Postage Stage Picture Example

In a recent issue, our column included a question about a presentation we did at the IAAP International Convention last summer in Washington, DC (see below). Here is a link to a sample presentation referred to in the last paragraph. Click the link and when asked if you want to open or save, click Save, and then save the file to your local drive before opening it in PowerPoint.

Postage Stamp Picture Example

Question: I attended your PowerPoint without bullets presentation in DC.  Can you tell me what technique you used to do the repeating postage stamp of Lincoln in your demo?  

Answer: For those of you who weren’t able to be at our workshop in Washington, you need a little background. The “repeating postage stamp of Lincoln” refers to a slide we showed where 54 identical images faded onto the slide one by one. Those images, except a column on the left and the right, then faded away to reveal a larger version of the same image. You can use any photograph for this really cool effect. Just follow the steps below:

1. For the first slide: Insert a photo on a blank slide.
2. Double-click the photo to open the properties and then, resize the photo to 1.51 (h) by 1.29 (w). With a different photo, the width might be slightly higher or lower – be sure to keep Maintain Aspect Ratio checked and let PowerPoint set the width.
3. Copy the photo multiple times – in this case, we made 53 copies.
4. Position the copies in columns and rows on the slide. Again, in this case, we placed 9 across and 6 down.
5. Select all the photos and add custom animation, specifically, an Entrance Effect: Faded Zoom that starts After Previous with Very Slow speed.
6. For the second slide: Insert the larger version of the photograph (7.5h x 5.01w).
7. Copy all 54 of the postage stamp images from the previous slide and paste them on top of the larger photo.
8. Select all the small photos except one or two of the extreme left and right columns.
9. Add custom animation: An Exit effect: Fade, Fast, After Previous.

 When the first slide moves to the second, the postage-stamp photos fade away to reveal the larger image.

 If you have trouble lining up the small pictures, here are a couple things you can do:

Turn on the grid so you have guides to help you position the pictures on the slide. Click View Ø Grid and Guides, and then select the Display Grid on Screen checkbox. Make sure Snap Objects to Grid is also selected. Secondly, make sure you are making copies of a correctly sized image and position them using the grid. If you are still having a problem lining up the pictures, select a row or a column of pictures and from the Drawing toolbar, click Draw Ø Align or Distribute and chose the alignment you want.