PowerPoint Blog
Don Brittain is CEO and a founder of Instant Effects, a California company that develops OfficeFX, a software to visually enhance presentations, communications, and collaboration. Don has a personal interest in bringing the power of interactive computing and visual communication into mainstream use. In this interview, he discusses OficeFX and PowerPoint.
Read the interview here...
Categories: officefx, powerpoint, add-in, interviews
Today's free template is Desaturated Puzzle - download here...
Joachim Fritze was born and grew up in nothern Germany. He is a chemist by profession with twenty years of experience in the sales and marketing of dentistry stuff. An avid PowerPoint user for almost a decade, Joachim churns up PowerPoint presentation all the time and loves to use Perspector, the 3D add-in for PowerPoint.
In this interview, Joacim discusses PowerPoint and Perspector.
Read here...
Categories: interviews, powerpoint, perspector
Make PowerPoint files smaller, build presentations in Word and beef up security with these easy tips.
Robert Luhn teaches you more at the PC World Canada site...
Categories: education, powerpoint, techniques
Today's free template is Grey Checkers - download here...
Check out Freeppttemplates.com for free PowerPoint templates -- as of now there are 15 templates to start with.
Categories: templates, powerpoint
No amount of words can explain what a screenshot or a video capture of an onscreen activity can do since this is essentially showing to an audience how a task can be performed -- and you can add narration to such captures to make them even more informative.
TurboDemo, the program being reviewed on this page allows you to do all sorts of still and video captures -- and then create tutorials and demos which can be output to various formats.
Read the full review...
Categories: add-in, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Today's free template is Ancient Pink - download here...
It's always fun to do something more with a product than what's visible on the surface. By itself, OfficeFX Professional is a great product that lets you bring in animated, moving backgrounds into your PowerPoint slides -- much like televison style backdrops. But let's face it -- at some time, you'll want to bring in some other movie background for your PowerPoints -- fortunately, it's easy to do that as long as your movie clips fulfill these requirements:
Many such movie clips can be found in Digital Juice's Jump Backs library -- and there are other sources too.
Once you have chosen a movie clip, follow these steps:
Figure 1: Match your screen with these options.
I did mention that you should use a simple theme for this tutorial, and Mike provides more insight:
"The recommended theme for this approach is "Light Pools" from the standard Instant Effects theme pack. The why is because when you do a video background this way, the 3D elements of whatever theme you choose are still being played behind your video. With Light Pools, those 3D elements are very simple. They cause virtually zero overhead and won't slow down your display".
Related Stuff: OfficeFX review
Categories: officefx, powerpoint, add-in
Microsoft Corp.'s PowerPoint presentation software can be an effective way to present information in the courtroom -- but few lawyers use it to its full advantage. Here are some tips to add more punch to your next trial arguments.
Learn more with Donna Payne...
Categories: powerpoint, legal
Today's free template is Feathered Beige - download here...
Interlink Electronics announced the sucessor to its Navigator presentation remote control. The latest edition, known as the Champagne Edition includes numerous new features including dedicated 'forward' and 'previous' slide buttons, an integrated laser pointer and an extended wireless operating range of over 50 feet. The Navigator works with Mac or Windows platforms to allow users to control their PowerPoint or Keynote presentation without the need for additional software. The Champagne Edition Navigator retails for $150 and is available now.
More on the MacNN site...
Categories: remotes, powerpoint
Today's free template is Circle Spiro - download here...
To buy a product that converts PowerPoint presentations to Flash SWFs is no longer an easy decision to make -- what with twenty-plus offerings out there! And since each of these applications has something different (and seemingly better) than the other, this decision can be downright confusing. FlashSpring Pro is one such application -- what does it do different, how does it perform, and what is my opinion?
Read on to learn more...
Categories: add-in, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Today's free template is Textured 09 - download here...
pharus53 software solutions GmbH, a company based out of Hamburg, Germany creates ActiveSlide, a simple Flash authoring solution that uses the slide metaphor rather than the conventional stage metaphor that other Flash authoring systems use -- thus making it a natural fit for PowerPoint users.
