September 2012 – The Logical Blog

September 29, 2012

PowerPoint: Create an Infographic

by AJ George

If you need to create an Infographic, there are better programs than PowerPoint that you could use. Photoshop would be a good choice, or maybe Fireworks. That being said, PowerPoint is likely on your office computer right now. Additionally, PowerPoint is often underutilized as a design platform and is surprisingly agile.

One reason PowerPoint isn't the first program people think of for Infographics is that infographics are traditionally not the same size as a PowerPoint slide. To convey a hearty amount of information you'll generally want it to be much longer. You can actually change the slide size pretty easily from within PowerPoint by choosing Design > Page Setup > Page Setup. From there you can adjust the width and height of the slide on the Page Setup dialog box. The issue with this is that it can be difficult to work within PowerPoint on that long of a canvas. Additionally, the proportions of any shapes you insert will automatically change if you change the slide size. If your infographic isn't super big and if you know the size ahead of time and don't change it, however, this might not be a bad option for you. Otherwise, if you're willing to perform one extra step, there's still no reason why you can't use PowerPoint. The following technique is similar to printing out slides on different pieces of paper and taping them together, but digitally instead.

First you'll need to design your infographic. Think of it like any other presentation, but with a couple caveats, which I explain below.

Opt for a Simple Background

Going for a solid background is a good choice, and definitely the easiest. A border (that goes just along the vertical sides or across the sides and top of the first slide as well as the bottom of the last slide) is also not too difficult to pull off. A background pattern, while possible, may give you headaches if the pattern does not easily line up with the next slide.

Avoid Empty Spaces

Empty space isn't a bad thing in most cases, but keep in mind that these slides will be "stitched" together. A common tendency when designing a slide is to leave a bit of space at the top and bottom of a slide. When designing an infographic, however, once the slides are stitched together, having space at the bottom of one slide as well as the top of the next one will give you a rather large gap in content.

For Flawless Transitions, Cut Your Graphics Exactly in Half

A good way to fill those empty spaces: set up your graphics so that some of them start on one slide and end on the next seamlessly. At first glance, that's easier said than done, but I promise it's pretty easy. In the example below I want to have the arrow shape start on this slide and seamlessly continue onto the next slide when I collage them together.

Arrow shape seamlessly going to next slide.

To do this, I formatted the shape until it was the size and in the general position I liked. I then used the sizing handles as a guide and moved the shape up and down until the center sizing handles lined up with the bottom of the slide.

Working with the arrow.

Next I copied the shape ([Ctrl] [C]), clicked on the next slide, and pasted it ([Ctrl] [V]). When you copy and paste from one slide to another, PowerPoint will retain the slide placement from the previous slide, so the pasted shape will now appear in the same spot at the bottom of the next slide. You won't need to worry about moving it left or right, as it will already line up perfectly. Instead, just press the up arrow on your keyboard until the center sizing handles line up with the top of the slide.

Move the copy of the arrow straight down.

Save Your Slides as Images

In PowerPoint, choose File > Save As.
On the Save As dialog box, locate the Save as type drop-down menu and choose PNG Portable Network Graphics Format.
Name the file (the slide images will appear within a folder with this name).
When the Info dialog box opens click the Every Slide button to save all of the slides as separate PNG files.
Click the OK button.

Use a Free Online Photo Editor to Piece it Together

I tried out a few options and found iPiccy to be the fastest and easiest, with the best quality. Fotoflexer has a similar collaging tool, but the final image was blurry, and I didn't see any option to increase the quality as I went. The collaging could also be done in Pixlr, or a similar Photoshop-esque editing site, but without prior Photoshop knowledge that might be a bit more confusing than it needs to be.

