Multimodal Slides: Conversation with John Baluka

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  John Baluka has been developing software within the Microsoft stack for 30+ years. He has been an independent software developer for the last 15+ years. Most recently, John has been focused on how he can help people use PowerPoint to elevate how they create documentation and training.

In this interview, John discusses Multimodal Slides, a tool that will convert your PowerPoint files into a Multimodal website.

Geetesh: John, tell us more about Multimodal Slides, and what motivated you to create this solution.

John: In the past, I have given many presentations, recorded training sessions and written documentation for various software development projects that I have worked on.  I noticed the more I used PowerPoint effectively, the more fluid my training sessions would be, and the less I wanted to create documentation in Word documents or in a Wiki.  Once I discovered that I could use the Narration feature in PowerPoint, it was a game changer.  I did not enjoy manually recording training sessions with tools like Camtasia, because the process of editing videos takes too long. Within PowerPoint, I like how I can easily re-record a slide when I make mistakes, easily change graphics, and then simply export to a video.

Since I have been programming within the Microsoft stack for many years, I have been aware of how to automate PowerPoint. I would generate web pages from presentations. I also created a utility to use Text-to-Speech from what I type in the Notes section.

I have been refining my various utilities, and I generated the Multimodal Slides website, itself.

Here are some aspects when using Multimodal Slides that may, or may not, be noticeable.

• You can move through slides and animations with the controls in the lower-right corner. Animations are off by default.
• The Menu button in the lower-left corner toggles a slide-out menu to see a list of slide titles or slide images.
• Next to the Menu button, there is a toggle button to enable animations when scrolling through slides.
• When you press the Play button, animations will be enabled, and the speaker notes will be highlighted as the audio plays.
• While the audio is playing per slide, it will automatically move to the next slide.
• You can click within the speaker notes to control animations and skip around the slide.
• Links are within the slides.
• The last slide provides links to a PDF version, video version on YouTube, the source PowerPoint file, and the source repository for the website itself.

Geetesh: Tell us more about typical usage scenarios. Also, tell us about pricing and other specifics.

John: The “typical usage scenarios” – that’s a good question. The primary reason I released MultiModal Slides was to find who else needs a tool like this and how should it evolve.  I want to hear from PowerPoint users, speakers, trainers, teachers, documentarians, and bloggers to find out what features are important.

As for pricing, I expect to release a free, unsupported Desktop version with few limitations. I want the free version to be the same as the paid version.

I am currently targeting $29/month or $299/year for the supported Desktop version.  If you are using the tool within an organization that makes over $1 million a year, then you’d be required to use a paid version.

Eventually, a website will be available for users to upload a file and download the results.

Geetesh: How can someone start using Multimodal Slides today?

John: Simply email me to become a beta user or to join my mailing list to get notified on new releases.

Overall, I expect the roadmap to evolve as I get more input from users.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.