The Logical Blog by IconLogic

PowerPoint 2007 & 2010: How to Turn an Image Into An Animated Puzzle

by AJ George 

A recent question in the Microsoft Office forums inquired about the process of animating a picture in PowerPoint so that it came onto the slide piece by piece--like a puzzle. The question was answered, but the answer was not exactly what the original poster had wanted. The answer explained how to make a picture look like a puzzle, but not how to have the separate pieces come in one-by-one. That is what I will cover today.

The original answer referenced this tutorial: Puzzle Pictures in PowerPoint. The tutorial includes a pre-made puzzle framework from PowerFrameworks, which I will also use.

Make an Image Look Like a Puzzle.

1. Download the puzzlepicture zip file at this link.
2. Unzip the file.
3. Start PowerPoint.
4. From within PowerPoint, navigate to the unzipped puzzlepicture folder and open sg002_1200_rectangle.pptx.

A presentation will open with an image of a whale overlaid with puzzle pieces.  

Note: If you are using an earlier version of PowerPoint that does not support .pptx files, follow the instructions here for using the .ppt file.


5. View the Selection and Visibility Pane by choosing Home > Drawing > Arrange > Selection Pane.
   
   You will see 12 puzzle pieces (these are the numbered Freeforms) and one rectangle.
   
       



6. Click the Hide All button at the bottom of the Selection and Visibility pane to hide everything on the slide.
7. Right-click the slide and select Format Background.

The Format Background dialog box will appear. Currently there is a picture of a whale set as the background so Picture or Texture fill is already selected.


8. From the Insert from area, click the File button.
9. Navigate to your own image, select it and click the Insert button.

Your image will now be the background of the slide.  

Note: If you notice sluggish response times in PowerPoint, consider inserting a lower resolution image.


10. Close the Format Background dialog box.
11. On the Selection and Visibility pane, click the Show All button to make all items visible again.  The puzzle pieces are already formatted with a background fill, so the pieces are comprised of the image you inserted. If you simply wanted your image to look like a puzzle, you would be done. Continue on if you would like your image to appear on the slide one piece at a time.

Animate the Puzzle Pieces

1. View the Animation Pane by choosing Animations > Advanced Animation > Animation Pane.
2. On the Selection and Visibility Pane, hold down the [Ctrl] key while clicking to select each of the 12 Freeform puzzle pieces.
3. From the Animations tab, select the Appear animation.

All of the puzzle pieces will appear selected in the Animation Pane.


4. Click the more arrow on the last animation effect and choose Timing.
   
   


The Appear dialog box will open.  


5. From the Timing tab, select After Previous from the Start drop-down menu and increase the Delay number to stagger the appearance of the puzzle piece. I went with .5 seconds, but you can choose whatever you like.
6. Click the OK button.
7. On the Selection and Visibility pane, click the Hide All button to hide all the puzzle pieces. Click the box next to Rectangle 16 to make it visible.

You will be left with a large blue rectangle. 


8. Right-click the rectangle on the slide and choose Format Shape.

The Format Shape dialog box will appear.


9. From the Fill category, change the fill color to whatever you would like. (For my project, I wanted it to appear as though initially the slide was blank, so I chose white.)
10. Click the Close button to close the Format Shape dialog box.
11. On the Selection and Visibility pane, click the Show All button to make all items visible again.
12. Press the [F5] key on your keyboard.

Your image will now come in as a puzzle, one piece at a time.

To use the slide in any other presentation, select the slide from the slide sorter pane (or in Slide Sorter view) and copy and paste it into your desired presentation.

Note: When pasting into another presentation, be sure to paste using the Keep Source Formatting option. Learn more about pasting options here.

Check back next week for tips to make your animated puzzle look more realistic!

Adobe Captivate: Apply Your Changes

by Kevin Siegel  

Over the past several months I've written myriad articles extolling the value of using styles on slide objects (including how to reset them, clone them and how to create styles on the fly).

Have you been a good developer? Are you using Object Styles? I'm going to give each and every one of you the benefit of the doubt... of course you are. But even if you are the most disciplined user of styles, there could be trouble ahead. Since several object properties are not contained within an Object Style, keeping things consistent can still prove challenging... even if you fully utilize styles. 