To collage the slide together in iPiccy:

Navigate to http://ipiccy.com/ and click the Start Editing button.
From the top of the screen, click the Create New Collage tool.
From the top left click the Add Images button. (You will be asked to give permission to iPiccy, to store your images until you delete them. I found deleting images when I was done with them to be easy and pain free. Click Allow to continue.)
Click the Upload Photos button, navigate to your slide images, and upload all of them.
Click the Done! button.
From the Basic area, choose a vertical stacking collage to accommodate your slides.
Click the Auto-fill button at the top of the window to fill the collage with your slide images.
Drag your slides until they are in the correct position.
At the left of the window slide the Spacing bar to the left until it is at 0.
Slide the Proportions bar until you can see all of your infographic. For mine that ended up being 57:43.
Select High Quality from the upper right of the window and then click the Done! button.
Click the Save button at the top of the window.
Give your infographic a name, slide the quality up to100%, select PNG format, and click the Save Photo! button to save the infographic to your computer.

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations.

September 26, 2012

Adobe RoboHelp: Pining to Pin?

by Kevin Siegel

When I use a program frequently, I tend to pin the program to my Taskbar for quick access. If you've never pinned an application to the Taskbar, it's a simple process. On Windows 7, click the Start button on the Taskbar and find the program you'd like to pin. Instead of starting the application, right-click the application's icon and choose Pin to Taskbar. From that point forward, you will be able to start the application by clicking its shortcut on the Taskbar.

Pin a application to the Taskbar

In the image below, you can see icons for applications that I use every day, and have pinned to my Taskbar. (For instance, at the far right you can see Adobe Captivate and Adobe FrameMaker.)

Some of Kevin's pinned applications.

Of course, I use Adobe RoboHelp every day too. And I was bummed out when I went to pin RoboHelp to my Taskbar and did not see the Pin to Taskbar menu item. What gives? Was there something within RoboHelp's code that prevented pinning? Was my Taskbar somehow inadequate? Perhaps there is a limit to the number of applications I am allowed to pin?

It turns out that the issue is quite simple. According to the folks at Adobe (who I contacted about this), applications containing the word "help" cannot be pinned to the Taskbar. Since RoboHelp is called, well… RoboHelp, that's the end of that.

Not so fast…

While applications with the word "Help" in the name cannot be pinned to the Taskbar, the folks at Adobe told me that it's simple enough to change RoboHelp's name on the computer (without fouling up anything at all).

Find RoboHelp's application icon by clicking Start (just as you would any other application). Once again, don't start the application. Instead, right-click the icon and choose Properties. On the General tab, change the name to something similar to RoboHelp HTML, except don't use Help. I changed my RoboHelp icon to simply RoboHTML.

Change the name of a shortcut. (Don't use Help in the name.)

After clicking the OK button, I was able to right-click the RoboHTML icon and, eureka, Pin toTaskbar was an available menu item. I am happy to report that RoboHelp (I mean RoboHTML) is now in its rightful home, alongside Captivate and FrameMaker.

RoboHTML pinned to the Taskbar.

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Looking to learn Adobe RoboHelp quickly? I offer a live, online class covering RoboHelp once each month. It's a two-day class, and provides an awesome jump-start to using this fantastic tool.

September 23, 2012

Writing & Grammar: Proper Punctuation

by Jennie Ruby

Last week I issued a punctuation challenge to you "skills and drills" readers.

Here is the paragraph shown as it was punctuated when it was originally published:

Until very recently, the only way you could distribute multimedia files over the Web was by using external files as described in the first half of this chapter. In recent months, however, both Netscape and Microsoft have made many interesting steps toward integrating multimedia more closely into Web pages, either through the use of new HTML tags, through advanced capabilities such as Java, or through the use of "plug-ins"–help applications that are more closely integrated with the browser and with files reviewed within that browser.

