Category Archives: PowerPoint

Share Your PowerPoints with Office Mix

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It’s Alive…It’s Interactive…It’s PowerPoint Mix!

There’s a new PowerPoint in town! There are so many great enhancements to PowerPoint 2013 and above. One of these is Office Mix, a free solution for PowerPoint that makes it easy to create and share online, interactive presentations, or “mixes”. Mixes play like web videos, but with support for animations, live links, and more.

Office Mix was primarily created for the learning environment but it isn’t just for the classroom. Here’s some other ways you can put it into action:

  • Create interactive training tools, build courses or use for marketing or demonstrations.
  • Combine screen recordings with slides and narration or just narrate over your existing slides.
  • Distribute the results to anyone as you save to the cloud. If they have a browser, they can access it. You’re not limited to delivering Mixes to Windows PCs: the video content can be viewed on Mac OS, iOS and Android devices, with appropriate versions for each platform.

To get Office Mix, download and install the free add-in. When you open PowerPoint 2013, you’ll see the new Mix tab at the end of the Ribbon. (Download link at end of this post).


Make it Sizzle

  • No stopping you now! Add zip to your mix:
  • Record audio or video speaker notes for each slide in your presentation.
  • Insert quizzes, curated videos, and more.
  • Easily record what’s on your screen, while you annotate with audio.

Preview your mix when you’re done, then upload it to OfficeMix.com to share. The portal also offers analytics so you can see audience statistics and quiz results if you are using for marketing or teaching.

Share it

Once your Mix is uploaded to the Office Mix service, you can then share it from your personal gallery to students and/or colleagues. (Uploading can take some time, especially if you’re saving your Mix as a video for offline viewing). You can make the Mix shareable and distribute its URL. Mixes can be restricted to users in your company or made public. Public Mixes are open to the entire internet. Shareable Mixes can be accessed by anyone with the Mix URL, although they do need to log in to view the Mix.

Make a Movie

Completed mixes can be played back online or downloaded as movies. In the MP4 format, you won’t get access to the interactive features, such as links to other videos, files or websites, but can be played on any device that supports that format.

You must have 2013 or above for Office Mix. Check it out. You will look like a hero!

You can download Mix from Microsoft here: https://mix.office.com/en-us/Home

Update: Office Mix is being retired but will integrate directly into PowerPoint 365. Check out the details in this blog that has all the Microsoft links: https://gaylelarson.com/office-mix-integrates-powerpoint-365/

The New Start Screens

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2013 Office applications sport a new color-coded start screen:

  • blue for Word,
  • green for Excel
  • orange for PowerPoint
  • green for Publisher
  • burgundy for Access

They all look and behave the same way as this example for Word. Launching the program displays a list of recent documents. A blank document is the default option or instead you can select a template, search online for templates by clicking the Category links or typing key words in the Search Box.

Click Open Other Documents to search for a document on your computer or in a OneDrive folder. The top right of the screen shows details of the OneDrive account that you are currently logged in to use and you can Switch User or access Account Settings with the drop down arrow next to the login name. This is accessible in the same area in all your Office programs, and inside of each of your files.

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Start screens help new users find their way around more easily, and experienced users may like having all of their options in one place at startup but not everyone is doing the Snoopy dance here. Turning off the Start Screen will display a blank document when you open the program (just like the old days)!

How to turn off the Start Screen

Word is open:

  1. Click File tab, then Options at the bottom of the category list on the left
  2. The General tab will display
  3. Scroll down to the Start up options section
  4. Remove the check mark from Show the Start screen when this application starts
  5. Click OK and you are good to go.

Test by closing Word and re-opening. The blank document awaits!

Restore Direct Response to Open and Save As

Several 2013 programs display the Backstage when you open or save a file. If you want to bypass it for direct access to the Open and Save As dialog boxes, you’ll be glad to know you can get that control back also. (This applies to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Publisher).

  1. Back to File tab, Options
  2. Click the Save category at left
  3. Click in the checkbox so that the Backstage does not display
  4. Click OK

Test your Open or Save As commands and you have instant dialog box.

Make this process even faster

Press F12 function key for instant Save As (all Office programs except Publisher)

Use CTRL O for Open (all Windows programs)

If this was helpful to you, please leave a comment!