Let's take just one group on the Properties panel as an example. The Transform group (Captivate 5.5) or Position and Size group (Captivate 5) contains options that will not be found in the Object Style Manager when you create or edit a style.

What would happen if you manually used a non-style option on a selected slide object? Here's a scenario: let's say that you want to change the width of a single text caption. That's simple enough to accomplish via the Properties panel (using the Transform/Position and Size group). After changing the width of the caption, you then decide that you want all of the text captions in your project to use the new width. Since the width option isn't something that's part of an Object Style, you'll need to go from slide to slide and manually change the width of every caption. Not very efficient, eh?

Read on...

After manually changing the width of the text caption, ensure the caption is selected and then, go to the Properties panel and on the far right of the group, click the Apply to all button. 

You will see two choices in the drop-down menu: Apply to all items of this type and Apply to all items of same style. If you choose the former, all text captions in the project will get the new width. Nice! If you choose the latter, only the text captions using the same style as the selected text caption will update. This is a nice option if you only want to change the width of a specific group of captions. 

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

Writing & Grammar: The Power of Passive Voice

by Jennie Ruby  

As writers, we know we are not supposed to use the passive voice. Nearly every writers' guide tells us to prefer the active voice. This is a view I generally endorse. But, as a student in one of my grammar classes recently argued, knee-jerk conversion of every sentence to active may actually make the writing lose its point.

For example, if a paragraph is about Bob, Bob should be in the subject position in most of the sentences. Bob may do some things, but Bob may have some things done to him. To keep him in the subject role, you have to use passive for some sentences, like this:

Bob traveled [active] to Paris last fall. When he purchased [active] his plane tickets, he was offered [passive] a discount on some castle tours. When he arrived [active] in France, however, he discovered [active] that he had been scheduled [passive] for two tours at the same time. He complained [active] at the tour office, and demanded that the second tour be rescheduled [passive].

This week's challenge: Rewrite the following entirely passive paragraph using mostly active voice. If you chose to retain the passive on some sentences, indicate why. [Hint: decide whether this is the story of the blower vac or of "you" the owner of the new power tool.] I'm looking forward to reading your submissions.

Your new blower vac should be kept clean. It should be used only with dry leaves. When damp earth and debris are picked up, the inside of the fan chamber may become clogged. Then the performance of the unit may be decreased. This area should be cleaned out using a stick or other non-metalic scraper. Cleaning should only be done when the unit is disconnected from the power source. The blower vac should not be stored adjacent to fertilizers or chemicals. The metal parts can be corroded by such storage.

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Many excellent sentences resulted from last week's challenge. Virtually every sentence readers sent in was an improvement over the original with the false subject. Here is the overall best take on the sentences, presented by Stacey Edwards, who also explains how she analyzed each sentence:

Original sentences are numbered. Revisions are beneath each numbered sentence. [Bold face indicates original subject and verb.] 

1. There are two places you can edit a resource calendar: the Working Time tab of the Resource Information dialog box and the Change Working Time dialog box.

You can edit a resource calendar in either the Working Time tab of the Resource Information dialog box or the Change Working Time dialog box.


2. There is a widespread misperception that search fields are case sensitive. (no clear subject or verb)  

Many new employees mistakenly believe that search fields are case sensitive.


3. It is difficult for voting rights advocates to prove in federal court that packing minority voters into majority-minority districts diminishes their ability to elect candidates of choice.

Voting rights advocates have difficulty proving in federal court that packing minority voters into majority-minority districts diminishes the voters' ability to elect their candidates of choice.


4. There is an average wait time for tables of more than 40 minutes. (missing subject)

Diners wait an average of over 40 minutes for tables.


5. It is sometimes desirable to convert user-defined missing values to nulls.

Sometimes, you should convert user-defined missing values to nulls.


6. There is one simple query that can be issued that allows you to select all records from a table but display only a specified column. 

You can issue a single simple query so that you can select all records from a table, but display only a specified column.

Edwards made sure to find a human subject for every sentence, and I do recommend that writers attempt to find that human actor whenever possible.  I especially love what she did with number 2: she figured out that there was no strong subject or verb, so she cast about for a good subject and put that in: "Many new employees" along with a strong verb, "believe."

On the other hand, sometimes it may be legitimate to speak of things doing things. If the concept or function or widget you are explaining is the most important thing in the sentence, you may want to place that in the subject slot. Here is an example where Barbara Wiedl did this:

The average wait for tables is more than 40 minutes.