–From Teach Yourself Web Publishing
with HTML 3.2 by Laura Lemay

Some acceptable variations (and some commentary) include the following:

The comma after the first three-word introductory phrase is optional
Use of a comma before the phrase "as described in the first half of this chapter" depends on the meaning: did she mean "using external files the way the first half of this chapter describes using them"? If so, no comma. And in fact that is how the original was punctuated. But it is possible to read this as meaning "the fact that you can distribute multimedia files over the Web by using external files was described in the first half of this chapter." If you read it that way, you would put a comma before as.
You might have chosen to use parentheses around the phrase "through advanced capabilities such as Java" if you saw it as an interruption rather than as the second item on a list of three things. Or you might have removed the comma before "through advanced…" for the same reason.
(I think this sentence is the one that caught my attention and why I used this paragraph as a challenge–there was something awkward about it. Using "either" to introduce three items is incorrect, so I think the writer actually meant the middle item as an interrupting phrase; however, the interrupting phrase started with the same word that the two choices started with, "through," making the whole passage confusing. One reader basically commented that Henry James called and wants his dense, difficult writing style back.)
You might have chosen to use parentheses rather than a dash to set off the explanation of plug-ins.

September 21, 2012

PowerPoint: Sites for Slide Sharing (Say that 5 Times Fast)

by AJ George

There are infinite reasons why you may not be able to give a presentation in person, many of which I covered in my article on adding Text-To-Speech to PowerPoint presentations. When you can't be there in person, but you want to send along a PowerPoint deck in your place, there are a few reasons why you might want to use a slide-sharing site. Maybe your recipient is using an old clunker of a computer that would have compatibility issues with whatever you're sending, maybe they're concerned about viruses, maybe your recipient will be viewing your presentation from a mobile device or a different operating system than you're using, or maybe you have no intended recipient but want to post your presentation somewhere where it can garner eyeballs on its own, like YouTube, but for slides.

Whatever the case, a slide-sharing site can give you the peace of mind of not having to worry about technical snafus while giving you a platform to attract potential viewers. Today I'm going to explore five slide-sharing site options.

SlideShare

SlideShare was my least favorite of the bunch. My first issue came when I uploaded a test presentation and subsequently tried to delete it. I clicked to delete but nothing seemed to happen. I refreshed the window and the presentation was still there. I repeated this several times and my presentation did not delete. The next day when I logged in to my SlideShare account the presentation was gone, but I have no idea how long it took to actually delete. I thought it was perhaps a once off occurrence, but the same thing happened that day when I tried the process again. This made me really uncomfortable. What if I'd uploaded a presentation that could be damaging to my reputation or my company? Hopefully I wouldn't be in that position, but mistakes happen and I don't like knowing that there isn't a quick "undo."

SlideShare does not support animation and gives you the typical sharing options of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus, among a few others. To use any sort of advanced functionality (like analytics, capturing leads, or adjusting privacy), you'll need to pay for it. I don't necessarily have a problem paying for this, particularly if I'd be using the site for business needs-but I can get this same functionality for free from other sites, so I don't see much logic in paying for it on a site I'm not otherwise in love with. The good news is that SlideShare is quite well known, and although I didn't do the research, has possibly the largest audience. If you're aiming for visibility this isn't a bad idea.

Bottom line: High visibility, subpar interface, low on features.

authorSTREAM

authorSTREAM is a pretty standard choice among slide-sharing sites. After uploading your presentation, you can edit settings, share on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, download as either a Flash or a PPT file, or convert to a video. Animations worked–but not all the time and sometimes grouped objects came in mangled or missing elements. Animations did not come in automatically, which makes for an awkward viewing experience because your viewer probably does not know when to stop clicking to finish the build on that slide. Given the inconsistency/awkwardness associated with animations, you'd probably be better off just not using them. authorSTREAM does have basic analytic tools to track views, as well as an available presentation transcript.

Bottom line: The "kind of" working animations will have many users pulling their hair out, but if you don't have animations or grouped elements on your slides, this is not a horrible option for getting your presentation in front of eyeballs.