In this exclusive conversation, Tobias Windbrake of pharus53 discusses ActiveSlide including the different versions available -- and how they integrate with PowerPoint.
Geetesh: Tell us more about ActiveSlide and its different editions.
Tobias: ActiveSlide is a program to easily create interactive content. The software is not a PowerPoint add-in, but a powerful, stand-alone authoring tool. You can use it for your presentations as well as for e-learning courses and even websites.
The main advantage of this product is its ease of use. You can work with ActiveSlide as you would do with PowerPoint: You have slides (and a master slide) where you can place text, images and shapes on. In a second step, you can visually assign interactivity patterns to your slide elements. If desired, this step is completely supported by helpful wizards. One basic interactivity pattern is that elements can be dragged. Advanced patterns allow you to use an element as a carrier (that can transport other elements), or to synchronize the movement of two elements. As interactivity patterns can be combined, there is an unlimited number of possibilities.
The product is available in two editions, Thunder and Professional. The Thunder Edition is the "little brother" of the Professional one. While Thunder is perfect for PowerPoint users, content developers for e-learning courses normally prefer the Professional Edition. The latter provides additional functionality, e.g. a full-featured scripting language and an export option for Java Applets.
Geetesh: How do you position ActiveSlide Thunder in the world of PowerPoint.
Tobias: Let's put it in one sentence: With ActiveSlide you can touch your PowerPoint slides! The software allows you to easily create dynamic slides where you can drag and drop images, shapes and even text objects. That may sound like a breathtaking effect. Well, that's true! But interactive slides can do much more for a presenter and his audience. I will give you a few examples:
As you can see from the examples, there are many different possibilities where interactivity can have a great benefit, for you and your audience. So, how is it done technically? You can export your ActiveSlide project as a Flash movie. After that, add-ins like the Flash Toolbar (reviewed at Indezine) make it very easy to place ActiveSlide movies on any PowerPoint slide. In this context, please allow me to announce another product of the ActiveSlide family: Shortly we will offer ActiveSlide Thunder for PowerPoint, a special product that bundles ActiveSlide Thunder and the Flash Toolbar mentioned above.
Download a trial version of ActiveSlide here...
Categories: powerpoint_flash, powerpoint, add-in, interviews
Today's free template is Lava Lightning - download here...
Tony Dunckel is Product Manager for SnagIt, the versatile screen capture program from Okemos based TechSmith Corporation that functions more like a Swiss-Army knife of graphic tasks. I interviewed Tony more than a year ago -- and SnagIt already looks like a different, newer product that adds more usability and feature improvements with each release.
In this conversation, Tony discusses new SnagIt improvements and usage patterns.
Geetesh: Tell us more about the improvements in the new version of SnagIt?
Tony: Geetesh, since we last talked we have introduced 2 new versions, v8 and v8.1, which have added some long requested capabilities and some novel innovations as well.
SnagIt 8, launched towards the beginning of the year, produced the most astounding response we have ever received from our customer base. This was likely due to the fact that we solved their number one request: make the SnagIt Editor vector-based. This long awaited feature now lets users apply, change and delete edits made to a screen capture over and over again. We also spiced up the editing environment by adding custom callouts. These callouts allow users to add callout graphic, customize the size and color or it and enter the necessary text in one quick step.
Plus users are able to save there custom callouts for repeat use.
From an innovation perspective, version 8 introduced the new capability of adding interactivity to a screen capture. This comes in a couple forms. First, users can now capture live web pages, where the hyperlinks stay active and can be accessed long after the capture was taken. This allows users to add one-click access to local files or web sites within screen captures they might use in an email, a saved file or even on a webpage itself. Second, users can add another type of interactivity through Flash. By adding a custom hotspot to any image, users can create popup text or images that appear when the viewer hovers over the hotspot. This unprecedented capability allows users to create truly interactive screen captures with point and click simplicity.
Imagine images that can further explain themselves through this interactivity. This gives a whole new dimension in how uses can communicate visually with images.
