it looks like a useful feature, and I might use it a little more.

  2. Do you use a built-in theme, one that was given to you (say, a theme your company requires you to use), or one that you made yourself?

At work, I'm forced to use the corporate template... more a background than a color scheme, really, since we use PowerPoint 2000-2003 for Windows there, no Macs.

  3. Do you ever tweak a theme? What changes do you make?

Not yet.

  4. Do you settle on the same theme (or small set of themes), or do you use lots of different themes?

Ditto as above.

  5. Do you have a favourite theme in Office 2008? Least favourite?

Hmm, well... there are quite a few of them, aren't there... My main issue with these themes is really just how to make use of them. Let's say I just have a title placeholder, a text placeholder and a few shapes on the screen. If I change the theme colors, the shape colors and the background color may change, but not the text. So I go into the edit feature, and notice all these wonderful Accent 1, Accent 2, Accent 3 options... and I wonder, "How in the heck do I assign an accent color to something?" I guess these are the theme colors that you access from the Fill Color button, right? Well, that kind of makes sense, but it's not immediately obvious. The thing that's less obvious, however, is the fact that changing a background style using the "Slide Background" option in the formatting palette may also alter the color of your shapes. So there is this strange relationship between the document theme and the slide background, some weird kind of synergy going on there that I can't fully comprehend, doi.

  6. What do you like about the built-in themes? Dislike?

Actually, aside from what I mentioned in question #5 above, I think they're rather clever. It took me a little while to figure out the connection between the fill color palette and the theme colors, though.

Thursday, September 18, 2008 8:43 AM by Jeff

# re: questions for you PowerPoint users

what font size should a powerpoint have?

Friday, October 03, 2008 1:38 PM by jojo

# re: questions for you PowerPoint users

@jojo - The easy answer is that you should use one of the built-in themes for your slides, and then stick with the default font size that they use.  The themes are built for ease of use and readability for the people sitting in the audience.  

Here's a link that takes you through using themes in PowerPoint:Mac 2008:

http://mac.microsoft.com/MacOffice/UARedir.aspx?MODE=pv&CTT=InContent&srcid=998a9fbe-7608-4485-8abb-109381bf32a81033&ep=4&locale=en-US&usid=c7b3b1b8-41fc-4971-a93c-dde72ce22fbd&clr=99-3-0&target=8d2bf072-82cd-4a4f-905e-8b11fa9156731033

You can access it directly through the PowerPoint:Mac help by searching for "design great-looking documents with themes".

Friday, October 03, 2008 2:36 PM by nadyne
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