The reader's principal concern may well be the wait time, and placing it first in the sentence is a good call.

Similarly, both Wiedl and Michael Stein revised number 5 this way:

Converting user-defined missing values to nulls is sometimes desirable.

Lisa Mileusnich gives another good take on number 5 (similar to Stacey's):

Sometimes you should convert user-defined missing values to nulls.

Number 5 also illustrates a common problem I find when I read training materials from which I am trying to learn: the what and how are included, but not the why. By using the words sometimes you at the front, Mileusnich's sentence leads one directly to the question of "When should I make this conversion, and when should I not?" The original, with its "it is sometimes desirable to..." takes the why as a given, as if the reader already knows that conversion is "desirable." Eliminating false subjects may sometimes show us that the sentence could actually contain a lot more information.

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If you love 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.

Adobe Captivate: Custom Cursors Anyone?

by Kevin Siegel  

A student in a recent online Captivate class asked me if it was possible to create a custom mouse cursor for a Captivate eLearning lesson. Sadly, I had to tell the student that it wasn't possible. It's certainly simple enough to change the appearance of any selected mouse cursor (via the Properties panel), but Captivate is not an image-editing application so you cannot create custom cursor images (cur files).

While you cannot create cursor files (CUR's) within Captivate, you can easily create your own, and you can find a bunch of cursor images on the web. For instance, a quick Google Search took me to RealWord Graphics where I found a Gallery area containing an impressive array of free cursor images. The images can be downloaded and used within a Captivate project. If you aren't happy with the cursor images found in the RealWorld Gallery, they provide a Cursor Editor that allows you to quickly create your own cursor.

Download a Cursor Image From the RealWorld Gallery and Use It Within Captivate

Here's all you need to do if you want to download a CUR file from the RealWord Graphics site.

1. After accessing the RealWord Graphics site, click the Gallery tab.  
2. Click the cursor image group you'd like to download. (In the image below, I went with a collection of Aqua Green Cursors.)
   
    
3. Click the link below the image preview and save the file to your computer. (The Aqua Green Cursors group that I selected had several similar cursors. I went with Normal.cur.)
   
   

Note: Pay particular attention to where you saved the file. You'll be opening the location of the cur file next in Captivate.


4. From within Captivate, select a mouse pointer on any slide. 
5. On the Properties panel, click the Browse button and open the cur file that you downloaded earlier.
   
   
   
   In the image below, notice that the standard mouse pointer has been replaced with my downloaded custom cursor.
   
     

See Also: Change the Mouse Pointer Project-Wide.

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

Writing & Grammar: Avoid Using False Subjects

by Jennie Ruby  

The subject and the verb are two of the most important items in a sentence. The subject is typically the first unit of meaning in a sentence and the verb is the second. Together they form the core content of the sentence:

The angry chickadee chased the marauding squirrel from the feeder.

By starting with the unique subject and a specific action, you create a strong and interesting sentence. However, many of us don't write our training and business documents that way. Instead, we distance ourselves and our readers from the content of our sentences by using "false subjects." A false subject is the word there or it serving as a placeholder for the true subject. The nonaction verb to be follows, typically in the form of is, are, was, or were, acting as a placeholder for the true action of the sentence.

And where are the true subject and the true action hidden? The true subject might appear after the verb:

There was an angry chickadee chasing a marauding squirrel from the feeder.

But sometimes the subject might not be included in the sentence at all, as the action becomes passive:

There was a squirrel being chased from the feeder.

The cure for this distancing and uninteresting writing style is to (1) notice a false subject at the beginning of a sentence, (2) identify the true subject or actor (who may not even be mentioned in the sentence), and (3) identify the true verb. Once you have identified all of the important content, reconstruct the sentence with the true subject first, then the true verb. Thus,

There are two different ways that a mailbox can be installed.

First I notice the false subject and nonaction verb: "there are." Then I look for the true subject or actor. The true actor is not even in the sentence. To decide on a true actor, I have to think about who would install a mailbox. I could just say "a person," but a more specific person would be better. Maybe a mail carrier or a building contractor installs the mailbox. Or maybe I am talking directly to the reader "you."

Next I determine the action or true verb. In this case "installed."