Speaker Deck

Speaker Deck has a relatively streamlined interface, which was nice. Files must be uploaded in PDF format and cannot exceed 50 MB. PowerPoint will save presentations as PDF files, so this isn't necessarily a problem, but may mean extra work for some users. Since decks are uploaded in PDF form, animations do not convey. If your presentation relies upon animations, this may be a deal breaker for you. But if not, I think it's actually kind of nice not having to wonder if they'll work or not by eliminating the possibility altogether. The addition of a YouTube-like "like" system gives Speaker Deck a bit of a social side. Analytic reporting is minimal, but will tell you how many views you've garnered. Sharing options include Twitter, Facebook, embedding, downloading a PDF version, and direct linking. You can include a description and a speaker bio, and give the presentation a category (to make stumbling upon it by others easier).

Bottom line: Having to have the presentation in PDF format may annoy some users. Knowing off the bat that animations aren't going to work at all could either be helpful or a hindrance to you, depending upon how you look at it. Not the best choice out there, but no glaring flaws.

SlideBoom

SlideBoom is by the same people who make iSpring converter, which I have previously written about (and liked). Just as with authorSTREAM, animations came in, but required a click of the next button to start. As I mentioned before, I think this could be confusing to a viewer who doesn't know how many clicks of the next button each slide takes to finish the build. That being said, SlideBoom worked much better (animation-wise) than authorSTREAM, or any of the other options, and every animation I tried worked. Grouped elements did not come in mangled or missing. The free version will let you upload 100 presentations and does not provide detailed analytics, but does show the number of views and has a thumbs up/thumbs down system similar to YouTube. Upon presentation upload, you can elect whether or not you want your presentation to be available to everyone online and whether or not to allow people to download your presentation.

Bottom line: I had the most success with animations here. The interface was slick and easy, but there's not a whole lot of "extra." If you don't need the extra, then this would be my pick.

myBrainshark

When it comes to "extra," myBrainshark is the most feature-rich of the bunch. Once your presentation is uploaded, you can edit it by recording audio or adding in background audio. Some animations worked, which is an improvement over some slide-sharing sites, but even so, some did not, so I would still recommend canning any animations to be safe. Attachments can be added in the form of a file or web URL. You can also add a poll or survey question slide as well as individual video, URL, document, PPT, and photo slides. Your deck can't be seen until it is made active, so you can edit until it's perfect and then set it to active so it can be seen. When you're finished making on-site edits, you can either print the presentation or share it via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, YouTube, and hordes of lesser known social networks.

myBrainshark's analytics reporting is the most fleshed out of the free versions, providing information on a number of views, what percentage of the deck was viewed, and a map showing where in the world your viewers are viewing from. Your content is also broken down into a table of contents–pulled from the title of each slide.

For even more features, you can pay for the Pro version to allow for embedding, password security, and the option to make the presentation private. A ProTrainer account will allow you to merge content, provide testing and scoring, and integrate with an LMS via SCORM, which could be of particular interest to those of us in the eLearning field.

Bottom line: If you are just trying to share your finished slide deck, this may be more over the top than you need. If, however, you need the extra features, I would highly recommend this option.

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September 19, 2012

Adobe Captivate 6: Goodbye Quiz Playbar

By Lori Smith

I love Adobe Captivate's variables and advanced actions. One of my favorite strategies when working with complicated branching and quizzing in projects is to turn off the playbar on key slides via the variable cpCmdShowPlayBar (assign with 0 to turn off, 1 to turn on). I'm guessing that more than a few fellow Captivate developers have used this feature over the years because Captivate 6 has added a brand new quiz feature allowing the playbar to be hidden during a quiz. It is simple to set up. Choose Quiz Preferences > Settings and select Hide Playbar In Quiz.

Hide Playbar In Quiz

There's a glass half full/half empty situation for the Hide Playbar in Quiz setting. Not only will the playbar be hidden for every quiz slide, but it will be hidden for any slide that contains a scored object (such as a button included in the quiz).

Object scoring in Captivate 6,

No points need be assigned. The object just needs to be included in the quiz. Even if there are no actual quiz questions in the lesson, as long as there are scored objects, the Hide Playbar In Quiz setting will work.

