Customer Reviews

How to Wow with PowerPoint

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

We looked at several books on using PowerPoint, and by far the best is this one from Peachpit Press.

"How to Wow" is lavishly illustrated with examples of the authors' best presentations, and you can duplicate any of them by using the templates in the DVD that comes with the book. One of the things that impressed us was the techniques for bringing YouTube videos and Internet Web content into your presentation.

Bob Schwabach and I are syndicated newspaper columnists who write the "On Computers" column, distributed by Universal Press Syndicate to 16 newspapers around the world.

The How to Wow series has never missed a beat, and this title focused on PowerPoint is no exception to this. The book does cover a lot of detail on making the most out of the 2007 version of the Microsoft legendary presentation software. But Richard Harrington and Scott Rekdal offer the reader more than just a primer on the topic: they go beyond by offering some very useful tips to make the most out of your presentations (tips that you can use equally with PowerPoint, Keynote or any software or manual technique you choose for putting together your presentations). The end result is a title you are bound to be satisfied with almost regardless of your software choice, which makes it a book to have sitting by your side whenever you are gearing up for making a first impression with a presentation.

I have been really pleased with this book. I am not "new" to PowerPoint or computers. I know how to "use" the features of PowerPoint, and did not need a primer on the product. What I wanted to know was how to make presentations that had some "pop". I've seen a LOT of presentations. Most of them are dull. Some of them are amazing. I wanted to make an amazing presentation. I don't have a graphics art department.

This book helped me to understand how to make those amazing presentations. The book presents its concepts quickly and efficiently. I was able to read the book while developing content. I was able to create a presentation where people said "wow". Better yet, I think I learned some really good lessons that will serve me well for a long time. My presentations will be very different from now on.

This book is very customized for PowerPoint 2007. I have this, so I was happy to be able to use the new features it offers (which I believe are extensive).

This book delivered to me what I wanted. I would recommend it to others.

I am a lawyer who recently began using Powerpoint presentations for clients. While I am a pretty savvy computer user and can do quite a bit with MS Word, the steep learning curve of Powerpoint often left me frustrated. It always seemed that the expert functions that separated the "run of the mill" presentation from the great presentation were eluding me.
Like many others, I don't have the kind of time to try to figure out how to use Powerpoint like a pro. I use a computer to make my life easier, so to dedicate hours upon hours trying to figure Powerpoint out is out of the question.
Enter How to Wow with Powerpoint. I bought the book to see if it could help me at all, as I was getting annoyed that I had invested so much in the Office suite and felt that my Powerpoint presentations were amateurish. This book immediately justified the hundreds of dollars I spent on Office. It quickly and thoroughly brought me to another level when working with Powerpoint. The instructions are clear and the templates are extremely helpful.
I read this book in two sittings. It was easy to read with quite a few pictures, charts and diagrams. It kept me focused because it was so easy to relate the words on the pages to my actual projects. I couldn't wait to take what I had read and apply it to my presentations. Now that I have read the book, I keep it next to the computer in my office as a reference book (As an aside, this book is named "How to Wow" and not the "For Dummies" series. I would not display a book in a professional setting that is "For Dummies" as I do not believe it is appropriate).
This book made me tremendously more productive and creative then I was able to be before having read it. I believe this is the mark of a great how-to book. I'm extremely satisfied with my purchase and would say that if you plan on buying Powerpoint, this book is essential.

I was looking for a book to make my PowerPoint presentations more effective. I've been using the same style of template and layout for years and was ready to take it to the next level. How to Wow with PowerPoint did several things for me. It gave me a solid foundation for the Dos and Don'ts of good presentations, taught me how to make my slides look VERY PROFESSIONAL, and best of all got me up to speed with the new interface in Office 2007 quickly and easily. If you use PowerPoint in any capacity at all, this book makes it easy to advance your presentations by light years really quickly. It is full color throughout, and walks you through exactly how to do things. This book will work for beginners as well as people who use PowerPoint everyday. I highly recommend it!!

Contrary to the title and what the back cover text promises, there's very little How to Wow in this book. And if you don't have Office 2007, don't even consider this book. All the steps are written for PP 2007, with no references as to how to do these things in previous versions (so you don't know which options you can do in other versions and which you can't.) While the cover says "Includes new features for PowerPoint 2007", it in no way says that this is only for 2007. In theory, the design tips apply to any version so it shouldn't matter. But there's suprisingly little about design in a book that promises almost nothing but design. For example, in the chapter on "Photos and Graphics" the authors write "Being able to guide your audience with visual clues can reinforce your objectives as long as you know how to use them, and which ones to use." At that point, I thought 'great, finally they're getting to what they promise on the back cover.' But noooo, that's it. The bulk of the chapter talks about file types and how to resize and move your images. Nothing about visual clues reinforcing objectives. This is not the PowerPoint design book it claims to be; it's not even a good how to book.

And there's one thing that drove me nuts about this book. There are typos and contradictory statements. This wouldn't bother me if the book delivered what it promised. But since it doesn't, these really stood out. To make it worse, they repeatedly advise the reader to proof read their PowerPoint presentations. Apparently they don't believe what they write.

On the plus side, it's in color and looks pretty.

Two top-notch graphic design professionals offer up high standards for Powerpoint presentations which go far beyond the rudiments in How to Wow with Powerpoint, a guide to achieving the next level of potential with the program. Non-designers will appreciate the easy approach that focuses on building good design principles to build more effective presentations. From selecting and preparing images to blend in sound and motion and moving from slides to animated presentations, HOW TO WOW WITH POWERPOINT is a reference any computer or business library needs: it's packed with visuals and an easy format which lends to use..

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I thought I was a pro at PowerPoint before I read this book. Oh, how wrong I was! I learned so many tricks that I didn't even know existed before. The book comes with a CD that you use throughout the book as it leads you through the lesssons. I highly recommend the book.

The How to Wow series started off focusing on Photoshop. It was a handy collection of tips. Yes, the information could be gleaned from other sources, but it was convenient to have it assembled between covers and with the accompanying CD. Many of the effects were reasonably complex and not easily accessible to beginners or, often, even pros.

The How to Wow series has expanded and as with so many other franchises like this, it has cheapened itself.

"How To Wow With PowerPoint" brings nothing worthwhile to the table. Its tips and hints are simplistic and basic: you can find similar collections on the web for free. Even at the Amazon price, this book is not, in my opinion, worth the money.

Some of the tips border on the bizarre: " "Are You an iPod User? iTunes Works for PowerPoint". Two pages with four liberally spaced paragraphs and lots of white space wasted on this. Filler material and nothing more.

"Insert Video on a slide" takes four pages. It's covered completely in less space in the PowerPoint help file.

This book doesn't deal with making effective presentations. It's just a collection of rudimentary techniques that are all covered in the PowerPoint help file. As well, there are literally dozens of websites covering PowerPoint that have the same or better materials.

I think Jack Davis, the founder of the How To Wow series, should be ashamed of himself for letting this title go out under his imprimatur.

Jerry