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The PowerPoint Ezine - 32
by Geetesh Bajaj November
17th, 2003
Contents
Anystream Unwraps Apreso 2003
TechSmith Announces SnagIt 7, Camtasia 2
Quick News
Interlink RemotePoint Presenter
Types of Text in PowerPoint
CrystalGraphics Announces PowerPlugs: SuperSaver
5
Events and Seminars
Anystream Unwraps Apreso 2003
 Anystream announced
the release of its renamed (earlier Agility Presenter) product
called Agility Apreso 2003 for PowerPoint. The new product's
most powerful addition is an integrated presentation hosting service,
Apreso Online, that lets users share Apreso presentations with
a click.
Geoff Allen, Anystream's President and CEO explains "We changed
the name from Agility Presenter to Apreso to simplify how users
describe the rich media presentations they create, and to underscore
the significance of its new, built-in distribution capabilities.
Now when someone uses our product to create a Web-based presentation
with synchronized voice, video and PowerPoint slides, they can
reach virtually any audience by simply sending an 'Apreso' as easily
as they would an email message".
Look out for a full Apreso review on Indezine soon. For more info,
visit the Anystream
Apreso site...
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TechSmith Announces SnagIt 7, Camtasia 2
TechSmith announced the immediate availability of new versions
of their flagship products.
SnagIt 7 includes enhancements that simplify the workflow
of capturing, editing, and sharing electronic images. New features
include profile management for creating and managing personalized
configuration profiles so users have quick access to their most
commonly used features. Users can easily change profile settings,
arrange profiles within groups, and create group profiles to meet
individual, department or company-wide requirements. The image
editing effects now enable users to add creative and artistic
enhancements, such as perspective, shear, spotlight, and magnification
to screenshots.
Camtasia Studio 2 includes a new task-based interface and
several other improvements including a capability to add personal
video introductions and digital video recordings. Interactive
hot spots bring interactivity to Flash movies that are output
from within Camtasia. Camtasia now also supports output to streaming Flash
Video (.FLV) format.
Learn
more here...
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Quick News
Microsoft has released an update for Microsoft Office
2003. This update fixes a problem that occurs when you try
to open or to save a Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 file,
a Microsoft Office Word 2003 file, or a Microsoft Office Excel
2003 file that includes an OfficeArt shape that was
previously modified and saved in an earlier version of Microsoft
Office. Learn
more here...
GS Technologies' Power Launch 2 product now works with
the PowerPoint 2003 Viewer to create autorun CDs if the user selects
it. The option to use the PowerPoint 97 Viewer is also available
for users that want to create output compatible with older Windows'
platforms. More
info...
Right Hemisphere announced the immediate availability of Deep
Publish for Microsoft Office users. Deep Publish software
helps non-technical users tap the huge value locked away in 3D
engineering design databases for use in presentations, training
sessions and other documentation. More
info...
TAJ Simmons has added a new PowerPoint sample presentation
that simulates the Matrix falling text effect. More
info...
Sonic Foundry, a leading rich media solutions company announced
a new architecture, higher performance and significant enhancements
to its award-winning Mediasite Live rich media presentation
system. Mediasite Live is a complete real-time, rich media communications
system that provides a capture appliance integrated with publishing
server software for creating, managing and viewing high-quality,
rich media over the Web, or burned to CD. Learn
more here...
Indigo Rose announced the fifth version of their AutoPlay
Media Studio product that creates front-ends for professional
autorun CD/DVD ROMs, interactive presentations and custom Windows
software applications. More
info here...
Ulead has announced PhotoImpact XL, a new version
of their image editing suite that also includes Ulead Photo Explorer,
GIF Animator, Cool 360, a 45 minute video tutorial and over 4500
royalty free images and textures. More
info...
Cliff Atkinson and Dave Paradi talk about their
solutions for Countering 'death by PowerPoint' in an article
that appeared in the Toronto
Star...
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Interlink RemotePoint Presenter
 In
the last ezine issue, we looked at the RemotePoint Navigator from Interlink
Electronics. This time, we'll look at their RemotePoint
Presenter product.
RemotePoint Presenter is much more than just a presentation
remote controller - it also functions like a remote mouse and comes
equipped with a laser pointer. Finally, it also includes a thumb-drive
like receiver that comes bundled with 32 mb of flash memory mass
storage space - this acts like a removable hard drive when inserted
into an available USB port.
I tried installing and using the product and it did perform flawlessly
- it might take you some time to get used to the trackball style
mouse controls, much like what you would have expected to find
in an older laptop. Other than that, the RemotePoint Presenter
is every presenter's dream come true - something that lets you
control your presentation machine in every respect from a distance.
For more info, visit the Interlink site
- you can also go directly to their RemotePoint Presenter page,
although that gets you there outside
their frame-based layout....
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Types of Text in PowerPoint
Text content in PowerPoint can be divided under four types:
Headings or Titles
Body Text
Decorative Text
Captions or Legends
Each of these text types have specific characteristics of their
own - but combined together, they have a role to play in the PowerPoint
scheme of things.
Headings or Titles are something which describe a slide
- almost like it's identity. As with all text in any presentation,
titles need to be as short as possible. Moreover, titles need to
describe the slide - just putting up a few words with high impact
is not sufficient - those words have to convey some meaning relating
to whatever is the content of the slide. A title is more like an
essence - it needs to reflect related content to maximum effect
with the use of as few words as possible.
Body text in a presentation is unlike writing for an article
- sentences are 'out', bulleted lists are 'in'. Text needs to be
short enough to educate, although not as diminutive so as to mystify
the viewer. You could follow a time-tested procedure of inputting
sentences initially, then try to ruthlessly edit into small bites
of information with every consecutive review. Arrange all such
edited information within a bulleted list - and review or edit
as necessary - repeatedly!
Decorative text is text with a purpose. It beautifies,
it attracts and too much of it drowns your presentation to below
sea level. It often looks great in small doses - and many-a-great
presentation has been created with no decorative text at all. As
with any other form of text, but of particular concern in the use
of decorative text - be aware of the concept of font embedding
- covered in detail in Indezine's PowerPoint
And Fonts page.
Captions and Legends includes captions, legends and more...
For instance, copyright notices and other legal gobbledygook. Some
times you just want it be there, other times you want it to be
visible - and many times you need it to be viewable and readable
too! This calls for a lot of visual balance. If you don't have
a lot of screen estate to make the text larger - try using a font
which offers better readability at a lower point size - something
like Verdana. Another trick is to draw a black rectangle and superimpose
it with white text.
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CrystalGraphics Announces PowerPlugs: SuperSaver
5
CrystalGraphics has announced the PowerPlugs: SuperSaver
5 collection that includes 8 volumes of popular PowerPoint
presentation-enhancing products. PowerPlugs: SuperSaver 5 includes:
- Transitions, volumes I, II, III & IV
- Charts
- Templates I (over 5,000 PowerPoint templates)
- 3D Titles I & II
- PowerPictures BONUS — Pick any 10 presentation-quality
photos (over 20,000 to choose from)
Until November 30, the collection costs US$299. That's a savings
of well over 40% off the price of the separate products. More
info here...
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Events & Seminars
Winning Presentations Seminar
January 15 and 16, 2004
Boston, USA
Claudyne Wilder, Wilder Presentations
http://www.wilderpresentations.com/
PowerPoint Live
October 10 to 13, 2004
San Diego, California, 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, content or feedback from Darian Germain,
Donna Atkins, Gerry Strope and Nicole Ha (all in alphabetical order).
I would like to use this platform to thank them for their help.
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