This is great if you want all of the slides with scored objects to have no playbar. But if you want that playbar, it can be a bit frustrating. In that scenario, just take the old variable out of your back pocket and use it! You can override the Hide Playbar In Quiz option by setting cpCmdShowPlaybar on entry to a slide, or via a button or advanced action–whatever you prefer. To add the variable on entry to a slide, select the slide on the Filmstrip and, from the Action group of the Properties panel, choose Assign from the On Enter drop-down menu, cpCmndShowPlaybar from the Assign drop-down menu, and then type the number 1 into the With field.

Assign a variable to a slide.

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? We offer two live, online Captivate 6 classes. Adobe Captivate Essentials and Adobe Captivate Beyond the Essentials (Advanced).

September 16, 2012

Writing & Grammar: Correct Uses of Their

by Jennie Ruby

This week's answers to my correct usage of their challenge challenge are brought to you by our reader Tara Allen:

Everyone All players must bring their own golf clubs to the tournament.
Each of the tourists has their a ticket in their hand.
Every one of the participants had their a certificate by the end of the course.
Anyone can win their a dream vacation in this drawing.
One of the instructors had their a degree in economics.

And Kay Honaker provides these alternative correct answers:

You must bring your own golf clubs to the tournament.
All of the tourists have their tickets in their hands.
All of the participants had their certificates by the end of the course.
You can win your dream vacation in this drawing!
One of the instructors holds a degree in economics.

Other correct answers came from Kenny Rankin and Toni Wills. The point of this challenge was, of course, that there are multiple solutions to handling this common agreement problem. Here are eight of them.

Problem examples:

Each employee must submit their timesheet by Friday.

Every attorney in the firm has given us their advice.

1. Use plural

All employees must submit their timesheets by Friday.

All of the attorneys have given us their advice.

2. Delete the possessive pronoun

Every attorney in the firm has given us advice.

3. Substitute a or the for their

Each employee must submit a timesheet by Friday.

4. Use passive

All timesheets must be submitted by Friday.

5. Use second person

You must submit your timesheet by Friday.

6. Use first person

We must have all timesheets in by Friday.

We have received advice from every attorney in the firm.

7. Use his or her

Each employee must submit his or her timesheet by Friday.

Every attorney in the firm has given us his or her advice.

8. Use their as a singular generic possessive

Each employee must submit their timesheet by Friday.

Every attorney in the firm has given us their advice.

Caution: number 8 is not considered correct in formal writing.

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This Week's Challenge: Punctuate this paragraph

Until very recently the only way you could distribute multimedia files over the Web was by using external files as described in the first half of this chapter. In recent months however both Netscape and Microsoft have made many interesting steps toward integrating multimedia more closely into Web pages either through the use of new HTML tags through advanced capabilities such as Java or through the use of plug-ins help applications that are more closely integrated with the browser and with files reviewed within that browser.

–From Teach Yourself Web
Publishing with HTML 3.2 by Laura Lemay

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If you like Jennie's articles, you'll love her classes. Join her online and learn about Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Step-by-Step Scripts and Training Documents.

September 13, 2012

PowerPoint: Converting Presentations to HTML5 with iSpring Converter

by AJ George

If I don't like a PowerPoint app or add-on, rest assured I'll tell you. And I have found plenty of tools not to like when it comes to making your PowerPoint presentation play on iDevices. But in iSpring Converter, I have finally found a PowerPoint distribution tool to really like.

Here's what iSpring Converter does. Imagine you want to create an eLearning module in PowerPoint and then distribute it–to everyone (even people on iPads and iPhones). The latest and greatest way to ensure the maximum number of devices can play with your end product is to ensure it is formatted in HTML5.

In the past, I have saved my PowerPoint presentations intended for mass distribution as videos. This wasn't a bad option, per se, but doing so eliminated any interactivity I had built into my course. For example, I have a presentation that allows the user to click an image of a folder to "view" its contents. The apparent functionality was created with PowerPoint triggers and actions, which cause the presentation to branch to the relevant slide. When I saved the presentation as a video, all of this interactivity was gone.

