1) Adding SmartArt to Your Documents

Not all text needs to be black on white which is where SmartArt comes in. SmartArt is a collection of predefined graphics and text formatting to give your PowerPoint presentation a specific style. They allow you to create timelines, organizational charts, process sequences and more.


First, click on a text box and then on Insert > SmartArt which will give you the interface to choose the type of SmartArt you want to insert. Working with SmartArt in PowerPoint is easy. You can evenconvert text into a SmartArt graphic.

2) Microsoft Clip Organizer – Graphics, Motion Clips and Audio


The Microsoft Clip Organizer has long been the central repository for adding graphics and audio to your Office documents, and now it's even better in Office 2007. One great thing is that with Office 2007 you can import media formats, such as  AVI, ASF, WMA and WAV into documents through the clip organizer (For a complete listing, visit Compatible audio and video files for use in Office 2007).  Here are a few tips.

*Inserting Graphics and Motion clips Into Office documents

To make your data entrenched documents more exciting with graphics, audio and motion clips in a few simple steps, you need to know where to start.

In Word, Excel and PowerPoint, the Clip Art Organizer operates and is accessed in the same way. To add basic Clip Art Graphics and Motion clips, follow these steps.

1. In the Insert tab, click on Clip Art in the Illustrations group.


2. When the Clip Art task pane appears, search for the Clip Art in the Search for box. Ensure that you specify the media file type and directories for the type of  Clip Art graphic you’re looking for.


3. Once you’ve found your Clip Art, either click on the drop down arrow and select Insert or Copy and Paste it into your file.  The down arrow will also give you access to preview the motion clips.

*Embedding Audio Files into your Office Documents

Now let’s move on to embedding audio files.  There are two ways to use audio in Office documents – embedding and linking. Embedding makes the audio file part of the document itself. Although embedding the audio increases your document size, it assures you that the sound will play properly.


In Excel and Word, adding a simple Clip Art sound file is done in the same manner as a Clip Art graphic. However,  PowerPoint contains more options for including media. To embed a sound file in PowerPoint, you can use Clip Art or the following steps.


1. Click on the Insert tab and in the Media Clips group, click on the arrow under the Sound button.


2. Select the from the available options: Sound from File, Sound from Clip Organizer, Play CD Audio Track, and Record Sound

3.  Each option will have its own methods of inserting and setting specific sound files and options to follow.


Note: if you link to a sound file then you must also pass along the sound file along with the document  in the proper directory tree or it won’t work. For a few more tips and help, head over to Embedding and Linking Sound files in Office 2007.

3) PDF Content to Office Documents – A quick Look


So you’ve got some great media and graphics in the PDF format that you want to use in an Office document, but haven’t a clue how to do it? No problem. One simple way to do it is by taking a snapshot with Adobe Reader.


1.Go into Adobe Reader and activate the snapshot tool (accessing its location will differ in versions 8 and 9).


2. Once activated, you can hold down the mouse button and drag a rectangle over the area or image you want to copy. (Doing this will let you copy the content to the clipboard as an image. As soon as you let go of the mouse button you should see a message telling you the content was copied to the clipboard).


3. Now you can paste it into your Office document.  Use either Ctrl+V or right click where you want to insert it and select Paste in the easy access menu.


Another easy way is to embed the PDF document directly into your document, which also works with multimedia PDFs.


1. Click on the Insert tab, and in the Text group, click on the Insert Object icon on the far bottom right corner.


2. In the Object dialogue that appears, select Adobe Acrobat Document under the Create New option. The embedded PDF will contain an image of the first page in the PDF document unless the PDF is secured. To display it as an icon, put a check in the box “Display as Icon� in the same dialogue box.

3. To format the embedded object, right click on it and select Format Object.


When double-clicked upon, the PDF object will launch and open in  Adobe
Reader. If you want to retain all the complexities of the PDF  in a presentation, you can do so with some third party tools that will help you along the path. Here’s a good place to start called PPTools.

4)Insert Movies into your Presentation

If your PowerPoint presentation requires more than just graphics, you needn’t worry.  A PowerPoint 2007 presentation can support more advanced media as well, such as  movies.  

One thing to note beforehand however, is that movie files are linked to the presentation file. To prevent problems, place a copy of your movie file in the same folder as the presentation before inserting it.

1. While in the active slide in which you want to  Click on the Insert tab. In the Media Clips group, under Movie, click on the arrow.



2. There will be 2 options to choose from:  Movie from File and Movie from Clip Organizer.


3. Search for your movie file in the following directories each option provides. Click on the Movie file to insert it.


There are a number of options you can set for your PowerPoint movie. For a detailed look at what you can do, visit Add and play a movie in a presentation page.

5) Put Some Flash in your Presentations

Flash is an appealing solution to animating some basic content. It’s also a quick way to get some great and flashy animated content in your presentations. Here are some steps to help you get Flash files inserted in your PowerPoint presentation.


Note: To play a Flash file in your presentation, you’ll first need the Adobe Macromedia Flash Player and the ActiveX  control called Shockwave Flash Object registered on your computer.  (Inserting a Flash file requires adding an ActiveX control to the slide and creating a link
from it to the Flash file).


1. Go into the Developers’ Tab. In the Controls group, select the More Controls option.

(To activate the Developers’ Tab, click on the Microsoft Office Button, and go to PowerPoint options.  Click on Popular, and put a checkmark in the Show Developer tab in the Ribbon, and click OK).

2. Find the Shockwave Flash Object entry in the More Controls list, and click OK.  Now you can click and drag a square onto your slide. Resize it as needed.

3. Right-click on this square, and select Properties. The interface that appears shows two tabs, Alphabetic and Categorized, where you can adjust a list of different properties.

4. Locate and click on the Movie property in the Alphabetic tab. Next to it in the blank cell, enter the full drive path or the entire URL to the Flash file you want to play. In the "Properties" dialog box, you can also set certain options for playing the animation. Here are a few:

As you can see, there’s no reason you should ever feel that a plain black and white presentation of data is sufficient. These tips should help you see that your reports and data can excite your readers.

They should help you present everything you need to in a lively and informative manner and reduce the snoring in those four-hour-long quarterly sales meetings. So break out of static black and white and splash a little color and motion into your business documents.