I’ve heard that its possible to keystone slides in Microsoft Power Point. I have not been able to actually turn up any evidence of this feature, however, and I was wondering if any of the teeming millions have any knowledge on the subject?
Well, I’m a PowerPoint developer, and I’m not even sure I know what you mean by “keystoning”. Do you mean like the monitor setting, where you change the sides of the screen so that it looks like a trapeziod?
If so, there’s no way to change the slide region (scratch area) to do that. You can use Page Setup to make the Slide Show screen appear smaller than the monitor, but you can’t change the vertical edges diagonally. However, you can simulate that in Slide Show by going to Format | Slide Background, changing the background color to black, then inserting a large trapeziod shape onto the slide region and add your text, etc in the trapeziod shape. When you run Slide Show, it will appear that the edges of the screen are slanted, b/c the background will be black on black and you’ll only see the trapeziod.
If that’s not what you mean by “keystoning” - feel free to explain it in more detail and I’ll tell you if PPT can do it or not.
If you plan on showing this show on a LCD projector of some sort, the projector itself should have a “Keystone” setting that you can adjust. This is a much better method as every time you setup to use the projector conditions can and do change. Setting a “Keystone” setting in the presentation file itself would make it harder for you to make the presentation look optimal every time.
I think he’s talking about an intentional ‘effect’ where it looks like you’re looking at the slide slightly from the side. This is supposed to add interest to the presentation, but in reality it’s just bad design.
While most folks spend large amounts of effort to eliminate the keystone effect, the question should still be answered.
Assuming you don’t have large amounts of text, you can fake it to an extent by using WordArt. Select the shape that has one side smaller than the other, and adjust until you get it the way you want. If you want your background to be the same shape, follow Dooku’s advice. Images will probably have to be warped in an external app, since Powerpoint doesn’t seem to let you do that.
It will take a ton of work to get it to look right, but it is possible. A better alternative would be to create the entire slide in a drawing program, group all elements, then warp them to the desired shape. Import that slide image as a graphic into Powerpoint, and you’ll be set.
To clarify, by keystoning I was referring to making it look like a trapezoid. The goal would be to counteract the angle that my LCD projector at in relation to the screen, not for an effact or “bad design.” Dragwyr, the only reason I ask is that my projector does not have a keystoning feature. Most slides just contain photographs. I may just have to get a better projector.
Sorry. An effect, not effact.
Have you tried angling the screen to compensate? This should fix all problems, instead of just PowerPoint’s. Actually, can you give us the make and model of the projector itself and some idea of the layout of the room?