Last, we added support for PDF in this release. Users can now easily capture any images and save that image to a PDF file. This ubiquitous format works across any platform and can be easily searched for by user entered metadata. Best yet, users can now use SnagIt's printer capture to print web pages, documents and more to SnagIt and then save them as PDF files in one quick step.
Just this past June, we launched version 8.1 to follow up the well received version 8. In this release, we enhanced the already popular interactive images by making these easy to put into PowerPoint.
Educators, presenters and consultants alike were extremely happy to see these incredibly powerful images now capable of being used inside the application they use everyday. We finally added in a few housekeeping items such as developing support for 64-bit operating systems and changing our new callout tool to create vector objects.
Geetesh: Can you share some SnagIt indispensable stories with us -- about people who are so spoiled by SnagIt that they can't live without it?
Tony: You bet. Not a day goes by we don't get fan mail from happy customers (don't worry, we get the other kind too...), but some are certainly more unconventional than others.
For example, we've gotten many requests to make SnagIt available on the thumb drive. People ask for this because they often have to use client PCs and just can't live without SnagIt at their fingertips. Of course, this is a legitimate request and one we're considering.
Then we have those that are more unique, such as the person that has changed jobs six times in the past four years and has managed to convince his boss to buy him SnagIt every time (boy, he must be in sales!).
And you can't forget the woman who bought her boss SnagIt as a holiday gift as a way to convince him to buy it for the whole company -- and no, she wasn't on the TechSmith payroll ;-)
TechSmith is truly fortunate that it has such appreciative customers. We understand the valuable role our customers play in helping us create quality products. Keeping that at the forefront of our model hopefully means many more years of happy SnagIt users.
Thank you so much, Tony.
If you still haven't tried SnagIt, do download a copy of SnagIt here...
Categories: snagit, powerpoint, interviews, add-in, techsmith,
Presentations often fail to leave an impact on the audience not because of the content but because all presentations look so similar and predictable.
That's where Ovation can make a difference -- instead of redoing the presentation all over again, you can use Ovation to enhance your existing presentations into great looking productions -- this review will explore if Ovation lives up to that promise.
Read the full review...
Categories: ovation, powerpoint, add-in
Mike Wilson is a founder and VP of Business Development at Instant Effects, Inc. in Santa Barbara, CA. In this Indezine exclusive article, Mike explains how recent changes in technology and choices has made advanced graphic abilities available right inside PowerPoint.
Read the article here...
Categories: officefx, powerpoint, add-in, animation
Today's free template is Flying Ellipses - download here...
MathType from DesignScience is probably the foremost equation program available today -- it integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Office programs including PowerPoint.
Bob Mathews is Director of Training for Design Science. A former military pilot, Bob came to Design Science in 1999 after teaching high school mathematics for several years. He has been using Microsoft Office since version 2. Bob and his wife Sandie live near San Antonio in central Texas. In this conversation, Bob discusses MathType and PowerPoint.
Geetesh: Tell us more about Design Science and MathType.
Bob: This year is the company's 20th year in operation. Next April, we will celebrate the release of our first product, MathType. Both Design Science and our product line have grown tremendously over the last 20 years. We now offer 6 products, 3 of which are provided at no charge to the consumer. All of our products are related to math, science, and engineering typesetting -- whether the document's final form is the printed page, a projected presentation, or a web page.
Geetesh: How is MathType placed in the world of PowerPoint?
Bob: When you install MathType, it detects PowerPoint on your system, and installs an icon onto the PowerPoint toolbar. When you're ready to insert a MathType expression on the slide, you click the icon. MathType opens in a separate window, and you create the expression in this window. There is a link from MathType to PowerPoint, so when you close the MathType window, the equation is inserted onto the slide. You can edit the equation by double-clicking it, which opens it in MathType.
