PowerPoint and Presentation News - Issue 029

Contents

PowerPoint 2003 Overview
Microsoft Releases PowerPoint 2003 Viewer, Legacy Templates
Quick News
Focus on Powr Pointer 2 Remote Mouse
eHelp Announces RoboPresenter
Color Schemes in PowerPoint 2002/03
Events and Seminars

PowerPoint 2003 Overview

Indezine's complete look at the new features in PowerPoint 2003 is now available at:

http://www.indezine.com/pp2003/

The entire overview has been divided into 20 screens:

1. New Viewer
2. Package to CD
3. Faster and More Responsive
4. Tablet PC Support
5. New Pens
6. Windows Media Player Integration
7. Full Screen Movies
8. Media Playlist Support
9. Research Pane
10. Thesaurus
11. Integrated Help
12. Office Online
13. Shift F5, Better Bitmap Export
14. Smart Tags
15. Save presentations to SharePoint
16. Reviewing and Sharing
17. Integrated IRM
18. Producer 2003
19. Features Removed
20. End Note

Here's the link:

http://www.indezine.com/pp2003/

Microsoft Releases PowerPoint 2003 Viewer, Legacy Templates

The new PowerPoint 2003 Viewer is now available for download from the Microsoft site:

PowerPoint 2003 Viewer Download

Here's a quote from the Viewer announcement made by Richard Bretschneider, Lead Program Manager for PowerPoint on the PowerPoint public newsgroup:

Back in April I wrote to tell you about an exciting new PowerPoint Viewer we were working on. Its my pleasure now to announce that we finished work a short while ago, and that it is today available for download.

This new viewer has been engineered to support a number of new features from our last few releases that were missing in the PowerPoint'97 Viewer.

Specifically, we've added support for the new animation effects, simultaneous animations, and transitions. We've also added a number of non-animation features, such as opening password protected documents. A new twist here is that this viewer requires no installation, no setup of any kind, and can run directly from write-protected media like CDs. This was very important as the new viewer is a big part of the Package for CD feature in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, which I hope you'll check out when it becomes available in a few weeks. We're very happy with the results and hope you will be as well.

Thank you, Richard.

In addition, Microsoft also released three separate template packs for PowerPoint 2003 were released so that all legacy designs (more than 120 of them) from PowerPoint 4.0 to PowerPoint 2000 are available in addition to the designs that are included with PowerPoint 2003.

PowerPoint Templates Pack 1

PowerPoint Templates Pack 2

PowerPoint Templates Pack 3

Quick News

Impatica has updated its Impatica and OnCue products to version 2.5.1 - new improvements for the PowerPoint to Java rich media converter include support for text and HTML output of PowerPoint notes making them suitable for screen readers.

PowerPoint Live, being held at Tucson AZ from October 12 to 15, 2003 is a three-day event that includes seminars, workshops, hands-on technical support and keynote addresses covering virtually every topic of interest to the PowerPoint user community. More info.

CrystalGraphics' new Ultimate Combo 12 suite of PowerPlugs add-ins for PowerPoint includes 12 titles - 31 volumes in all on 10 CDs. In addition you receive the RemotePoint Navigator, a US$149 value as a free gift. The entire suite costs US$499, thus providing you savings of 66% over the combined retail price of individual titles. More info.

Adobe announced new versions of their product range including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive and Acrobat. The new versions would form part of the Adobe Creative Suite and individual products would be suffixed by the term CS to reflect the new nomenclature, as in Photoshop CS. The actual products are expected to ship in November 2003. More info.

Anystream, who create the Agility Presenter product has been named one of three Rising Stars in Deloitte & Touche's Technology Fast 50 Program for Virginia. More info.

Focus on Powr Pointer 2 Remote Mouse

The Powr Pointer 2 Remote Mouse is an ergonomically designed wireless, fully functional, Radio Frequency remote mouse that has a built-in laser pointer and 64 independent channels.

More info.

eHelp Announces RoboPresenter

San Diego based eHelp Corporation has announced RoboPresenter, a product that allows desktop conversion of PowerPoint presentations to Flash based rich media content.

RoboPresenter inserts a new menu in PowerPoint that adds new features such as interactive quizzes to the RoboPresenter output content. The RoboPresenter product has been licensed from Articulate Global, Inc. and works seamlessly integrated with RoboDemo, eHelp's simulation and demo software. More info.

Color Schemes in PowerPoint 2002/03

Any PowerPoint presentation (including templates) can store several color schemes - these are a set of predetermined color choices for various presentation elements like text, background, fill, shadow, hyperlink, etc. To create and change color schemes, you need to get to the Color Schemes task pane:

1. Choose Format | Slide Design. This will activate the Slide Design task pane.
2. Click the Color Schemes option on this pane to open the relevant task pane.

In this pane, you'll find a few thumbnails representing color schemes available within the active presentation. Each thumbnail shows a preview of the color selected for text, background, fill and bulleted items. In addition, you can also see a small chart with four bars - these bars show the default colors for new charts that you create within the presentation. In addition, the four colors also represent the default colors for fills, accents, hyperlinks and followed hyperlinks - exactly in that order from left to right.

To create or edit a color scheme:

1. Select any of the default color schemes by clicking the relevant thumbnail. Thereafter, click the Edit Color Schemes option - it's in the footer area of the Color Schemes task pane.
2. This will open the Edit Color Scheme dialog box - double-click each color box to go to the Fill Color dialog box. Change colors for all eight options.
3. To save as a new color scheme, click the Add As Standard Scheme button - to replace a current scheme, just click Apply.
4. You just created or edited a color scheme.

You apply color schemes just like you apply masters - select individual or all slides - choose a color scheme and opt to apply to all or selected slides in the contextual fly-out menu.

Events & Seminars

PowerPoint Live
October 12 to 15, 2003
Tucson, Arizona, USA
Rick Altman, R Altman Digital Consulting
PPT Live

Credits

During the preparation of this issue of the PowerPoint Ezine, I received assistance, content or feedback from Adam Schwartz, Darian Germain, Jeanne Pairman and Nicole Ha, (all in alphabetical order). I would like to use this platform to thank them for their help.