PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Calculate: Conversation with Austin Myers

Thursday, August 14, 2008, posted by Geetesh Bajaj at 7:02 am

Austin Myers is a PowerPoint MVP (Most Valuable Professional). He is an expert in issues related to the use of multimedia in PowerPoint. Austin creates the PFCMedia and PFCPro add-ins for PowerPoint that have made life simple for many users. He also maintains a detailed FAQ on multimedia issues within PowerPoint. In this conversation, Austin discusses Calculate, a small free utility that he created for PowerPoint users who face a dilemma trying to figure out what their slide size should be to take up the entire screen.

Geetesh: How did Calculate evolve – and what is its purpose of existence?

Austin: As monitors, flat screens, and projectors have changed from the NTSC standard 4:3 ratio for display, users needed a simple way to determine PowerPoint’s slide size in order to fill the display completely without distorting their slides. Calculate is a small utility where the user simply provides the resolution (width and height) of their targeted screen in pixels, and the utility will determine the correct slide size to meet the required screen ratio.

The user is presented with 3 different options for the slide size, all of which will produce the correct ratio for the targeted screen. I decided to provide 3 options, as some users must also meet printing requirements. With Calculate, all they need do is select one of the 3 options that best fits their printer.

Figure 1: The Calculate interface

Geetesh: What type of scenarios can benefit from Calculate?

Austin: Anyone that uses a standard (4:3 ratio) display to develop PowerPoint resolutions but must display the finished presentation on a display with a different ratio will benefit from Calculate. Laptop users that have a non-standard display resolution also can see a real benefit in determining the exact slide size for their display (no black bars along the sides or top & bottom of the screen).

I have many clients that prepare PowerPoint presentations on their PCs but must then display it in a conference room with large displays. This has been a real issue for them in the past, as they were unable to use the entire display, or their slides became badly distorted when “stretched” to fit the display. With Calculate, all they need to know is the display’s resolution, and they can easily set up the correct slide size in advance and avoid the issue completely.

You May Also Like: Calculate: The Indezine Review

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: Interviews
Tagged as: Add-in, Austin Myers, Delivery, Interviews, PowerPoint

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Looking Back at Menus: Coping with the Ribbon

Wednesday, August 13, 2008, posted by Geetesh Bajaj at 5:26 am

It’s been close to two years since we encountered the Ribbon in Office 2007, and that’s probably not counting the beta period. And there must be many of you who moved up to PowerPoint 2007 since then. Most of you love the Ribbon and the tabs—and the Quick Access Toolbar—but many of you still want to use menus. So, you might be using one of the free add-ins that bring back the menus as a new tab in the Ribbon! These include RibbonCustomizer from Patrick Schmid, and Classic Menu from Addintools.

If you are still struggling with the Ribbon, but don’t want the menus back yet, Microsoft has created this cool interactive demo that lets you locate your favorite PowerPoint 2003 commands within the new PowerPoint 2007 interface, as shown in Figure 1, below.

Figure 1: PowerPoint 2003 to PowerPoint 2007 command reference guide

Now, only if they could provide this as a downloadable file; that would be cool. Even more cool: make this part of the PowerPoint help interface that can work offline as well. And we’re not complaining even if we may sound so! Kudos to the Office Online team for creating something so helpful. There are similar interactive demos for other Office 2007 products, including Word and Excel.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2007
Tagged as: Office 2007, Office Online, PowerPoint 2007, Training

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Sharing Your SlideBoom Presentations

Tuesday, August 12, 2008, posted by Geetesh Bajaj at 9:45 am

You already learned how you can join SlideBoom and upload your presentations as part of this SlideBoom series. In this post, we’ll go beyond the basics and show you how you can share your uploaded presentations with others:

First, make sure that you sign into your SlideBoom account.
Click the My Account button to load up your account page. On this page, you can see all your presentations, as shown in Figure 1, below.
Figure 1: Your account page at SlideBoom
Click on the presentation that you want to share. Doing so opens the presentation page URL on SlideBoom, as you can see in Figure 2, below.
Figure 2: Your presentation page at SlideBoom
Note the area towards the right side of the presentation window—a zoomed-in view, as shown in Figure 3, below.
Figure 3: Share options at SlideBoom
All the options shown in Figure 3 are explained below:
- The Post option at the bottom has icons that can be clicked on. Doing so allows you to post uploaded presentations to community sites like MySpace, Facebook, Hi5, etc.
- The Bookmark option lets you create a public or private bookmark at one of the many bookmarking sites, such as del.icio.us, Digg, Technorati, etc.
- The Presentation URL option lets you copy the actual SlideBoom URL of the presentation.
- The Embed into WordPress option provides code that lets you add SlideBoom presentations to your WordPress blog.
- For other blogs or any website, you can use the Embed in your blog code—copy the code and paste it to embed.
- Finally, the Share by email option opens the Share by Email sheet, as shown in Figure 4, below. Add an email address, your name, and a message. Then, click the Send button.
- Figure 4: Share by Email

Next, we’ll show you how you can make changes to your SlideBoom profile.

Filed Under: Companion Programs
Tagged as: Companion Programs, Online Presentations, PowerPoint, PowerPoint Flash, SlideBoom

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StarOffice 9 for Mac Beta: Comparing to Microsoft Office 2008

Sunday, August 10, 2008, posted by Geetesh Bajaj at 9:30 am

Plenty is being spoken and written about Sun’s StarOffice 9 for Mac Beta. The office applications suite market on the Mac is dominated by Microsoft Office—and their newest Office 2008, while powerful enough, still lags behind Microsoft Office for Windows. The removal of VBA from Office 2008 has also not been received too well. And while Microsoft has confirmed that VBA support will be back in the next release of Office for Mac, that reality might still take a year or more ahead to materialize.

So how does StarOffice 9 for Mac fare in its beta?

Peter Cohen at MacWorld reports that “the beta release is free; the release version of the application is currently priced at $69.95”.

MacNN adds that “price isn’t the only criteria for evaluating software. Since so many people rely on and share Microsoft Office files, file compatibility can be crucial. Fortunately, Sun’s office suite shines in this area by supporting a variety of file formats ranging from ancient files such as WordPerfect and Quattro Pro files to the latest Microsoft Office 97/2000/XP/2007 file formats”.

Filed Under: Microsoft Office
Tagged as: Mac, Microsoft Office, Office for Mac, PowerPoint, StarOffice

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Joining SlideBoom

Friday, August 8, 2008, posted by Geetesh Bajaj at 10:00 am

In the last post in the SlideBoom series, we provided a brief introduction to this slide-sharing site. In today’s post, you’ll learn how you can become a member of the SlideBoom site. Remember, SlideBoom in its present form is a free service.

Follow these steps to join SlideBoom:

Visit the SlideBoom site, and click the prominent Join Now button, as shown in Figure 1, below.
Figure 1: Join Now button
Doing so opens the Sign Up form page, as shown in Figure 2, below. Fill in all the form fields as required, and click the Sign Up button, below the form when done. Make sure you save your sign-up details, such as the password in a safe place.
Figure 2: Sign Up form
That’s all you need to do—soon you’ll receive a confirmation email from SlideBoom in your email inbox. You’ll have to click a link in the email, as shown in Figure 3, below, to activate your Slide Boom account.
Figure 3: Activate your SlideBoom account

In the next post in this series, we’ll show you how you can sign in, and upload your presentations to the SlideBoom site.

Filed Under: Companion Programs
Tagged as: Online Presentations, PowerPoint, PowerPoint Flash, SlideBoom

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