Many, if not most, of our customers who use MathType in PowerPoint also use it in Word. Clearly the size of the font you'd use in PowerPoint will be larger than what you're using in Word, and the font face may be different as well. MathType gives you an easy way to save different preference files so you can switch easily from one font & style combination to another. You can also set the color of your equations to be exactly the same as the color you're using for your PowerPoint text. If you want to focus attention on part of an equation, you can use a different color for that part of the equation.
Most of us have formulas, expressions, and other special symbols & constructs we use often. MathType gives you an easy way to customize the toolbar so these commonly-used items are readily available. If you want to change the keyboard shortcuts, you can do that too.
We have a free 30-day evaluation of MathType available at our web site. The evaluation version loses many of its features after 30 days, but is usable indefinitely in MathType Lite mode, giving you the ability to continue to use and edit presentations you've created during the evaluation period.
Categories: add-in, powerpoint, interviews, education
A new zero-day exploit was disclosed over the weekend for an unpatched flaw in Microsoft's PowerPoint software, which could allow for an attacker to take complete control of an affected system and run arbitrary code. Although details on the exploit are scant, it is known the malware that is distributing the exploit is a trojan horse.
More on the BetaNews site...
Categories: powerpoint
Probably the only thing more boring than text-filled slides is to endure a series of slides with figures in tables -- something that looks like a screenshot of an Excel spreadsheet! .... And since PowerPoint's version of animated charts are so omnipresent, you might want to create your charts in another program and then bring them inside PowerPoint -- Rich Chart Builder, the product I am reviewing can help.
Read the review here...
Related Post: Rich Chart Live: Conversation with Manuel Fernandes
Categories: powerpoint_flash, powerpoint, add-in, animation, charting
Today's free template is Faded Window - download here...
No matter how bad you think your presentation has been, take some comfort from the fact that at least it wasn't as bad as these stories.
Read more on the Microsoft UK site...
Categories: opinion, case_studies, powerpoint
It has happened to us all. You are sitting in a PowerPoint presentation trying - and probably failing - not to yawn as slide after slide flashes across the screen. You may blame your boredom on the speaker, but Edward Tufte has another explanation. Microsoft PowerPoint, he believes, is a badly designed medium for communicating the information people need to make informed decisions. That is why it is so dull.
Alice Rawsthorn discusses more on the International Herald Tribune site...
Categories: opinion, case_studies, powerpoint
Baltimore County prosecutor James O'C. Gentry Jr. had photographs, medical records and three weeks of trial testimony about a 9-year-old girl who was starved and beaten to death, but no idea how to pull it all together into a compelling closing argument for jurors. He found the answer from an unexpected source: his sister, who worked at the time as a consultant making PowerPoint presentations to private companies.
More on the Baltimore Sun site...
Categories: case_studies, powerpoint
Each time there's a security incident affecting air travel, it becomes harder to get electronics through airport security. Last week's terrorism alert, for instance, raises the possibility that laptops, video projectors, and DVD players -- devices big enough to conceal a couple pounds of explosives -- will soon be banned from carry-on luggage. There's further speculation that any computing device capable of serving as a timer or detonator -- which includes cell phones, iPods, basically anything with a battery -- may eventually be excluded as well.
So how do you carry your presentation? David DeJean discusses this on the InformationWeek site...
Categories: powerpoint, pda, projector, blackberry
Today's free template is Textured 08 - download here...
Labels: add-in, interviews, powerpoint, presentationpoint
OutlookPoint is a product that lets you use your Outlook content such as messages, calendar, contacts, notes, tasks, etc. as a database source. It doesn't stop there -- using DataPoint as an interfacing product that links PowerPoint to database sources, OutlookPoint can let you send an email that converts itself to a presentation slide in an instant! How more dynamic can you get with PowerPoint?
And in this Indezine exclusive, we have Kurt Dupont who heads PresentationPoint -- creators of OutlookPoint, DataPoint, and other amazing PowerPoint add-ins.
Geetesh: OutlookPoint is not a conventional program -- there's probably no other application that does the same things -- so how did OutlookPoint evolve?
