This article was originally posted on Online Tech Tips (Copyright 2007, Assem Kishore)

Although PowerPoint is electronic slide creation software, printable handouts serve an important role both for the presenter and an audience. In this article, we’ll discuss your options for creating great PowerPoint handouts and purpose behind doing so in the first place.

Since PowerPoint is a software program designed to create electronic slide presentations, it may appear counter-intuitive to create printable handouts from your finished presentation. However, there are three main reasons you should consider creating handouts.

First, if your presentation’s content is particularly complex, offering printed handouts to your audience can help your audience members keep track of where you are in the presentation to keep them informed and up to speed.

Second, every audience member can walk away from your presentation with the handouts for inspection later. This way, you don’t have to rely on your audience members’ memories to ensure they understood the message of your presentation.

Finally, if your presentation has any call to action items in it, printed handouts can remind your audience not only about the fact there is a call to action but also what they action was. This can help ensure that your presentation has a bigger impact on your audience again without having to rely on the audience’s memory.

Open any PowerPoint presentation you have created and click on the View tab on the Ribbon. With the View tab active, click on the button labeled Handout Masterin the section titled Presentation Views.

You’ll notice that there is a new tab on the Ribbon labeled Handout Master. This is the tab that contains all of the handout options available to you in PowerPoint. Notice that by default, PowerPoint places six slides per page. Although this is usually a good choice, you need to decide whether this is the best layout for your handouts.

If your slides contain very basic information in large fonts, you may opt to change the number of slides per page to nine. If your slides contain detailed information such as charts or small type, you should choose a lower number of slides per page such as four or two.

Rarely should you choose one slide per page unless your slides contain very detailed information that is vital to the presentation. To change the number of slides per page, click on the button labeled Slides Per Page and make your choice.

Another important choice to make when it comes to PowerPoint handouts is the orientation of the page. By default, PowerPoint offers you a portrait page orientation.

However, since PowerPoint slides are almost always wider than they are tall, landscape orientation makes more sense. To change the orientation of your slides from portrait to landscape, click the button labeled Handout Orientation and choose Landscape from the menu.

To the far right of the Ribbon, you will notice a button labeled Page Setup. Much like a Word document, this is where you can change the margins and dimensions of the page.

How you change these variables for your handouts should be determined by how your slides are laid out and what information each slide contains. Make sure your slides are readable based on how small of a font you used and the complexity of the content on the slides.

On the Placeholders section of the Ribbon, you can choose to add several options to your PowerPoint handouts including a Header, Footer, Date, and Page Number. A header or footer is a great place to put the title of your presentation and your name so people will know who created the handouts and who delivered the presentation.

Page numbers are a matter of preference but make a great way to help the audience find specific slides since you have a way to refer to which page a slide resides. Adding a date to your handouts is a good idea so people remember when they saw you give your presentation.

The Edit Theme section of the Ribbon offers you an opportunity to setup the basic theme of your handouts. Keep in mind, however, that this will not change the theme of your electronic version of your presentation.

It turns out that themes that look great on a screen do not always print well. Using the Edit Theme section of the Ribbon, you can change the theme to a more printer-friendly version.

When choosing a theme for your handouts, remember that color slides do not look the same on paper when printed in black and white. Test your handout theme on a monochrome printer before making your final decision.

The Background section of the Ribbon lets you change the background printed on the handouts. Keep in mind that choosing a background for your handouts does not change the electronic version of your presentation; these backgrounds are applied to your handouts only.

Generally, few people choose a background for PowerPoint handouts because it creates an unprofessional appearance, detracts from the content of your printed slides, and wastes toner/ink when printed.

For these reasons, choose wisely if you decide to add a background to your PowerPoint handouts. Notice that there is also a button to Hide BackgroundGraphics while working on your handouts.

When you are done choosing the handout options for your PowerPoint presentation, click the Close Master View button and you are done. If you take the advice offered above seriously about creating readable and functional handouts, you should now have a nice set of PowerPoint handouts to offer your audience members.

This post originally appeared on Mashable on 8/23/2010

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

With all the noise on the web today, good branding is more important than ever. Even if your business is not a cutting edge tech startup, the overall identity of your face on the web, social media, and your storefront should be unified, clean, and compelling.

There’s a lot about doing business on the web that is inexpensive and turn-key: All you need to fire up a basic website, blog, or social media presence is an e-mail address. But no web app can substitute for real design vision, and your logo is the linchpin that ties all of your business’s aesthetics together.

Whether you’re going to hire a pro or put those college art electives to good use, take a moment to heed some advice from the experts about what makes a biz logo “sticky” in the minds of web-savvy consumers.

