PowerPoint 2010's audio and video features are increasingly used in presentations, making it difficult for people with hearing disabilities to fully comprehend them. Today, we're pleased to announce the release of STAMP, a new add-in which lets PowerPoint 2010 users quickly and easily add closed captions to video and audio files, making PowerPoint presentations richer, more understandable experiences for people with hearing disabilities.

Every holiday season we roll out a new animated holiday e-card created by Microsoft MVP Sandra Johnson. The card is just one example of how she uses PowerPoint and her design skills to dazzle others.

Read more to learn how Sandra made this card, and for steps on how to make this card your own and share it with your friends.

PowerPoint's not just for showing off fancy charts at board room presentations, especially this time of year when the calendar ticks down. Open PowerPoint at your desk (if it's open, you're working, right?) and tick off some holiday tasks. With these holiday templates, you can write that end-of-year newsletter, create an e-card or photo album, or go lunar.

One great thing about my job on the graphics team at Microsoft Office is that I learn something every day from customers who are using our programs. For example, I was reading Geetesh Bajaj's (PowerPoint MVP) latest Indezine article and discovered that PowerPoint can insert random text into a slide--quickly.

This is the thirteenth in a series of quick video tips for business managers using PowerPoint by guest blogger Bruce Gabrielle, author of Speaking PowerPoint.

It's 10:57am and you're rushing to print the handouts for that important executive meeting. But what's this? Some of your slides, which looked gorgeous on screen, look awful as printed handouts. The white borders on your tables, and on your images, are coming out as black lines.

This scenario is easy to avoid. Just follow this workaround.

-- Bruce Gabrielle

A PowerPoint presentation whiz in a workshop told you not to use more than three bullet points on a slide. She also said that adding visual images in PowerPoint--especially photographs--will tell your story better than words, charts, or tables. Photographs of people can be neighborly. They can be like a welcoming handshake with your audience. The next time you're putting together a presentation, you try adding one.

You want to share your presentation with colleagues in other locations -- by publishing it on the Web, or sending it via email or on disc. But you're concerned that what they see won't look the way you want it to.

Relax! Follow this simple procedure to keep your worries at bay and ensure that your slide presentation displays the way you intended it to (even if some of your colleagues don't have PowerPoint installed on their computers), by turning your presentation into a video.

Using SmartArt graphics, you can create a pyramid with text rows. But what if you want an upside down triangle, or a circle, or a hexagon instead? Here are a couple of neat tricks for creating your own custom shapes with table rows inside.

This is the twelfth in a series of quick video tips for business managers using PowerPoint by guest blogger Bruce Gabrielle, author of Speaking PowerPoint.

I'm very pleased that the PowerPoint Blog team invited me back to share an article, written earlier this year on my personal blog, called The PowerPoint Blur Trick. You can add texture or blur the background of a picture using the Artistic Effects feature in PowerPoint 2010, leaving the foreground crisp and clear.

Today's post comes courtesy of Ric Bretschneider, PowerPoint MVP, former PowerPoint Senior Program Manager, and now contributor to the PowerPoint Blog. Take a look at Ric's blog at http://ricbret.wordpress.com/ .

I recently attended the 2011 Presentation Summit in Austin, Texas. Rick Altman, the host of this ninth annual conference for presentation professionals, does an excellent job recruiting industry experts who provide guidance on designing, building, and delivering presentations. There are so many wonderful ideas that I reaped this year, it's difficult to share everything. But read on for a few key takeaways to help you build great presentations, and to learn more about the Summit.

According to Rick, "The most important objective of the Summit is to give presentation professionals a community to connect in. Yes, we cover presentation skills and message crafting - but community is the key."