PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Tuval Software Releases SpeechOver Plus 3.0

Tuval Software announced the new 3.0 release of SpeechOver Plus, a joint offering of Tuval and Acapela Group, producers of premium text-to-speech (TTS) voices.

Here’s a list of the updates, provided by Joel Harband of Tuval Software:

Bundled Premium TTS Voices

In addition to SpeechOver, a software for generating narration in PowerPoint presentations with text-to-speech voices, customers receive a high-quality, natural-sounding text-to-speech voice that is automatically installed for immediate use with SpeechOver. This is a marked improvement over the regular version of SpeechOver, which comes only with the basic quality text-to-speech voices provided free by Microsoft.

Low-Cost Commercial License

The Acapela TTS voices in Speech-Over Plus come with a commercial license that allows you to produce narrated presentations for internal business requirements such as corporate education and training, e-learning, and marketing presentations—and you can put the material on an internal corporate network. For the price, this is an excellent value and can help businesses save costs in these difficult economic times.

Additional Voices and Languages

Acapela Group produces 50 premium TTS voices in 25 languages. Right now, US English and Danish versions of SpeechOver Plus are available, and different language versions are being added all the time. A basic language version includes one TTS voice in that language (for example, the US English version includes Heather), and TTS voices in the same language or in different languages can be purchased and added to the basic version. In fact, any vendor voice can be added as long as it is SAPI-compatible.

More info and free trials can be found on the SpeechOver site.

Filed Under: Add-ins
Tagged as: Add-in, Joel Harband, Narration, PowerPoint, Sounds

Happy Holidays from Indezine

This is to wish happy holidays to all of our subscribers and readers from the team at Indezine—wish you an amazing new year.

Filed Under: Templates
Tagged as: PowerPoint, Templates

People Animation in PowerPoint with Motion Paths

This sample presentation shows you how you can use motion path animations in PowerPoint on ungrouped vector objects to create a very effective introduction or section slide.

Animate people silhouettes using fade and motion path animations.

Filed Under: Microsoft Office
Tagged as: Animation, Motion Path, PowerPoint, Presentation Samples

InfoComm International Annual Presentations Professional Survey 2008

Every year, Lisa Lindgren coordinates with the media for this professional survey on presentations for InfoComm — and this year too, she sent me these details. All participants will receive a free survey report. Make sure you participate.

Are you a Presentation Professional?

Compare yourself with your peers in InfoComm International’s annual Presentation Professional survey. This year it’s shorter, easier, and faster to complete. Whether you’re one of many in a corporate setting or a one-person shop wearing all the hats, see how you compare in the skills you have and the challenges you face.

To thank you for sharing your opinions and experiences, you will receive a free survey report by email.

This survey is completely confidential and anonymous. All data will be consolidated with other participants and will not be available to anyone as individual responses.

To participate, click here.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous
Tagged as: Infocomm, Opinion, PowerPoint, Survey

Denise Then: Holiday Cards with PowerPoint

Denise Then is a regular at PowerPoint Live each year, and we talked about snow. Why snow? That’s because Denise sees snow all around her in Canada, and that we rarely see snow. Snow does fall in parts of India, though not in the regions where most people live.

This year, Denise created a personal and straightforward holiday card using PowerPoint, and she emailed it. The card shows all the snow scenes that she can see all the time. Permission was requested to share it with everyone. Thanks, Denise!

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.

Filed Under: Thoughts
Tagged as: Case Studies, Denise Then, PowerPoint