Microsoft PowerPoint now has its very own fan page on Facebook, which means you now have an easy way to get free tips about your favorite program, share ideas about the ways you use PowerPoint, and get answers to PowerPoint-related questions that you’ve always wanted to ask. The nice thing about joining the PowerPoint fan page is that it integrates nicely with Facebook’s existing news feed and notification system. You can choose to see Help & How-to tips in your Facebook news feed automatically...

Office 2007 introduced users to the Ribbon, a menu replacement that made application functionality easier to find and faster to use in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. However, a common user request was for a level of customizability beyond adding commands to the Quick Access Toolbar. The Quick Access Toolbar with the Selection Pane command added Well, it’s a whole new Office in 2010. A recent post in the Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering blog announces the direct answer to that request: a customizable...

Our early new year's resolution? To help you find the great templates (including 2011 calendar templates) that we have, and to let you know that they're free. As in "no cost to you". This isn't a limited-time offer. They've always been free, and will continue to be.

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You want to meet in real time to create or refine a PowerPoint presentation, but often the people with whom you need to meet cannot be at the same place at the same time. With the growing usage of messaging and audio/video conferencing software, people are collaborating from multiple locations. Whether you’re a student who needs to finish a class project with your peers, a small business owner who wants to share a presentation with clients, or a family member sharing vacation photos in a slide...

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

Tables with rounded corners are friendlier, more contemporary, more web 2.0. But you can't create them automatically. Here's how you can achieve this effect using a handful of workarounds that include shapes, gradient colors, and background fills.

-- Bruce Gabrielle

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In PowerPoint 2010, use the Sections feature to organize your slides, much like you'd use folders to organize your files. You can use named sections to keep track of groups of slides, and assign sections to colleagues to make ownership clear when you collaborate. If you’re starting with a blank slate, you can even use sections to outline the topics in your presentation.

Take a look at this video to see how it works:

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I've been invited to attend a series of free presentation webinars, hosted by Ellen Finkelstein, PowerPoint MVP (Most Valuable Professional), author, and presentation skills trainer. I'm really looking forward to the series, so I thought I'd pass the word along.

The webinar features top industry presenters tackling commonly misunderstood topics about presenting and designing presentations. 

Read on for details about this series.

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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.

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Back in the day, clear and concise text was the key to a good presentation. But the game has changed. People expect your slides to dance. Well, not really dance, but they certainly expect some animation here and there. That's why we've added two new lessons on PowerPoint animations to our PowerPoint skills builder--a free video training series. 

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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.

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