Now I put the true actor and the action verb at the front of the sentence:

You can install a mailbox one of two ways.

Try that process on these sentences. Feel free to invent true actors if they are not present in the sentence. Add action verbs as needed. I can't wait to read your improvements. I expect your suggestions will make the text below far more interesting and stronger.

1. There are two places you can edit a resource calendar: the Working Time tab of the Resource Information dialog box and the Change Working Time dialog box.
2. There is a widespread misperception that search fields are case sensitive.
3. It is difficult for voting rights advocates to prove in federal court that packing minority voters into majority-minority districts diminishes their ability to elect candidates of choice.
4. There is an average wait time for tables of more than 40 minutes.
5. It is sometimes desirable to convert user-defined missing values to nulls.
6. There is one simple query that can be issued that allows you to select all records from a table but display only a specified column.

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If you love 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.

Adobe RoboHelp: Synonyms Made Easy

by Kevin Siegel  

One of the most often used areas of any Help System is Search. And since Search is created automatically when you generate a layout, there's nothing the RoboHelp author has to do to make Search available for the user.

Search does have one main drawback for the user. If the word the user types in the Search box isn't found within any topics, the Search will fail and nothing will be displayed for the user. A failed Search is a missed opportunity for both you and the user.

Here is an example of how Search could fail. Your company Help System, a Policies guide, includes a topic concerned with contraband substances in the office. The word contraband is contained within the topic so the word will be found if users search for that specific term. However, a user who is curious about contraband substances might elect to search the Help System using another word, such as illicit. Because the wordillicit isn't in the Help System, the Search will fail.

There are a couple of ways to fix the problem. One way would be to add Search terms to the properties of individual topics. Another way, which I'll cover here, is to use RoboHelp's Advanced Settings for Localization to create a synonym (illicit) for contraband.

In RoboHelp, choose File > Project Settings. On the Generaltab, click the Advanced button to open the Advanced Settings for Localization dialog box.

On the Synonyms tab, click the New button. It's now a simple matter of adding the Word and its Synonym. In the image below, I've added illicit as a Synonym for contraband. And since many of my users type the mangers when they really mean managers, I've made a Synonym pairing for those two words. 

In the Generated WebHelp layout shown below, notice that I have searched for illicit. While illicit isn't a word in any of the topics in my Help system, the Drug Policy topic was still flagged in a successful search.

 

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Looking to learn Adobe RoboHelp? We offer a live, online class. In fact, there's a class coming up later this month.

PowerPoint 2010: Turn Off Picture Compression

by AJ George 

You may not realize it but PowerPoint is lowering the quality of the images in your presentations. How? By default, PowerPoint is set to compress the images in your files. In most cases compressing the images is a good idea because smaller images mean smaller overall presentations. In some cases however, you may wish to maximize the image quality. For example, if the focus of your presentation is a collection of photographs, the loss of quality due to the compression is problematic. 

Here is how to turn off picture compression:

1. In PowerPoint, choose File > Options to open the PowerPoint Options dialog box.
2. Select the Advanced category.
3. From the Image Size and Quality area, choose the presentation that you don't want PowerPoint to compress from the drop-down menu.
4. Select Do not compress images in file. 
   
5. Click the OK button. 

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Having a problem getting PowerPoint to behave? Email your issue. I may be able to help and then share the solution here.

Adobe Captivate: Force Re-Publish

by Kevin Siegel  

One of the wonderful hidden advantages of using Captivate 5 and 5.5 over older versions of the program is the overall speed of the publishing process.

In legacy versions of Captivate, it could easily take 3-5 minutes to publish a moderately-sized project as a SWF. Make a change to project (even a minor typo fix on a single slide) and you will need to once again wait the entire 3-5 minutes for the publish process to complete. With Captivate 5 (and 5.5), I've seen my publishing wait time lower by as much as 95%. It's a staggering improvement. Kudos to the Adobe engineers for working this out.

But...

I have come across an issue where some of my updated slides didn't show the updates in the published content. I'm not sure why this occurs, but I did find a way to ensure my published lessons always show my edits. When publishing the final version of your lesson, select Force re-publish all the slidesfrom the Advanced Options area in the lower right of the Publish dialog box. With this option selected, the publishing process will take much longer. Nevertheless, all of your edits will make it into the published lesson.

