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Add-ins
OfficeFX v2.5
Reviewed by Geetesh
Bajaj, July 14th 2006
See Also: Indezine's OfficeFX feed page
Introduction
About OfficeFX
Download
and Installation
Using OfficeFX
OfficeFX Options
Pricing and Support
Conclusion
Introduction
OfficeFX isn't like other PowerPoint add-ins that make small changes
-- this product metamorphoses your entire presentation into something
that's completely different from the original PowerPoint as far
as the look is concerned. Thankfully, it applies all its magic
non-destructively -- all your PowerPoint presentations including
their text, bullets, custom animations, slide timings, slide masters,
hyperlinks, etc. are left unchanged! And they are respected and
used by OfficeFX – which just might be the product’s
greatest advantage. Although presenters and audiences love creating
jaw-dropping content with magical effects and moving backgrounds,
everyone wants their PowerPoints to also be available in the original
form, and they want to leverage their own PowerPoint design and
animation skills. OfficeFX enables this blend -- call it
the best of both worlds.
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About OfficeFX
OfficeFX is from Instant Effects, a company based in Santa Barbara,
United States. You can learn more about OfficeFX and download a
free trial version from
their site...
My contact at Instant Effects for this review was Mike
Wilson - thank you, Mike.
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Download and Installation
Before you purchase a license, or download a trial version of
OfficeFX, you should run the System Checker that’s available
on the Product
Download page. This utility checks if your system
is compatible with OfficeFX. To be fair, OfficeFX requires a higher-end
graphics card -- and will run better with a dedicated graphic card
rather than your motherboard's built-in graphics -- for this reason,
it's best that you first work with the trial version to see if
your system is compatible or not. And I'm glad to see a company
that's honest about their product's system requirements for a change!
The setup routine will also check for the latest version of Microsoft's
DirectX runtime -- and will download the missing components for
you -- for this purpose, do set aside at least half an hour of
your time along with a fast internet connection to ensure a proper
installation.
When installed, the add-in creates an OfficeFX toolbar within
PowerPoint as shown in Figure 1 -- if you don't
find it there choose View | Toolbars | Office FX.
Figure 1: The OfficeFX Toolbar
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Using OfficeFX
As I said earlier, all OfficeFX imagery leaves the original presentation
content intact -- but it does store extra Office FX info within
the presentation itself -- for this reason, your original PowerPoint
file sizes may balloon a little -- my test presentation went from
1 mb to 1.23 mb. Of course, you can always save the OfficeFX enhanced
PowerPoint files with a new name.
Beyond the small file size increase, and the graphic card compatibility
requirements, OfficeFX has everything to keep the audiences tied
to their chairs. With the impressive repertoire of moving backgrounds,
interactive 3-D models, text effects, slide transitions, and animations,
OfficeFX can bring wows from viewers -- in fact, the end product
hardly resembles PowerPoint at all.
Before I show you how you can use OfficeFX, don't forget that
no presentation with zero content can attain a wow factor solely
on the basis of cool effects. So start with a presentation that's
already compelling and complete -- then add OfficeFX to it so that
you can make a statement.
Follow these steps to use OfficeFX on a PowerPoint presentation.
- Open any presentation in PowerPoint -- then click the OfficeFX
button from the toolbar. This will open the interface shown in Figure
2.
Figure 2: The OfficeFX Interface
OfficeFX works with FXThemes -- and sets of FXThemes are contained
within Theme Packs. When the application is opened for the first
time, you get a basic Theme Pack -- extra Theme Packs can be
downloaded and purchased from the OfficeFX site. A visit to the
Instant Effects Theme
Gallery and Free
Asset pages will give you an idea of the array looks
and 3D “insert scenes” that are available.
Select a Theme Pack and you will see the FXThemes it contains. Figure
3 shows the interface with a FXTheme selected.
Figure 3: OfficeFX Interface with the FXThemes
- Apply the options as required -- each option is explained later
in this review.
- Click OK to apply the changes to the presentation, and get
back to PowerPoint. Remember to save the presentation again in
PowerPoint.
