Science PowerPoint tips and tutorials

Even small graphical enhancements in drawings depicting cellular structures may have a significant impact on the overall visual perception by the audience. Membrane structures are frequently used in biomedical presentations and, if done creatively, offer an opportunity to show biological processes in a visually attractive way. Here we will describe how to generate the impression of depth and perspective using membrane receptors and proteins within the membrane plane. (more…)

Our team will attend the Converge South Conference in Greensboro on October 7th and 8th. Let us know if there is anyone who wants to meet with us at contact@visiscience.com

Many journals may not accept PowerPoint slides as manuscript figures and illustrations and require conversion to .tif, or sometimes to .eps format. Since direct conversion to .tif format from PowerPoint Save menu does not give high resolution .tif, end user may be sometime left with few options, including re-doing illustrations using high-end graphical software. Fortunately, there is a convenient and simple way of converting PowerPoint slides into any acceptable format that is fully compatible with Adobe Illustrator.
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After complete conversion of Excel graph into PowerPoint vector graphics as described in the preceding article, you can easily change and reposition any graphical element in the chart. Here we will show how to resize the legend box, how to label graph axes and rotate and align text labels for both horizontal and vertical axes. It may be helpful if you familiarize yourself with PowerPoint briefly by reading Converting Excel charts into PowerPoint vector and text graphics.
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Excel is one of the preferred programs to create charts in science. Although copying them into a PowerPoint slide is easy, converting these charts into PowerPoint format, for the purpose of editing, may be somewhat cumbersome. There are several ways of editing Excel charts in PowerPoint. However, in order to modify it extensively in one would need to either go back to Excel and do editing there, or invoke Excel program while in PowerPoint and make the necessary changes still using Excel. Here we show how to quickly and completely convert copied charts into PowerPoint text and vector graphics. After this conversion you will have full control over each little graphical detail contained in the chart. (more…)

PowerPoint has adequate set of tools and overall depth to draw simple and complex chemical structures such as cyclic carbon elements. Although there are many more sophisticated drawing programs better suited for chemical structures in general, for the infrequent drawing needs in the area of chemistry PowerPoint is as good as any other such program. When used creatively, PowerPoint XP or 2003 will let you draw quite complex chemical structures that may surpass those created by more expensive software. (more…)

Line and Arrow. These tools are indispensable for charts, metabolic pathways and signaling pathways. Lines and arrows may be edited using Format > Format AutoShape commands. Note that you can also draw both lines and arrows using Curve or Freeform tools and performing final editing (adding arrow tip) with Format > Format AutoShape commands.
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PowerPoint XP/2003 has the option of placing any toolbar as a floating toolbar, which can be positioned anywhere on the screen, even very next to the drawn object within the slide area. Here we show how to create the floating toolbar that contains many other useful drawing commands; however which are not as essential as those described in Essential drawing tools I and II previously. In your future use of PowerPoint, this Toolbar could be activated or deactivated, depending on your drawing needs.
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A selection of drawing tools that are frequently used and should be kept accessible is shown in Figure 3.
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PowerPoint XP/2003 has numerous basic and advanced features that are displayed on separate Toolbars and hidden in multiple menus. Among plethora of buttons available there are some that you will probably never use, some you will use very infrequently and some that you may want to have within a quick reach all the time. So to streamline the workflow it is essential that you organize your workspace in such a way that you have all you need just 1-mouse-click away. The Drawing Toolbar is obviously an essential part of this workspace and we will help you to organize it in a handy way. Figure 1 shows an example of the PowerPoint screen that is ready for major work in creating objects in biomedicine.
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