Draw Attention to your Presentation

If you need to highlight specific text or image in a presentation, there is a nifty PowerPoint function that allows you to draw a circle around it.

This is a two step process; firstly you create the thing you want to highlight, then secondly you need to draw an oval AutoShape over it.

Once you have created the item you want to highlight, then:

Click the Oval on the Drawing toolbar and drag it inside the slide. If you need a circle, hold down the Shift key as you drag out the AutoShape to create a circle, not an oval.

To format the oval, right-click and choose Format AutoShape from the pop-up menu. On the Colors and Lines tab, set Fill Color to No Fill, and Line Weight to 2 pt (or higher). You may want to change the Line Color to red, or another stand-out colour.

1. To animate your oval, right-click and choose Custom Animation.
2. From the Add Effect dropdown, choose Entrance.
3. Select Wheel (click More Effects if Wheel isn’t available from the short list).
4. From the Start dropdown, choose With Previous.
5. From the Spokes dropdown, choose 1
6. From the Speed dropdown, choose Fast or Very Fast
7. To view your animation, key F5.

Depending on your audience and the complexity of the info you want to highlight, you may want to play with the speed a bit.

Very simple but quite effective. Thanks to TechRepublic at http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/msoffice/?p=3873&tag=nl.e056 for this tip :-)