Kurt: Indeed, OutlookPoint is a special product in our business software but the application is definitely related to our main product DataPoint. With DataPoint you can display real-time information in a slide show, coming from various data sources. This kind of functionality is widely used at airports, schools and factories. On the other hand DataPoint is used to regenerate presentations with up-to-date content like sales reports, product information and availability statistics etc.
OutlookPoint is only interesting for the first type of presentations, what we call online presentations. With an online presentation you need a database to retrieve the dynamic information from and most applications are simply displaying messages or announcements, or are welcoming people at a company by displaying their name and company name at a large flat panel screen at the reception desk. The type of database needed here is very basic but requires a database, installation, training and a graphical user interface.
Figure 1: An OutlookPoint Workflow
This is what OutlookPoint does. You can use Microsoft Outlook or Exchange to host the public folders for DataPoint display purposes. You simply identify which folders or maps need to be exported to the OutlookPoint database. Then you use your existing Outlook interface to enter and maintain the map content. So for example you create a new appointment beween 9:00 and 10:00 and its subject will be displayed between 9:00 and 10:00 on the flat panel screen. Interesting options like appointment recurrence etc are included automatically.
The same can be done with email messages, contacts, notes and tasks. With DataPoint you decide what information is displayed.
All of this is very basic, but by using this add-on you eliminate the need of building a new database and user interface.
Geetesh: Can you share some case studies and usage patterns for OutlookPoint.
Kurt: Sure. Many possible applications are possible with DataPoint and OutlookPoint.
Learn more about OutlookPoint here...
Related Post: DataPoint: Conversation with Kurt Dupont
Categories: add-in, powerpoint, interviews, presentationpoint
Today's free template is Butterfly 01 - download here...
Today's free template is Tangram Woman - download here...
Today's free template is Red Yarn - download here...
Today's free template is Tangram Bird - download here...
Today's free template is Shape Ensemble - download here...
Johan Rosenquist is the founder of w2solutions, a software innovation company. To the PowerPoint community, he brings experience from the Telecom world via the HeadsetPresenter application. In this interview, Johan discusses Headset Presenter, Bluetooth, and PowerPoint.
Read the interview here...
Categories: interviews, powerpoint, remotes, add-in
Most of the time, any click while a PowerPoint slide is playing results in the next animation or the next slide. ActiveSlide Thunder gets around that limitation by using Flash SWF movies inserted in PowerPoint to offer interactivity and animation at the same time.
Read the review here...
Categories: add-in, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash
Today's free template is Mayan Magenta - download here...
Today's free template is Spiroplay - download here...
Dr. Christopher Peri has his credentials in architecture, and delves into methods that faciliate designers and engineers to network in real-time. He is the CTO at Simulat, Inc. where he leads development of Vyew, an interactive browser-based collaborative workspace. In this interview, Christopher discusses Vyew, PowerPoint integration and more.
Read the interview here...
Categories: interviews, powerpoint, conferencing
Today's free template is Social Era - download here...
Manuel Fernandes is from Blue Pacific Software, a rich media company based out of Lisbon, Portugal. In this conversation, Manuel discusses Blue Pacific Software and Rich Chart Live, their web-based charting product.
Geetesh: Tell us more about yourself and Blue Pacific Software.
Manuel: I like to look at myself as a software developer although my job involves a lot more. My preferred hobby is photography. My formal education was on computer science in the University of Lisbon.
I joined Blue Pacific Software 3 years ago just before we sold Flash Printer (now FlashPaper) to Macromedia (now Adobe). Since then we developed other great tools like Turbine 7 (a generic Flash engine), Turbine Video Engine (a video to Flash converter) and more recently Rich Chart Builder (an animated Flash chart generating software). We are still in love with Flash and we continue to develop innovative Flash tools just like the new Rich Chart Live which is an online application that creates animated Flash/PowerPoint charts with attractive visuals and interactivity.
Geetesh: What is Rich Chart Live, and how can it work with PowerPoint presentations.
