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Add-ins
PowerPlugs: Headings
Reviewed by Geetesh
Bajaj, May 8th 2001
Introduction
Alpha Channels
PNG
Using PowerPlugs Headings
Conclusion
Introduction
PowerPlugs:
Headings is the newest member of the fine family of PowerPoint
plug-ins from the house of Crystal Graphics. I doubt if these
could be strictly classified as a set of plug-ins since no new
capabilities are added to PowerPoint itself. Instead, PowerPlugs
Headings which is available in two volumes is an amazing collection
of headings for your PowerPoint slides. Each of these volumes
comprise of over a thousand headings and corresponding backdrops
intended to visually enhance your PowerPoint slide shows.
Throughout the rest of this article you will read the terms 'alpha
channel' and 'PNG' very often. Let's look at them briefly.
Back
Alpha Channels
We all know that bitmaps can be stored in a variety
of formats - these include the ubiquitous BMP, and other formats
like JPG, GIF, PNG, PSD, TIF, PCX, etc. A certain area of some
of these formats can be stored as a selection or transparency.
These selections or transparencies can be either stored as blocks
or as gradations. All such information regarding the location,
design and existence of such blocks or gradations are stored along
with the file format in a special channel. These channels are grayscale
in nature with black and white denoting transparent and opaque
areas - the grays in between convey the amount of transparency.
These channels are called 'alpha channels'. Alpha channels have
a maximum colour capability of 256 brightness values represented
on the grayscale map.
For more information on usage of alpha channels within
PowerPoint, read the following article, elsewhere on this site:
PowerPoint And Alpha Channels
Back
PNG
PNG is one of the bitmap formats which supports alpha
channels. Although PNG was developed as a replacement for the GIF
format for use in the realm of Internet graphics - most browsers
don't support all PNG capabilities such as alpha channels. It is
thus surprising that PowerPoint supports many advanced features
of the PNG format including alpha channels.
Back
Using PowerPlugs Headings
Now that we have delved into 'alpha channels' and
'PNG', let's get back to discussing our original subject - PowerPlugs
Headings. In it's very basic form, PowerPoint Headings is a huge
collection of PNG files with brilliant alpha channels. PowerPoint
is one of the few programs that support PNG alpha channels - PowerPlugs
Headings takes advantage of these PowerPoint capabilities. This
means you are not restricted to using our PwerPlugs Headings in
PowerPoint alone - it's just that Crystal Graphics already has
a great PowerPoint plug-in line called PowerPlugs and this concept
seems to tackle along well with the rest of the range. We all know
that PowerPoint is such popular product - and to be fair to Crystal
Graphics, both PowerPoint users and Crystal Graphics benefit from
such alpha channels being available within PowerPoint: a complete
win-win situation.
PowerPlugs Headings are better seen than explained
- so I've put together the same set of PowerPlugs Headings against
a variety of backdrops. Although PowerPlugs Headings come with
text labels, all heading styles are also available without labels
- these unlabelled ones are used for the examples here. Let's examine
these screen shots:
Here the PowerPlugs Headings have been placed against
a regular PowerPoint gradient. As you can see, the Headings take
on the shades of the colours under them.
In this instance, the Headings are placed against
a tiled background. All Headings are not very visible, so you may
have to try out the styles which work in any particular case.
This is a plain colour background. All elements are
perfectly visible and the Headings manage to lend a sophisticated
look to a plain layout.
We've used a PowerPoint pattern in this example.
Patterned backgrounds end up looking great with PowerPlugs Headings.
Here, we've used a stretched background - the picture
stretched is only 10 x 10 pixels!
Finally, we've used a regular full-screen picture
background. Depending on their placement against the elements in
the background picture, Headings look anything from elegant to
stunning.
You'll have to trust me when I say that all PowerPlugs
Headings look much more attractive when viewed as a full screen
presentation.
Back
Conclusion
As you see, a slide with PowerPlugs Headings applied
is like a three dimensional veil with shadows, highlight and bevels.
This works across all PowerPoint versions and platforms. This is
not to say that PowerPlugs Headings is without its cons - I wish
they had more plain heading styles. In most of the cases, the plain
styles have been made available with many variants - these include
text headings for the more common presentation headings. Even though
Crystal Graphics supplies you with as many as 300 common heading
titles rendered for each plain style - they still cannot cover
every imaginable title you may require. That's part of the reason
why I haven't delved much about the readymade Headings in this
review.
You can view more samples and learn more about PowerPlugs
Headings here...
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