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The PowerPoint Ezine - 18
by Geetesh Bajaj
Introduction
In this issue we first examine a new way of incorporating QTVR content
into PowerPoint. This is followed by a look at presentation templates
from Animation Factory. A listing of Quick News precedes
a focus on Microsoft's Office Community web site. We then
look at Echo's Voice, another PowerPoint related site. This is
followed by a tutorial on inserting sound across slides and
a discussion on additional placeholders in PowerPoint. We
finish with a listing of upcoming events and seminars.
PowerPoint And QTVR
QuickTime VR is an award-winning photorealistic
cross-platform virtual reality technology that makes it possible
to explore places as if you were really there. Finding an easy
and convenient way to incorporate panoramic content like QTVR into
PowerPoint on the Windows platform has been a question I have been
asked often.
Thankfully, George Birbilis offers a perfect
solution in the form of his QTVR ActiveX Control - this
enables seamless inclusion of interactive QTVR and QuickTime movies
within PowerPoint. The only caveat is that all systems that need
to play the QTVR content have to be equipped with a copy of the
ActiveX Control as well as QuickTime 3 (or higher). That's not
much of a problem considering that the QTVR Control download itself
is around 600 kb and the only limitation within the unregistered
version is that you face a nag screen when you first use it. The
nag screen does not appear if you play the presentation a second
time within the same session.
The screenshot above shows an actual QTVR panorama
being viewed within PowerPoint - look carefully towards the left
part of the screenshot and you can even see QTVR's panning cursor.
Learn how to incorporate both QTVR and QuickTime
content within PowerPoint through this exclusive tutorial. Read
here...
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Focus on Animation Factory Presentations
 Animation
Factory Presentations is a new initiative from the MediaBuilder
Network. Animation Factory and the MediaBuilder Network are based
in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, United States - their new presentation
components include PowerPoint templates and readymade animations.
All designs are created in-house by their own team of artists.
Look out for a full review of the templates soon at Indezine.
Meanwhile, you can download free template and animation samples
as well as opt for some of their membership plans at the Animation
Factory site...
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Quick News
For those of you who are not aware, Microsoft has announced
a public beta of the new Office System 2003 that comprises PowerPoint
2003. More
info here...
Adobe has announced Acrobat 6 - a new version of
the industry standard PDF creation tool. More
info...
Corel announced version 8 of Painter, their natural
media painting application. More
info...
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Microsoft's Office Community
Microsoft's Community program for Office products continues to
evolve. The main site located at:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community
is definitely worth a bookmark. I do visit the site often and
it's good to see a site that's updated so often.
Not surprisingly, there's so much information on using PowerPoint
on the community site. In addition, there are links to third-party
sites, technical info and how-to articles. You can also opt to
sign for newsletters and read tutorials.
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Focus on Echo's Voice
 Echo's
Voice is the name of a website created and maintained by Echo
Swinford, a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP. Echo is probably the
most active respondent on the PowerPoint newsgroups on Microsoft's
news servers and she shares so much of her knowledge at her elegant
site.
You'll find detailed info on using colour schemes in PowerPoint
and the most exhaustive list of links to create autorun CDs with
PowerPoint presentations. There's much more - for instance you
can read about PowerPoint 2002's multiple masters and learn to
use bezier curves in PowerPoint. Visit
her site...
Endnote: Two years ago, I described Echo's site as a much
anticipated and awaited site - of voices, noises, whispers, hushes,
screams and echos! That was issue
8 of the PowerPoint Ezine.
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Sound Across Slides in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003
Let's see how one can add sound across slides
in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 - in the next ezine issue, we'll learn
to do the same in PowerPoint 97 and 2000. In a subsequent issue,
we'll learn to do that in Mac versions of PowerPoint.
- Navigate to the first slide of the presentation and choose
Insert | Movies And Sounds | Sound From File… or any of
the three other sound options. Navigate to your sound track and
PowerPoint will ask you if you want the sound to play automatically.
Accept the option.
- Right click the sound icon and choose 'Custom Animation' -
this will open the Custom Animation task pane. Click the sound
file listed within the pane - click again on the down arrow next
to the name. In the resultant menu, choose Effect Options.
- This will open the Effects Options dialog box with two tabs
- Effects and Timing. In the Effects tab, choose to play the
sound from beginning and type 999 in the 'Stop playing after'
option.
- In the Timings tab, match your settings with the following
screenshot.
- In all versions of PowerPoint, you might see a sound icon on
the slide where you inserted the sound - if you don't like the
icon on the slide, just drag it to anywhere off the slide - your
sound shall still play fine.
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New Placeholders in PowerPoint
I often get asked about ways to incorporate additional placeholders
in slide and title masters within PowerPoint.
Unfortunately, PowerPoint does not allow creation of new placeholders
other than the default placeholders available within a master.
Many users create a text-box equipped slide geared to their requirements
and duplicate it as required. However, any text that is contained
within a text-box as opposed to a placeholder does not make it
to the outline view of the presentation.
If you would like this feature to be included in the next release
of PowerPoint, mail mswish@microsoft.com with
'PowerPoint' in the subject line. Do explain to them why you think
this feature is essential for you.
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Events & Seminars
Winning Presentations Seminar
April 8 and 9, 2003
May 20 and 21, 2003
Boston, USA
Claudyne Wilder, Wilder Presentations
http://www.wilderpresentations.com/
InfoComm 03
May 31 to June 6, 2003
Orlando, Florida, USA
ICIA, Inc.
http://infocomm03.expoexchange.com/
PowerPoint Live
October 12 to 15, 2003
Tucson, Arizona, USA
Rick Altman, R Altman Digital Consulting
http://www.pptlive.com/
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Credits
During the preparation of this issue of the PowerPoint Ezine,
I received assistance and feedback from Echo Swinford, George Birbilis
and Tim Johnson (all in alphabetical order). I would like to use
this platform to thank them for their help.
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