C
Cobba Corn
Hello!
At a new job I recently started I'm often tasked with converting an
existing slidekit to a new template. Sometimes I get to make the new
master slides, other times it's a .POT file, and other times I'm
ripping the template from another .PPT file.
Now, for your edutainment, I'll walk you through my workflow. As a
self-taught PowerPointer, I'm probably missing a few shortcuts. Please
share your workflow or correct mine!
Upon first applying the new design, I go through the slides and find
erratic title box and body text box behavior. If a "reapply layout"
doesn't work to get these bad boys in order (sometimes it does -- why,
I'll never know), I'll copy all the text in the misaligned box and
delete the box entirely, giving me the nice "Click to add title"
default. I paste the text in (using the "Keep text only" modifier if
neccessary) and now it looks great.
Next, I assess the space I've gained or lost in the new layout. God
help me if the new design has a larger font or bold titles. Often the
title box is now wrapping titles to two or three lines, maybe
overlapping the body text. I sometimes have to push down the body text
to make room for the big titles -- something the original master slide
maker didn't plan on, surely. So some slides have a body text that is
lower, and thus the continuity is lost, but what else can I do other
than shrink the font size for the big titles? That also breaks style
continuity, so it's 6 of one, half dozen of the other.
Then, I go through the slides and grab any secondary and tertiary text
boxes which were untouched by the automatic application of a new
design. I guess because they are not a box that is in the master
slides? I change each of these BY HAND to the new font/size/color --
and then re-position them (BY HAND) to fit into the new layout, using
my eyeballs and help from the grid. Examples of these text boxes are
captions under images, labels beside charts, or reference footnotes.
As far as I can tell, there is no global "change all else to Verdana"
command to make this step faster.
Finally, charts and graphs. Oh my lord, charts and graphs. Be they
Excel objects or drawn in PowerPoint, these can take forever to change
into acceptable colors, and re-size (if the new layout forces a smaller
chart size). It's a frenzy of ungrouping and zooming into 200% to see
the tiniest little dots and lines and make sure they're the right
colors and line weights. People can make charts in crazy ways, I've
discovered, like making lines out of boxes instead of using... lines.
And with that, I'm usually finished, to the shock of my boss with how
LONG it took. There was no PowerPoint guy before me for comparison,
but a 50 slide file could take most of a day, as I'm constantly
troubleshooting the new layout, shoehorning the TOO VERBOSE old slides
into the new layout. My bosses often expect a "simple straight
conversion" to take an hour, and worse, sometimes it DOES take an hour,
which feeds into their expectations.
What are your experiences like?
At a new job I recently started I'm often tasked with converting an
existing slidekit to a new template. Sometimes I get to make the new
master slides, other times it's a .POT file, and other times I'm
ripping the template from another .PPT file.
Now, for your edutainment, I'll walk you through my workflow. As a
self-taught PowerPointer, I'm probably missing a few shortcuts. Please
share your workflow or correct mine!
Upon first applying the new design, I go through the slides and find
erratic title box and body text box behavior. If a "reapply layout"
doesn't work to get these bad boys in order (sometimes it does -- why,
I'll never know), I'll copy all the text in the misaligned box and
delete the box entirely, giving me the nice "Click to add title"
default. I paste the text in (using the "Keep text only" modifier if
neccessary) and now it looks great.
Next, I assess the space I've gained or lost in the new layout. God
help me if the new design has a larger font or bold titles. Often the
title box is now wrapping titles to two or three lines, maybe
overlapping the body text. I sometimes have to push down the body text
to make room for the big titles -- something the original master slide
maker didn't plan on, surely. So some slides have a body text that is
lower, and thus the continuity is lost, but what else can I do other
than shrink the font size for the big titles? That also breaks style
continuity, so it's 6 of one, half dozen of the other.
Then, I go through the slides and grab any secondary and tertiary text
boxes which were untouched by the automatic application of a new
design. I guess because they are not a box that is in the master
slides? I change each of these BY HAND to the new font/size/color --
and then re-position them (BY HAND) to fit into the new layout, using
my eyeballs and help from the grid. Examples of these text boxes are
captions under images, labels beside charts, or reference footnotes.
As far as I can tell, there is no global "change all else to Verdana"
command to make this step faster.
Finally, charts and graphs. Oh my lord, charts and graphs. Be they
Excel objects or drawn in PowerPoint, these can take forever to change
into acceptable colors, and re-size (if the new layout forces a smaller
chart size). It's a frenzy of ungrouping and zooming into 200% to see
the tiniest little dots and lines and make sure they're the right
colors and line weights. People can make charts in crazy ways, I've
discovered, like making lines out of boxes instead of using... lines.
And with that, I'm usually finished, to the shock of my boss with how
LONG it took. There was no PowerPoint guy before me for comparison,
but a 50 slide file could take most of a day, as I'm constantly
troubleshooting the new layout, shoehorning the TOO VERBOSE old slides
into the new layout. My bosses often expect a "simple straight
conversion" to take an hour, and worse, sometimes it DOES take an hour,
which feeds into their expectations.
What are your experiences like?