The PowerPoint Ezine -09

by Geetesh Bajaj

Issue 09

This ezine issue comes after a very long gap indeed - much has happened since in the PowerPoint world - a slew of new PowerPoint add-ins has been released and PowerPoint distribution seems to be the next presentation mantra.

We first look at new stuff onsite here at Indezine. PowerPoint distribution has come a long way indeed - our first topic covers a breakthrough PowerPoint add-in called impatica, followed by a look at the new PowerPRESENTER. We discuss the recently concluded Business Presentations 2001 convention followed by a look at RnR ShapeStyles. Crystal Graphics has released two new products - we look at them briefly. We also discuss PowerPoint and 3D - finally concluding with a look at the PowerPoint Association Search and a great new Presedia update.

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What's New At Indezine?

Well, there's so much new here - first of all a complete new look site to make information access and navigation simpler. There are scores of new reviews and articles as well.

First, we look at techniques to use SVG content within PowerPoint:

PowerPoint And SVG

There's a new page which aims to list every known PowerPoint add-in with its compatibility statement across PowerPoint versions:

PowerPoint Add-in Compatibility List

A list of most often requested support questions with suitable answers makes its debut as the PowerPoint Questions page:

PowerPoint Questions

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impaticize Your Presentation

impatica is a great way to deliver your presentations online. A simple drag and drop metaphor converts (or impaticizes) your PowerPoint presentations into web presentations that can be played on any browser without the need to install a plug-in. This is because impatica is based on Java - something that's natively compatible with ancient version 3 browsers.

You'll find a full review elsewhere on this site, here is an excerpt:

....One such solution is impatica. And impatica sets its own lingua as well - you 'impaticize' a PowerPoint presentation. Needless to add, impatica stems from an English term called 'impact'. Did you note the lack of a capitalized 'I' everywhere. So, what's impact, impatica and impaticize - let's go on a journey on impatiway to impatinirvana! I hope I did not get you scared. And it was indeed needless - the world of impatica is as genteel as the water in the springs....

Read the full review:

impatica

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PowerPRESENTER From PresentationPro

PowerPRESENTER is the name of a new offering from PresentationPro.com - its a PowerPoint add-in which conveniently allows you to output your entire presentation as a Shockwave Flash movie from within the PowerPoint interface. As such, ease of use is its forte - and that does compromise some advanced PowerPoint features. Even that's changing though - as I write this, a new PowerPRESENTER update has been made available with additional features. Such evolution will continue to encompass additional features all the time.

The Email Presenter solution is also included in the PowerPRESENTER suite - this allows you to send compact email presentations with all rich media intact.

There's more information and a free trial available at:

PowerPRESENTER

Watch for a full Indezine review!

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Business Presentations India 2001

The first ever Business Presentations India 2001 convention was held on August 11th, 2001 in Bangalore, India under the auspices of PresentationsPro.com - an organization based in Bangalore itself.

The day long convention was held at the National Science Complex - and is expected to be a forerunner to several other similar events. Most importantly, the event was a great success.

For more details, visit the organizer page at:

Business Presentations 2001

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RnR Releases ShapeStyles

The RnR stable recently released ShapeStyles - a great new time-saving PowerPoint add-in. As the very name suggests, ShapeStyles lets you save and apply styles to shapes. These shapes include AutoShapes, placeholders and text boxes. The add-in installs itself as a new toolbar within your PowerPoint interface.

Part of the PPTools range, ShapeStyles remembers all properties of a given shape like fills, lines, aspect, size, margin, spacing and position. More significantly, it also stores specific font information like text content, font name, point-size, weight and colour.

Creating your own ShapeStyles is incredibly easy and you can even share your own specific ShapeStyles within your organization to maintain a unique identity across all your PowerPoint presentations.

You can download a fully functional demo of ShapeStyles to test it out for yourself - the demo version will let you create and apply any number of styles you wish, but it will only let you save 3 styles at a time.

ShapeStyles

Watch for a full Indezine review!

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New Stuff From Crystal Graphics

Crystal Graphics has released two new products in the recent past.

First of these is PowerPlugs Quotations, a first-of-its-kind product which allows you to access a library of over 45,000 quotations from within PowerPoint. All quotes are conveniently organized by author, keywords, topics, and source.

PowerPlugs Quotations

Crystal Graphics has also released over 30,000 new PowerPoint presentation templates - some of these include animation as well. The entire set comprises 6 CDs, distributed as per background colour.

PowerPlugs Templates

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PowerPoint And 3D

PowerPoint and 3D - do the twain meet? A range of new developments in arenas far from PowerPoint ironically provides new ways to deliver 3D content within PowerPoint.

The route is far from basic - yet the returns are impressive. As usual, one needs to take the ActiveX control route - you'll find more details at:

PowerPoint And Director

The above page also discusses Director 8.5's new 3D abilities - such built-in 3D content carries across to PowerPoint once you insert a Shockwave Director movie within.

Another route is to use ViewPoint's (earlier MetaStream) ActiveX control tosimilarly insert 3D content within PowerPoint.

Meanwhile, if you need to display CAD content within PowerPoint, you could use Autodesk's WHIP! Viewer with PowerPoint using techniques detailed at:

PowerPoint And WHIP!

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Association Search: A Smashing Success

The PowerPoint Association Search has been a smashing success - it's now available from many sites and more than a hundred searches take place every week - and the number is growing. It's an excellent gateway for anybody who wants to access PowerPoint related info.

I usually post details of weekly search statistics on the PowerPoint newsgroup. The actual search can be performed from:

PowerPoint Association Search

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Presedia Update

Presedia - the excellent PowerPoint add-in praised in the last ezine has gone through an update. The entire solution has been renamed to Presedia Producer,
instead of Presedia Publisher.

The web player can now be customized - during the publishing process you can select a few different features for your player such as to provide an outline or not. For the outline version, you can also add a speaker photo and summary page.

The next set of features are primarily for those who host on the Presedia servers - these include email tracking, search, library viewer

In addition, Presedia now includes importing capabilities to import pre-recorded WAV files within the standard Producer plug-in.

More details at:

Presedia Producer

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Credits

During the preparation of this issue of the PowerPoint Ezine, I received assistance and feedback from Bryan Thrasher, Echo Swinford, Ellen Finkelstein, Steve Rindsberg, Shyam Pillai and TAJ Simmons (all in alphabetical order). I would like to use this platform to thank them for their help.

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