PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Interface in PowerPoint 2003 and 2002 for Windows

Here’s a quick walkthrough of the PowerPoint 2003 interface — PowerPoint 2002 (XP) looks almost the same.

Explore the interface for PowerPoint 2003 and 2002 for Windows.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2003
Tagged as: Interface, PowerPoint, PowerPoint 2002, PowerPoint 2003, Tutorials

FlashSpring: Conversation with Yury Uskov

      Yury Uskov is the Technical Director at CPS Labs, a software development company based out of Yoshkar-Ola, Russia. Yury has a Master’s degree in Software Engineering and since 2001, he has been working in the rich media industry as the co-founder of CPS Labs Ltd. CPS Labs has launched several Flash technology projects including FlashSpring, a PowerPoint to Flash converter that ships as an add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint.

Geetesh: Tell us more about the new FlashSpring 2, and how it is different from other similar products.

Yury: If you would like to know more about the originality of FlashSpring 2.0, I can point out several major strong advantages of our product:

1. Single Flash File: We create one solid Flash file from one PowerPoint PPT presentation. We embed in this file all internal and external presentation content, including Flash movies and videos, additional audio tracks, etc. The presenter can enrich his Flash presentation with an attractive player and we also can embed this player in the final Flash movie. This contained Flash movie can be easily deployed on the web, or sent through email–and will be displayed directly in your message content.
2. Most of the other PowerPoint to Flash converters actually cannot do this and produce some mixture of HTML and Flash files which represents the original PPT after conversion. It is possible to put this presentation on the web, but if you like to send such presentations via email, it can be delivered only as an archive.
2. Quality of Flash content: FlashSpring carefully retains the geometry and placing of PowerPoint shapes, keeping them in vector format after conversion to Flash. We have tested a lot of competitors and most of them convert shapes to raster and only the text objects are vector. Also, most of them have problems with complex text objects, bullets, etc.
3. Speed: I can definitely say that according to the number of supported PowerPoint features, FlashSpring 2 is the fastest PowerPoint to Flash converter. It also produces the most compact Flash output (because we keep most of the original PowerPoint content in vector).

Geetesh: How does FlashSpring aid in the distribution of PowerPoint content?

Yury: Being converted to Flash, your PowerPoint presentation becomes more portable and distribution-friendly, because almost anybody can play Flash content on most of the platforms in most of the browsers.

Additionally, FlashSpring is enhanced with deployment options and can help you to put your Flash presentation on your website or send it via email as easily as possible.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Add-in, Interviews, iSpring, PowerPoint, PowerPoint Flash, Yury Uskov

Book Excerpt: Working with SmartArt

An excerpt from my new book on PowerPoint — Special Edition: Using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 is now available on the InformIT site.

Check it out here.

Filed Under: Books
Tagged as: Books, PowerPoint 2007

Camtasia Studio 4 Review

Capturing on-screen activity to create a movie is so much easier these days with more powerful computers and software — and it is also a more helpful way of explaining how a task can be done. Such a concept works great if you want to create tutorial movies, and TechSmith’s Camtasia Studio is most certainly among the best products for this type of work.

Read the Indezine review of Camtasia Studio 4.

Filed Under: Companion Programs
Tagged as: Add-in, Camtasia, PowerPoint, PowerPoint Flash, Techsmith

I-LogiK: Conversation with Simon Turner

Simon Turner is the Technical Director for I-Logik Software, a software development company based in Birmingham, UK. Simon has a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Nottingham and now specializes in the development of unique powerful tools to dramatically improve network efficiency and data management.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Add-in, Interviews, PowerPoint