Alternatively, click either of the FXShow buttons to view the
presentation using the OfficeFX effects. One FXShow option starts
a full screen presentation on your primary monitor. The
other option starts a Presenter View utility much like PowerPoint’s
similarly named tool for use in dual monitor setups.
Note: Choose File | Save PPT As to save OfficeFX
enhancements to a different PowerPoint filename -- this won't change
the original PowerPoint presentation.
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OfficeFX Options
The OfficeFX interface is divided into three parts, as shown in Figure
3. These are explained below:
- Slide Pane shows all the slides contained
in the active presentation. Select a slide, or more than one
slide -- and then make changes elsewhere in the dialog box --
such as applying a variation, adding videos or animated 3-D models,
transitions, etc.
- Preview shows the slides as you apply changes
on them. You can view slides individually as you work on them.
The Design Mode shows the current slide with
applied variations, transitions etc., and the Interactive
Mode is a smaller preview of the actual slide show.
It allows you to click inside the preview window to trigger custom
animation and transition to the next slide. In the area below
the Preview, you can see detailed information about the selected
slide and applied theme variation.
- Control Panel has six tabs which provide
access to all the features and settings of OfficeFX and allows
you to apply those to your PowerPoint file
Themes (see Figure 4) is
where you choose the Theme Pack and the FXTheme for the presentation.
Figure 4: Themes tab
Variation (see Figure 5 )
allows the user to apply an FXTheme’s different variations
to selected slides. Variations can simply be different color
renditions of a moving background (as in the FXTheme used for
this review), or they might include different layouts to accommodate
title slides or content slides. The variations options
will differ from theme to theme.
Also included on the Variation panel are the Transitions options. Each
FXTheme has its own custom transitions that pick up on its
particular design. There are also a set of over 30 standard
transitions that come with OfficeFX. Those can be used
with any FXTheme. And if you prefer to use PowerPoint
transitions, that option is also available to you.
Figure 5: Variation tab
Options (see Figure 6 ) is
where you can fine-tune various slide elements -- such as text
appearance in the presentation, interactivity, animation, etc.
For example, if you want OfficeFX to respect the colors you’ve
chosen for bulleted text on a particular slide, this is where
you select that option.
Figure 6: Options tab
Insert (see Figure 7 ) allows
you to add 3D scenes and videos to your slides and allows you
to tweak their placement and performance. For OfficeFX Professional
users, the video insert scenes are particularly interesting. They
project your AVI, WMV, or MPEG videos onto actual 3D objects
like animating laptop computers, cell phone screen, or billboards. They
also can simply play your video full screen, but either in
front of or behind your PowerPoint content.
Figure 7: Insert tab
Publish (see Figure 8) tab
is used for exporting the changes made on the presentation
into a video or standalone FXD file. FXD files are a special
OfficeFX file format that can be played using the free FXD
player application -- this is a great option if you want
to distribute your OfficeFX presentations to people who don't
have the full version of OfficeFX installed. Publishing to
video and FXD format is a feature of OfficeFX Professional.
Figure 8: Publish tab
Preferences (see Figure 9 )
provides global settings that apply to the entire OfficeFX
application -- by clicking the Advanced button, you can make
even more changes.
Figure 9: Preferences tab
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Pricing and Support
OfficeFX is available in two versions -- Office FX and Office
FX Professional -- high-end options like inserting 3D video insert
scenes, publishing to video and FXD format, and content creation
of themes is only possible using the Professional version.
The basic version costs $149.95 -- and the Professional version
costs $649.95 -- volume discounts are available.
Support is through email and an online FAQ. I should add that
email support was first rate.
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Conclusion
OfficeFX is a compelling product and they have all the bases covered
-- for high end users, they have OfficeFX Professional. Everyday
users can choose the basic Office FX version that provides 80 percent
of the abilities at 25 percent of the price -- and if you only
want to view the OfficeFX enhanced presentations in FXD format,
there's the free FXD player.
Whichever version suits you, do remember to test if your graphics
hardware can cope up with the product -- beyond that, the product
is amazing.
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