Manuel: We are very excited about Rich Chart Live (RCL) because it is a great new way of using software: it's the Web 2.0 way -- the software runs from your web-browser and the user doesn't need to install anything or download any software. This is great for the user because it is so simple. The process of generating a chart with RCL is very simple:
You can use the software by subscription or by buying a time pass. There is also a free evaluation available for anyone wanting to try it.
Rich Chart Live Interface
You can learn more about Rich Chart Live, and test it for free at the Rich Chart Live site...
Categories: powerpoint_flash, powerpoint, add-in, interviews
Microsoft issued nine security updates addressing critical flaws in its Office and Windows products. The updates patch two worrisome PowerPoint flaws that could allow attackers to seize control of a PC, the company said.
More on the PC world site...
Categories: microsoft_office, powerpoint
Today's free template is Reflected Rock - download here...
Today's free template is Dew Leaf - download here...
Today's free template is Tiger Squares - download here...
Google has updated the uploader tool on Google Base, allowing users to associate more types of files with their items. Until today, uploading was restricted to images -- but now users have the option to upload PDF's, Microsoft Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets and more.
More on the ZDNet site...
Categories: google, powerpoint
Microsoft said that it plans to issue at least 12 security updates to fix vulnerabilities in its Windows and Office products. Redmond says 10 of the updates will address flaws -- some of them "critical" -- in Windows. No doubt one of the two Office updates will address the PowerPoint flaw that online criminals have been exploiting for the past month to steal information from companies.
More on the Washington Post site...
Categories: microsoft_office, powerpoint
Labels: office_mac, powerpoint
If you have a new MacBook or MacBook Pro that comes with an Apple Remote, it's not out of the ordinary to want to use the remote to control your PowerPoint presentations. Christopher Breen of MacWorld provides a couple of options.
Read more on the MacWorld site...
Categories: office_mac, powerpoint
Today's free template is Azure Geometry - download here...
Today's free template is Open Threads - download here...
Daniel Park has spent more than a decade in multimedia development, and has worked with Camtasia Studio since its introduction as Camtasia back at the start of the milennium. In this interview, Danies discusses his book, Camtasia Studio, and PowerPoint.
Read the interview here...
Categories: camtasia, powerpoint, books, interviews
Today's free template is Psychedelic Puddles - download here...
Today's free template is Flabstract - download here...
DimDim is a free web-conferencing program from the open source stable that takes on stalwarths like WebEx and LiveMeeting. DimDim is based out of United States, Canada, and India -- and their demo looked great.
InfoWorld posted a review on DimDim soon after the product was launched at OSCON. Matt Asay said "I've been tracking a cool startup since Linuxworld Boston, and was glad to see them formally launch at OSCON today. DimDim is the company, and they are to WebEx and web conferencing what SugarCRM is to Salesforce.com and Alfresco is to Sharepoint (and Documentum). An open source, value-rich competitor that should keep the proprietary competition up at night."
Check out the DimDim site... and the demo...
Also read the InfoWorld review... Categories: conferencing, powerpoint
Today's free template is Midnight Checkers - download here...
With the number of readymade templates and wizards that PowerPoint contains, you can literally create a presentation at the drop of a hat -- but those presentations would not be great presentations -- nor would they evoke interest in the audience or look any different than your everyday assembly-line PowerPoint presentation -- the type you see so often. It goes without saying that some time and effort has to be spent on creating better presentations.
In this review, we are looking at something that can help you improve the look -- it's necessary to add here that a presentation with great looks and little or no content will get you nowhere. Having said that, now let me tell you more about Presenter's Toolkit, a compendium of high-class graphics from Digital Juice that is specifically targeted to PowerPoint users.
Read the full review here...
Categories: templates, powerpoint, add-in, digital_juice
This book extract from Camtasia Studio 3: The Definitive Guide is an Indezine exclusive with permission from Wordware Publishing Inc.
The excerpts chosen to be published on Indezine show you how you can use the PowerPoint add-in in Camtasia.
Read the excerpts here...
Categories: camtasia, powerpoint, books, techsmith
Today's free template is Unearth - download here...
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