Enter iSpring Converter. Within moments of installation (it installs to PowerPoint's Ribbon), I was able to click iSpring's Publish button from within PowerPoint and bazinga! HTML5! I'd done my research, so I knew before installing that iSpring would maintain my presentation's transitions, embedded audio and video, animations, and styles. But I was unsure whether the actions and triggers for branching in my presentation would be maintained. I am happy to report that after conversion with iSpring Converter my actions and triggers still work beautifully!

To see a PowerPoint presentation converted to HTML5 using iSpring Converter, check out my sample presentation. You'll notice that clicks and mouse over actions linked to other slides remain intact, as do animations and video playback. There is also an option to publish the HTML5 file with a menu at the side so viewers can choose to skip around to different slides (and could also serve as a Table of Contents) but I chose to disable that feature for my test.

iSpring Converter is free to try for a month (but adds a relatively large watermark to the converted HTML5 presentation). I found it well worth its purchase price of $99.

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September 12, 2012

Adobe Captivate 6: One Quick Way to Purge Unsupported HTML5 Objects

by Kevin Siegel

I wrote about the HTML5 output option available in Adobe Captivate 6 a few months ago. I pointed out that HTML5 is an alternative publishing format to a SWF. Unlike SWFs, projects published as HTML5 will not only play on the Apple iPad, iPhone and the iPod, but the lessons will retain any interactivity that you added to the slides (such as click boxes and buttons).

I also noted that while most features you can add to a Captivate project will work when published as HTML5, not all features are supported. For example, Rollover Captions, Rollover Images and SWF animations are not HTML5 compliant. Prior to publishing as HTML5, you should use the HTML5 Tracker (Project > HTML5 Tracker) to flag features that are not supported.

If the HTML5 Tracker window has anything in the list (as shown below), you'll need to remove the unsupported feature.

HTML5 Tracker

Removing the unsupported objects is simple enough. Close the HTML5 Tracker, go to the slide containing the unsupported object and delete the object. Of course, prior to closing the HTML5 Tracker, be sure to note which slides contains the unsupported objects, and which of the slide objects aren't supported. Forget that little chore and you'll find yourself needing to revisit the HTML5 Tracker again and again.

There's a better way to remove the Unsupported objects. The next time your display the HTML5 Tracker, don't bother closing it if you're ready to delete the Unsupported Objects. Believe it or not, you can instantly remove the objects right from the Tracker. Simply select the Unsupported Object from the list and, on your keyboard, press [ctrl] [x]. The selected object will be simultaneously removed from the HTML5 Tracker list and the slide.

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? We offer two live, online Captivate 6 classes. Adobe Captivate Essentials and Adobe Captivate Beyond the Essentials (Advanced).

September 9, 2012

Writing & Grammar: Working with Pronoun Case

by Jennie Ruby

Here are the answers to last week's pronoun challenge, brought to you, as so many times, by Jing Ping Fan. I have supplemented her explanation in number 7–the rest is hers.

Who's/whose shoes are in the dryer?
(Whose) – possessive pronoun
Who's/whose on first?
(Who's)- subject of the sentence, meaning "who is"
To who/whom should I address my cover letter?
(To whom) -object of the verb address
Who/whom painted your dining room?
(Who) – subject
Who/whom shall I say is calling?
(Who) -subject
You gave your camp stove to who/whom?
(Whom) -object of the preposition
Those guys in the stretch limo are who/whom?
(Who) -subject (The sentence can be changed into "Who are those guys in the stretch limo?" Further [Jennie's note], with a linking verb such as are, the subject guys and the pronoun who acting as the predicate nominative are the same people, thus both are effectively in the subject role in the sentence.)
Who/whom do you think will be elected?
(Who) -subject (Who will be elected, do you think?")
Who/whom do you think they will nominate?
(Whom) -object
Who/whom do you think will win?
(Who) – subject

It is easy to make the choice when [you know] "who" is used as the subject, "whom" is used as the object of the sentence, [and] "whose" (possessive pronoun) is used as a modifier. [In addition, whom is used as the object of a preposition, as in "to whom" or "for whom."]

