PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

authorPOINT 3.8 Released

authorGEN announced the release of authorPOINT 3.8 with several new features for rapid e-learning authoring.

authorPOINT is a rapid e-learning presentation creation tool which installs within PowerPoint as a toolbar and captures PowerPoint presentations when an instructor is presenting. It comes with the option to embed presenters’ video through a webcam as they present or integrate video and audio as required.

Presentations created with authorPOINT can be saved in Flash or Windows Media formats. Further, the Flash file can be uploaded to a dedicated server on authorSTREAM that provides the presenter with a unique URL to deliver streaming Flash presentations.

Read more info on the authorGEN site.

Filed Under: Add-ins
Tagged as: Add-in, PowerPoint, PowerPoint Flash

Microsoft Tool Helps Plan Office 2007 Conversions

Microsoft Corp. last week released the final part of a free tool kit designed to help corporate users convert their existing Office files to Office 2007’s new Open XML file format. The new technology, called the Office Migration Planning Manager, combs through networked PCs to discover and report back on how many and what kind of Office files exist on the systems. The OMPM’s availability was quietly announced Friday on the blog of Brian Jones, an Office program manager at Microsoft.

Read more on the PC World site.

Filed Under: Microsoft Office
Tagged as: Microsoft Office, PowerPoint 2007

The Vikas Joshi Interview

Vikas Joshi is widely recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to the online learning industry, pioneering product innovations, and developing efficient offshore outsourcing models. With a strong vision and strategic leadership, he has played a pivotal role in shaping the evolution of digital education and global business operations. Under his guidance, the Harbinger Group has not only built innovative software products but has also successfully introduced cutting-edge solutions tailored to the dynamic needs of the global marketplace. His expertise in leveraging technology to drive impactful learning experiences and business efficiency has set new benchmarks in the industry.

In this interview, he discusses Raptivity, their e-learning content creation tool.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: eLearning, Harbinger, Interviews, PowerPoint, Vikas Joshi

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