The idea of taking one ‘slide’ (or canvas), and inserting a whole load of content in different areas, linked together with visual elements, and then ‘zooming in’ to the content you’re talking about is a really cool way to give some visual meaning to your presentation.

pptPlex Demo Zoomed out

pptPlex zoomed into a slide

pptPlex zoomed into details

There are a few ways of achieving the effect – online presentation software ‘Prezi’ offers both free and paid services, which allow you to build presentations incorporating all the usual elements – text, graphics, and video.

There’s also a PowerPoint 2007 add-in called pptPlex which was originally designed with multitouch interfaces in mind – this idea is going to be big in a few years when multitouch becomes accessible for projection screens.

And finally, if you’re savvy with Flash or Director, or even something like Silverlight, you should easily be able to create a similar effect without the need for third-party software.

Links:
pptPlex Add-on for PowerPoint 2007

Prezi zooming presentation editor

A good Prezi demo video

Here’s a neat way to use these new image effects to create a glossy 3D look for objects in PowerPoint.

1. Create a gradient background with a solid dark colour at the top, and a lighter gradient below the centre – I have used a 4 step gradient to do this:

Gradient Background

2. Insert an image, and a text box, and align the base of each object on the same plane, just below the centre – it’s easiest to align the objects using a drawing guide:

Insert Objects

3. Select the image, and from the ‘Format’ tab in the ribbon bar, choose ‘Reflected Rounded Rectangle’, which should be the 5th preset look in the menu:

Image Effects: Reflected Rounded Rectangle

4. Select the text box, and choose ‘Half Reflection, touching’ from the ‘Text Effects’ menu in the ‘Format’ tab:

Text Effect: Half Reflection, touching

5. Your finished slide should look something like this:

Glossy 3D Slide Example

6. You can create ‘depth of field’ effects by making objects smaller, and moving them upwards, closer to the vertical centre – using a darker shade of colour for text objects also helps to add to the ‘depth of field’ effect:

PowerPoint 3D Depth of Field Text Effect

However, the TV out feature provides a fairly low quality option for display of a PowerPoint presentation, and it may be difficult to view a presentation clearly. Here are a few tips for ensuring that your presentation will show up as well as possible on a television monitor:

1. Use a TV-safe template
Designers of graphics content for television and broadcast use the term ‘TV safe’ to describe an area that’s about 10% inside the edge of the ‘screen’ (slide) in which content should be placed. Some television displays will ‘overscan’ and crop the edges off the image, so it’s worth staying inside this boundary. Here’s a TV safe PowerPoint template to download: TV Safe PowerPoint Example.

2. Use large fonts
Small fonts and fine detail simply won’t show up on a TV monitor. Text should be 16 point and above, and you should avoid using any fine lines for content like shapes, graphs and charts

3. Bold colours and high contrast
A TV monitor won’t interpret the colours you use on your slides as accurately as a computer monitor will, so try and use bold, clearly unique colours – for instance, if you have a bar graph, using different primary colours is better than using shades of the same colour for each bar.

Graph - Poor Contrast

Graph - High Contrast

4. Avoid light backgrounds (especially white)
You might notice that very few TV ads use a white background – this is because ‘white’ requires the TV to fire all colours on screen at once, and can create a visible ‘flicker’, as well as being bright and hard to look at for long periods of time – dark backgrounds like dark shades of blue are a good idea.

5. Keep it simple
Where possible, avoid any fine detail – use simple icons rather than detailed photos; use 1 or 2 words rather than sentences; and avoid tables or spreadsheets. If you do need to show photographs, use one slide for each photo, and ensure the photo fills the slide.

Complex Slide

Simple Slide

On a technical note, where possible, find a progressive scan television like a plasma or LCD screen. Many plasma and LCD displays have a VGA, DVI, or HDMI input which should be capable of accepting at least a low resolution computer signal. If they do not have a computer input, they are still a better option than traditional CRT TV’s, as they are higher resolution and not interlaced – a process that significantly reduces the clarity and ability to read static text.

If you do use the TV out function rather than a normal computer signal, where you have the choice, use component video (YUV) if your computer supports it, otherwise use S-Video. If you have no other option, composite signal will give you the lowest quality results.