Of the 20 readers who answered the challenge this week, the following readers submitted completely correct answers:Cathy A. Mackie, Geri A. Moran, Ginny Supranowitz, Jing Ping Fan, Leigh Pedwell, Tara Allen, Vera I. Sytch, and Vicki Hendricks. In addition, quite a few people submitted answers with only one incorrect answer. The most difficult sentence was number 8. Many people who got all of the others correct missed that one. The problem is that the sentence uses the passive voice, so that the grammatical subject of the sentence, the word who, seems to be on the receiving end of the action, causing many people to mistakenly think it was the object. Nevertheless, as the subject of the passive verb "will be elected," who should be in its subject form, not its object form.

Another hard question for many was number 5. There, the word who was the subject of the verb "is calling"–many of you were distracted by the interrupting clause "shall I say."

Here is a new challenge. Correct each of these incorrect uses of their without using the standard "his or her" replacement phrase. Rewriting the sentence as needed is encouraged. As always, you can send your answers directly to me.

Everyone must bring their own golf clubs to the tournament.
Each of the tourists has their ticket in their hand.
Every one of the participants had their certificate by the end of the course.
Anyone can win their dream vacation in this drawing.
One of the instructors had their degree in economics.

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September 6, 2012

eLearning: Another Color Resource

by AJ George

I've previously written extensively about colors as they apply to learning, color theory, using colors for special circumstances, and color resources. In this article, I'd like to share another color resource that may be of use to you when designing, particularly for special circumstances like 508 compliance or color blindness, or if the thought of choosing colors makes you want to pull your hair out.

Colors on the Web did not initially draw me in because, in matters of design help, I definitely judge a book by its cover. And I think this site's cover leaves much to be desired. I dug a little deeper, however, and found a few useful tools worth noting.

Color Wheel Spinner

If you're color clueless, and are not already working with a set of brand-specific colors, this would be an excellent place to start. Click the Spin button and you'll be given a random selection of three colors.

If you're lucky, the Color Wheel will spit out a combination you like right off the bat, but if not, that's okay… just keep clicking the Spin button. As colors and their corresponding hex codes are produced you can elect to view them in different layout aspects (background, secondary, or text). You can also choose to Hold a color and keep spinning until you get a combination you like. You may never get a color combination you love, but I think the Color Wheel is still pretty useful, because it will probably give you at least one color that would be great for your design. From there you can copy and paste that color's hex code into the Color Wizard.

Color Wizard

Found a color you think could work for your design? Great! Enter that color's hex code into the Color Wizard to start having some real fun. Based on your starting color, this tool will show you coordinating colors in the monochromatic, analogous, triadic, tetradic, and split complimentary ranges, along with their hex codes. It may be easy to figure out what the complimentary colors are for red or blue or purple, but what if you have a gray-blue-green color in a muted hue? Then it might be a little harder to figure out what the perfect complimentary color would be. That's where the color wizard can help. Plus it's nice to see your colors laid out together before you dive into the actual designing.

Color Contrast Analyzer

All right, so you've picked some colors. Now for the technical stuff. If you have perfect vision, a color combination might look great to you. But what about your viewers with less than perfect vision? Or those with low resolution monitors? It might not look so hot to them. An easy way to tell if your colors have enough contrast is to plug the colors' hex codes into Colors on the Web's Color Contrast Analyzer.

The Color Contrast Analyzer will assess your color selection from an accessibility standpoint, based upon the World Wide Web Consortium's guidelines. The highest level of conformance is AAA, but whether you need this much contrast will depend upon your audience.

How to Use These Colors In PowerPoint

Let's say you use these tools and come up with the perfect color scheme. That's awesome! What's not-so-awesome is that PowerPoint's colors are in RGB and the Colors on the Web colors are in hex code. Don't fret, just head off to this free Hex-to-RGB Conversion site (or any other conversion site that works for you), plug in your hex code, and it'll spit out the RGB values for you. Let the designing commence!

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