Microsoft

SmartArt graphics add color, shape, and emphasis to your text and data, and they're a snap to use. You can easily try out a variety of SmartArt graphics to see which one works best for getting your point across.

Check out this article to see how you can download new layouts for SmartArt graphics from Microsoft Office Online for free.

Did you know that you can easily use themes from other documents, including documents with customized themes and documents from different 2007 Microsoft Office system programs?

Take this training course to learn how to create a custom slide layout, add a picture (logo) to your layout, use the custom slide layout in your presentation, and save the custom slide layout for reuse in future presentations.

Here are the top 10 ways that PowerPoint 2007 helps you increase your productivity and improve collaboration with others.

With PowerPoint 2007, you can produce better results faster by taking advantage of the rich feature sets presented in the Office Fluent user interface. The overall look and feel has been streamlined, and new technologies have been introduced that enable you to "browse, pick, and click" rather than select from dialog boxes.

Although visual elements should never overpower the contents of your PowerPoint 2007 presentation, some visual elements such as objects and shapes might help you convey your message in a “picture is worth a thousand words” way.

Check out the wide variety of new and revised templates that you can use with PowerPoint 2007

When you want to make a change to the look of all of the slides in your presentation, you don’t need to change each slide individually. You can make the change once on the slide master.

In a presentation that is associated with a newly customized slide master, you can add blank slides (and then add content later), move slides that contain content into your presentation from other presentations, or import slides from a Slide Library.

As you deliver your presentation, here is how to move from one slide to the next, move to a previous slide, or move to a specific slide.

You can insert a picture behind your entire slide as a background or behind part of your slide as a watermark.  You can also insert a color behind your slide as a background. By adding a picture as a background or watermark to one or all of your slides, you can make your Office PowerPoint 2007 presentation unique or clearly identify your presentation sponsor.

Follow these instructions to change the look of the outside border of a text box or shape, or remove the border.

This demo shows you ways to add animation and sound effects: by using the built-in animation effects in PowerPoint, by creating your own customized effects, and by adding sound.

For information about how to effectively customize your message for your audience, check out this exerpt from Robert Lane's book Relational Presentation: A Visually Interactive Approach.

PowerPoint allows you to easily create and distribute photo albums, and you can add action to your electronic photo albums through the use of panning and zooming effects.

What can you do to lessen the common fear of public speaking and make your presentation experiences more productive and fun?

Take this training course to learn how to change a slide background using a color or picture, customize the theme of your presentation, and save your customized theme for reuse in future presentations.

Digital signatures play a central role in software security. This article explains what a digital signature is, and how you can check to make sure that a digital signature is trustworthy.

Microsoft Office System MVP Stephanie Krieger talks about how to use the tools that PowerPoint provides to make your presentations far better than you might expect.