Many of us have seen the television shows about making over a room or home. We have seen them tear out the old, boring furnishings and install new, updated items. At the end, there is a huge difference in the before and after photos.
I was thinking that we could apply that same concept to our old, boring looking documents. Many times, we get stuck using the same format and look for our periodic reports and presentation items. It is hard to find time to revamp those files on our own.
For those of you who have updated to the Office 2010 edition, you may have already discovered the great new templates, themes and formatting tools. I thought I would share a few of those tools so that you could update your documents and presentations, too!
The Business Report templates are available by clicking on the following link: http://bit.ly/hJPwQS. I am impressed with the quality look of these templates. You will find Word documents, for the most part, in the Business Reports section. However, they have included some Excel spreadsheets that coordinate well with many of the reports. The files include great looking coverpages, too. Do not forget how important those coverpages are. That is the “first impression” for your report before the reader even gets to the content.
If you are working on a project presentation, there are some nice PowerPoint templates available at: http://bit.ly/euaBLG. You can download one of several presentations here. I downloaded several of them and then combined the features that I liked from each one. You can easily copy and paste slides to get the customized look that suites your goals.
Needing a budget or expense worksheet but do not want to start from scratch? Or, have an out-dated worksheet that needs sprucing up? You can find some very good Excel templates here: http://bit.ly/ic3ukB. On this webpage, you will see budgets for all different kinds of business uses. I even found one for a startup budget and cashflow statement, for those of you who are wanting to get your own business going. These might not do every last thing you need, but you can get a very good start to build on easily.
I know that looking at these websites has made me want to fix up several documents and presentations that I use frequently. I will need to carve out a little time to get a more up-to-date and eye-catching look for my Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files!
Recently one of my family members, after many years of contemplation, decided to open her own business. She gave me a call and asked me to help her create some of the forms she’ll need. I was impressed that she had already assembled some paper forms that she liked to use for ideas when we created the ones for her soon-to-be formed new company.
