The PowerPoint Ezine -08

by Geetesh Bajaj

Issue 08

This issue is the first after the release of PowerPoint 2002/XP - and already so much is happening around us. First, we take a look at a promising PowerPoint add-in - Presedia Publisher. Another PowerPoint add-in - SecurePack is tackled next. There's a full review on Slides To Win! linked from here as well as a thought for 3 new PowerPoint sites online. This is rounded up with a look at Iosysoft - a company which creates dual monitor utilities for PowerPoint. Finally a look at a combo PowerPoint Association search utility.

There are no goodies this time - but in the next ezine I'll be uncovering the wraps on a whole new site with nothing but free PowerPoint goodies!

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Presedia Publisher

Presedia Publisher is a PowerPoint add-in that's making waves. Until now, PowerPoint's online distribution capabilities were limited to HTML, DHTML, Java, streaming media, etc.

Presedia Publisher outputs your PowerPoint presentations to Macromedia's omnipresent Flash format - definitely the next logical step for any PowerPoint eXPerience. It does seem a little out of place praising an add-in so profusely in an ezine like this - after all, presenting both pros and cons has always been a characteristic of responsible investigation. And yes, Presedia does have its cons like the lack of a desktop solution (something which may be remedied in the near future) - however its advantages far outweigh its cons - read a full interactive review elsewhere on this site:

Presedia Publisher

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SecurePack Released

Hot on the heels of a lavish thumbs up for Presedia comes Shyam Pillai's and Chirag Dalal's excellent SecurePack add-in. Addressed to a completely different audience, SecurePack - as the very name suggests password protects your PowerPoint presentations into EXE files. This prevents presentations from being changed or edited by any viewer or recipient. The Secure Pack Wizard allows you to package one or multiple presentations into a single executable show. You can also include the files linked within them in the archive and distribute them for viewing and/or editing.

More information can be found at the SecurePack site:

SecurePack

Shyam is among the best known exponents of PowerPoint VBA worldwide - he's also a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP. His earlier offering - the Image Importer Wizard was discussed in Issue 3 of the PowerPoint Ezine.

Watch out for a full SecurePack review at Indezine soon!

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Slides That Win! Review

Here's an excerpt from a review at Indezine:

"Enter 'Slides That Win!' - technically speaking, you could define it as a PowerPoint CBT. Broadly speaking, Slides That Win! defies any classification within a single category. You could say it's a self improvement guide, a design and colour sense manual for presentations or an eye opener to hitherto unexplored PowerPoint possibilities."

Read more here...

Slides That Win!

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PowerPoint 2002 Released

Microsoft released PowerPoint 2002 as part of its omnipresent Office XP suite on May 31st 2001. Already there's an excellent tutorial on animation techniques using the new PowerPoint, available at the Microsoft site:

Animate Your PowerPoint 2002 Web Presentation

There's a comprehensive overview on PowerPoint 2002 elsewhere on this site:

PowerPoint 2002/XP Overview

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New PowerPoint Sites

Newer PowerPoint sites are springing by the dozens - maybe, that's a slight exaggeration, but in this PowerPoint parched online world, three new sites in a month can only be great news.

The first in this lot is from TAJ Simmons, already entrenched with his excellent old site containing backgrounds and PowerPoint tips. Aptly, his new site is:

awesomebackgrounds.com

In true TAJ tradition, its very well organized - a must visit!

Kathryn Jacobs makes a splash with her new site called:

powerpointanswers.com

Kathryn's site has a plethora of PowerPoint related stuff - from template ideas to a page on Autoshapes. She also reviews other PowerPoint sites! In two words - comprehensive, yet delightfully unpredictable.

The trio of sites completes with the unveiling of Echo Swinford's much anticipated and awaited site - of voices, noises, whispers, hushes, screams and echos!

echosvoice.com

All three sites are worth visiting and book-marking. I've updated my main PowerPoint Links page on Indezine to include all of them!

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Focus on Iosysoft

Paul Iordanides of Iosysoft draws my attention to an interesting product. Here's the details in his own words:

"I have a utility that I wrote for PowerPoint 2000 that controls the slide show in dual monitor/projector mode. It is called PPC. There is nothing fancy about it and you can do almost everything that it does on the keyboard - but it is kind of handy and the mouse doesn't need to be in the show window to work.

There is also a version for PowerPoint 97 that you can use a dual monitor with. I have also produced a three monitor controller called Multiview, but it is still in testing..."

For  more details, visit the Iosysoft site at:

iosysoft.com/

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PowerPoint Association Search

Imagine a situation: you are searching for that elusive PowerPoint tutorial, reference or article - and your search on the mainstream engines leads you nowhere.

The solution is in the form of the PowerPoint Association Search - a combo search utility that indexes seven frontrunner PowerPoint resources. Access it and take it for a test ride today!

PowerPoint Association Search

If you would like to use this combo search box anywhere on your site, please contact me and I'll be glad to forward the code to you.

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Until Next Time...

If you have any information to share about anything to do with PowerPoint and would like to include it in the next issue of this ezine,

Join the new Indezine Mailing List if you want to be reminded when there's a new issue online, or anything new happening at Indezine. Things keep happening here!

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Credits

During the preparation of this issue of the PowerPoint Ezine, I received assistance and feedback from Brian Reilly, Bryan Thrasher, Echo Swinford, Julie Terberg, Kathryn Jacobs, Keith Kitani, Paul Noah, Shyam Pillai, Steve Rindsberg, TAJ Simmons and Walter Donavan (all in alphabetical order). I would like to use this platform to thank them for their help.

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