1. Identity in a World of Infinite Choice

A logo is a first impression. Before a customer knows anything about what you do or sell, they’ll view your identity with two choices: Keep reading, or click away. On the web, that choice is made in milliseconds.

Like the clothes you’d wear to a business meeting, your logo has to say, “I’m smart, I’m savvy, and I can compete,” at first glance.

“[The] first thing any small business owner should do is realize their business exists in a marketplace driven by multi-national brands,” said Von Glitschka, an illustrative designer who works extensively on identity and branding. “Their identity needs to be able to compete visually on the same level to be a success.”

The reason the web has been such a boon for small businesses is that they have reach comparable to big corporations like never before. So come to the table prepared, design-wise.

“A small business can maneuver and adapt to an ever-changing culture far easier than a multi-national brand can,” Glitschka added. “But if they don’t lay a good foundation for their marketing via a well-designed and appropriate logo and identity, they are handicapping themselves right out of the gate.”

So where do you start?

“Research,” said Sneh Roy, a graphic, web and logo designer based in Sydney, Australia. “There is nothing worse than bringing to life your vision … if it has all been done before. A small business owner is fighting for a small [piece of] real estate in a highly overcrowded market. Doing thorough research on who his competition is and how they project their brand image is the first and most important thing for a small business owner.”

2. What Makes a Company Logo “Sticky?”

If you’ve done your homework, it’s time to think about what kind of visual identities make a strong impression.

“The average consumer is fickle even in his loyalties, purely because of the sheer number of choices available to him,” said Roy. “Because a logo must be non-changing and timeless, making it ’sticky’ can be a bit ‘tricky.’ The perfect amalgamation of minimalism, well-thought-of concept, and strength in bold colors and typography — in my opinion — is what eventually makes a logo memorable and sticky for the consumer.”

“Avoid the predictable trends, forget about what others are doing, and create something that uniquely represents your business,” said Glitschka, and remember that “your actual business will be the ultimate draw, not the logo.”

“A logo that doesn’t preach; a logo that leads and adapts to the changing times; a logo that has heart and the ability to connect with the viewer can and always will cut through all the ‘noise.’” Roy added.

To achieve all this, you’ve got to hire a pro.

3. How to Find a Great Logo Designer

The best way to find anyone in a service industry is through personal recommendation. If a colleague has had success with a talented designer, make that connection.

For those starting from scratch, the web makes it easy to browse the portfolios of artists whom you can connect and work with from anywhere in the world. There are a few approaches that may yield results:

• Browse or search portfolios on quality websites like Behance, Carbonmade, and LogoPond. Portfolio networks make it easy to cross-reference design styles and get in touch with artists that pique your interest.
• Subscribe to design blogs like Smashing Magazine, Designm.ag, and Six Revisions (Disclosure: Six Revisions Founder and Chief Editor Jacob Gube is a contributing author for Mashable). The writers and contributors at these publications are usually designers themselves. If their discussions of branding and identity align with your business vision, look for portfolio and contact links in their bios.
• Social media is often a great way to discover design experts with serious skill and clout. If you can’t get a referral from one of your Twitter or Facebook pals, use social media search tools like TweepSearch andGoogle Blog Search to find profiles with “logo design” and “branding.” Check out their feeds and websites. Do they appear to be well-respected and write authoritatively about their design expertise? If so, shoot over an e-mail and get a quote.

“Look for a designer who has a good grasp on marketing. Understands brand culture, has a proven methodology with other small business clients and a portfolio to back it up,” said Glitschka.

“One of the most important factors to consider when shopping for a pro logo/graphic designer is the style,” said Roy. “Each logo is different and the brand it represents may have very specific requirements. Look around to find a designer whose design style fits your needs.”

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4. Translating Your Logo into a Social Web Presence

You’ve found a talented designer, and she’s produced the perfect logo for your business. What’s the best way to (re)introduce it into the social marketplace? A logo alone doesn’t make a brand, and the process of building a presence around that identity is no small feat.

“Any logo design should take into consideration from the very start the potential context it will live in,” said Glitschka. “If the business is geared for an online existence, then the design should be appropriate for that format. A tall vertical logo for a web-based business would be inappropriate for the context.”

And when it comes to the social web, try not to spread your identity too thin.

“Translating a logo design into a larger web/social media presence should be purely decided on need,” Roy added. “If your business doesn’t need it, don’t cheapen it by jumping on all kinds of media online and off the web. Have a good focus of where you want your brand to go and set your logo only along that focused path.”

In the end, Glitschka notes, it’s still your core business model that will determine “whether the logo will play a part in transforming a business into a larger web presence.”

If you’ve recently gone through the process of redesigning your small business’s logo, let us know which tips you’d add to the list in the comments below.