Given that we just published a free eCourse all about creating presentations with captivating introductions, I think now is a good time to remind some of our readers about all of the cool ways that SmartDraw can make life easier for the average businessperson. Most of us are not regular presenters—perhaps a few times a year we have to present a proposal, report, marketing piece or training seminar.
I certainly fall into that class of presenter and I suspect that most of our readers do also; fortunately, our product, SmartDraw, can make life a lot easier for average presenters like you and me. Here’s how:
Plan Your Content Using Storyboard Templates
The key to having a good presentation is having your material organized in a logical, coherent fashion. Storyboards are an effective way of achieving this type of organization quickly, easily and efficiently.
If you want a refresher on why it’s a good idea to use storyboarding when you’re planning a presentation, check out this earlier post I wrote entitled “Having Trouble Putting a Presentation Together? Try Storyboarding.”
In SmartDraw 2009, you begin by opening up a new instance of SmartDraw and select the “Storyboards” template from the SmartTemplate Selector on the left.
Then you click on the blank storyboard template.
Add new boxes for each main topic. If I’m presenting a new project proposal presentation, I might want to build six slides explaining:
- Who is responsible?
- What are we doing?
- When is this due?
- Where are we allocating resources?
- Why is this important?
- How do we do this?
So I will go ahead and place that onto my storyboard.
And then add the topic-specific details beneath the box of each topic.
And from here, I have a good, rough outline of my entire PowerPoint® presentation. In fact, here’s what this outline would look like in PowerPoint® 2007’s “Outline View:”
Export any Diagram or Chart to PowerPoint® Easily
One of the most popular features that SmartDraw has had over the past several versions is its interoperability with Excel®, Word® and PowerPoint®. With the touch of a single button, you can export any diagram, whether it’s a flowchart, a floor plan, or anything else directly to Microsoft Office®.
To export from SmartDraw to PowerPoint®, simply open up your diagram in SmartDraw.
Click on the “PPT” button on the Quick Access Toolbar.
And then your diagram will appear in your current instance of PowerPoint®. Or if you don’t have a running instance of PowerPoint®, SmartDraw will start one for you.
And that’s it!
Animate Your Charts and Diagrams in SmartDraw for More Effective Deliveries
If you’d like to have even more control over how you deliver your SmartDraw diagrams during a PowerPoint® presentation, you can pre-animate them directly within SmartDraw 2009 before you export them! Here’s a two minute video which explains how you can sequence any diagram in PowerPoint using SmartDraw:
And that’s it. This is the last planned blog entry for 2008, so I hope you’ve enjoyed reading! We’ve got a lot planned for 2009 already so we’ll have plenty of great content ready for you when you all return home from the holidays. Thanks for reading and Happy Holidays!
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