 

I've created thousands of eLearning projects using Captivate (hundred in Captivate 5). During all of that time, I've only had a few slides fail to to show my updates once published. With that in mind, it is not necessary for you to leave the Force re-publish all the slides option selected all the time. Remember, using this option will increase your wait time during the Publish process. However, to be safe, it's a good idea to Force re-publish at least the final version of each lesson.

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

Writing & Grammar: Should a Comma Go After Although?

by Jennie Ruby  

I rarely go out on a limb and say the word never in answer to a punctuation question, but I am going to chance it this time: Never put a comma after although--unless what follows it is a completely nonessential interruption. Okay, so it turns out I still can't say never. But let's examine why I want to say never. I have recently seen writers incorrectly do this:

Although, Betsy did not want to go swimming that day, Tommy convinced her to jump.

Although, when the water is warm, she loves to go swimming in the ocean, that day the water was cold.

In the first example, there is no reason for a comma afteralthough. The word although is not a transition word ( likehowever, therefore, or moreover). Instead, although is a "subordinating conjunction." It creates a subordinate clause and is actually part of the clause.

In the second example, the comma after although appears to form a pair with the comma after warm, making the introductory clause "when the water is warm" look as though it is parenthetical, or nonessential. However, it is not nonessential, because if you remove it from the sentence, the part about "that day the water was cold" becomes a non sequitur.

Let's look at an example where the word although is actually followed by an interruption, rather than by an introductory clause:

Although, as Pete said, the rain stopped by midnight, the stream was still flooded at 6 am.

The interrupter "as Pete said" is surrounded by commas, meaning you can leave it out and the sentence does not suffer a loss of meaning.

In speech people sometimes pause after the word althoughwith index finger raised, quizzical look on face, appearing to think of a new thought that contradicts what they just said and that might make them change their mind. In these cases, people tend to pronounce the word although in a long, drawn out manner with an emphasis in the middle: al-THOUGH-ohhh. Their words might be punctuated like this:

I intend to fire Jim--although--didn't he just win a new account? [I might be changing my mind.]

The dashes indicate interrupted thought and a complete departure from the gist of the sentence. A comma would not be a strong enough punctuation mark to indicate this kind of interruption. Contrast that with this:

I intend to fire Jim, although [or even though] he just won a new account. [I'm still going to fire him.]

I intend to purchase a new laptop, although my old one still works.

By far the majority of sentences with although in everyday business, training, or marketing are these ordinary uses, not the long, drawn out because-I-might-be-changing-my-mind types of sentences. So, I return to my original statement: don't use a comma after although.

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If you love 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.

Adobe Captivate: Create Object Styles on the Fly

by Kevin Siegel  

Last week I talked about the importance of saving changes to existing object styles so that you can ensure a consistent appearance of slide objects, project-wide.

I'd like to take that concept one step further. In the image below, the Style being used on all of the text captions in my project is once again the [Default Caption Style].

Just like last week, I wasn't happy with the font or font size used in any of my project captions. I again selected a caption on one of my slides and made changes usingthe Character group on the Properties panel. 

As expected, a plus sign appeared to the left of the style name in the Style drop-down menu. As I mentioned last week, the plus sign means that there's a style override that has been applied to the selected slide object. 

Last week I showed you that you can simply click the Save changes to Existing Style command to instantly update all of the text captions in a project. From that point forward, the [Default Caption Style] will display the updated formatting.

 

But that was so last week. This week I'm not satisfied with simply saving my changes. Using that technique, I was able to update my objects to reflect my changes. While that was wonderful, I'm thinking that I won't always want to alter the look of my default styles. Instead, it would be better to create a new object style based on new formatting applied to a single object. And to take things one step further, I'd like to apply the new style to objects project-wide.

What I'm looking to do sounds complicated. But here's a solution that I think you'll agree is super simple.

Instead of clicking the Save changes to Existing Style command, click the Create New Style command (it's the command just to the left of Save changes to Existing Style command).

Give the style a name and then click the OK button. 

The new style will automatically be applied to the selected slide object. To use the new style on objects throughout the project, click the Apply to style to command.

Lastly, use the drop-down menu to select the style you'd like to replace with the new style. Click the OK button and the change will be just about instant... and project wide.

 

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