PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

The Art of Office

For sure, Microsoft’s MacBU does have some great minds. What else would explain this new Art of Office concept that shows how users worldwide create art from ordinary Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents?

As their Mac Mojo blog says: “Art of Office is a place for people to submit artistic and/or useful content made using Office applications (Word, Excel, or PowerPoint). Whether it’s creating pixel art using Excel (a la our Post-it Notes) developing an animated short story in PowerPoint or artistic pieces in Word, this online community allows you to share, rate, remix and discuss user-submitted content with other Mac Office users around the world. It’s a fun way to show unique applications of our product and helps people think of Mac Office in ways they may not have thought of before”.

And while there are lots of comments there which complain about the delay in the release of Office 2008, I really like this initiative — all work and no play is no good!

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

Newsoft’s WMS 200 Video Wireless Projector Adapter

NewSoft announced the WMS 200 Video wireless projector adapter, that complements the existing WMS 100 Image adapter. The WMS 200 transmits lossless, high quality MPEG-1, 2, and 4 video, music, high-resolution images, and presentations featuring animation and audio.

The WMS series are the first adapters that wirelessly link WiFi-ready laptops directly to projectors and displays. Expected to retail at a price of $349, the WMS 200 enables you to broadcast video, audio, pictures and slides from anywhere in the room to high resolution projectors and displays.

The WMS 200 also includes the Presto! WMS software, which controls access to the adapter and also offers an interface for broadcasting content.

The wireless projector adapter can support resolutions up to 1280 x 1024 at 16/24/32 bit color modes and is compliant with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g standard.

More details are available on the Newsoft site.

Filed Under: Hardware
Tagged as: Hardware, PowerPoint, Projector

SlideRocket Beta Signups

You can now sign up for a beta version of SlideRocket, the new presentation program that runs on AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime).

Visit for a product tour, and to sign up.

Filed Under: Companion Programs
Tagged as: Companion, Online Presentations, PowerPoint, SlideRocket

Zoho Viewer: Solution for Bulky E-mail Attachments

Zoho Viewer is a handy way to upload documents and share them with others via the web. Rather than clogging your friends’ e-mail boxes with weighty attachments, you can upload them to Zoho Viewer and just send a link. Viewer supports Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files as well as PDF, RTF, ODF and OpenOffice documents, which means even if your intended recipient doesn’t have a particular program installed, they’ll still be able to view it through Zoho Viewer.

More on the Wired Blog Network.

Filed Under: Companion Programs
Tagged as: Companion, Online Presentations, PowerPoint, Zoho

Apple Announces iWork ’08, New Keynote Version, and New Numbers Program

Apple announced iWork ’08, a new version of its productivity suite.

This includes a new version of Keynote, their presentation software. New features in Keynote include:

• Instant Alpha, a process that removes the background from placed images without having to use masking tools in image-editors like Adobe Photoshop.
• Another new feature is Smart Builds, an option that makes it easy to add animations.
• Keynote also adds new transition types, and text effects enhancements.

All these options except Instant Alpha are already available in PowerPoint, and Microsoft’s upcoming version of Office 2008 for the Mac can only add more catch-up to do on both the Apple and Microsoft fronts.

As if that was not enough, Apple adds Numbers, a spreadsheet program to iWork ’08, thus making it a more even contender to Microsoft Office for the Mac.

Pages, the page layout program adds more word processing options.

What’s next? Is there an iWork for Windows coming up?

Meanwhile, read more about iWork ’08 for Mac here.

Filed Under: Companion Programs
Tagged as: Apple, Companion, iWork, Keynote, Microsoft Office, Office for Mac