PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Google Gunning for PowerPoint?

In March, Google bought an online word processor, Writely. Recently, it launched the Google Spreadsheet. What’s next? Maybe a Microsoft PowerPoint wannabe?

That’s what a recent report from Gartner speculates. Actually, the scenario is that Google will buy Thumbstacks, which is a Web2.0 presentation app.

Tom Taulli discusses more on the Blogging Stocks site.

Filed Under: Companion Programs
Tagged as: Google, Google Slides, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, PowerPoint

An Interview with Cliff Atkinson

Cliff Atkinson advises the senior leadership of some of the world’s largest companies on how they can engage the organizational phenomenon called PowerPoint.

In this interview Cliff discusses his book, storyboarding inside PowerPoint, and shares some ideas.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: AutoContent Wizard, Beyond Bullet Points, Cliff Atkinson, Interviews, PowerPoint

Microsoft Releases Office 2004 for Mac Update

Microsoft has released the 11.2.4 update for Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac that fixes vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer’s memory with malicious code. This update also fixes issues in Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 and Entourage 2004, and it includes all of the improvements released in all previous Office 2004 updates.

Download the update from the Microsoft site.

Filed Under: PowerPoint 2004
Tagged as: Mac, PowerPoint, PowerPoint 2004

DataPoint: Conversation with Kurt Dupont

DataPoint is an interfacing product that links PowerPoint to database sources opening up many new possibilities for developing dynamic, data-driven presentations.

There’s no one better than Kurt Dupont who heads PresentatonPoint, creators of DataPoint to tell us more about the features and possibilities of the product.

Geetesh: Tell us more about the new DataPoint enhancements and how can users benefit from them.

Kurt: DataPoint is our Microsoft PowerPoint add-in that links your presentation to dynamic and external data sources like databases and Microsoft Excel worksheets. It can be used as an information board or to keep your sales presentations really up-to-date.

Our customers are happy with its functionality but sometimes they come up with a suggestion for new functionality that we didn’t think of. Based on this user feedback we assemble a wish list. Now we made time to implement the 2 most wanted functionalities; multiple data scrolling on 1 slide and slide master linking.

Data scrolling already existed in previous versions. You add 1 slide to your presentation, add a text shape, connect it to a database and activate data scrolling. As a result, DataPoint will display each database value for a given time until all data (returned from the data connection) is displayed. It actually creates different virtual pages for all data. This feature can be used e.g. in a school where you display classroom information. You can put 5 classes on 1 slide but when you have 10 records of information in your database, DataPoint will display the first 5 records and afterward the following 5 records, with 1 physical slide only.

Now the data scrolling enhancement becomes active when you have a second data scrolling connection in use on the same slide. E.g. you want to add announcements to your slide. So first you specify that the classroom information is the master connection while the announcement connection is a slave connection. DataPoint will now continue to alternate all text shapes but now it will be able to detect when to jump to the next slide (when the last record of the master connection was shown on the screen).

A second most requested feature was slide master linking. Users wanted to place a dynamically linked text shape or just a simple live clock on the slide master so that it would appear on every slide in the presentation. This feature saves time as before the user had to create this text shape on every slide.

Geetesh: How do your other products integrate with DataPoint.

Kurt: First of all we have our MessagePoint; a screen saver solution that runs a PowerPoint presentation when the computer is idle. In combination with DataPoint you can have live production figures of a factory on the director’s desktop.

Secondly we have OutlookPoint which is an add-on for Microsoft Outlook. It copies all selected folders and items to a database such as email messages and appointments from your calendar. DataPoint will visualize this information in your PowerPoint presentation. With this scenario, you actually use OutlookPoint as a data entry application or content management system to feed your PowerPoint presentations. You can use a public calendar to enter appointments or announcements. When it nears the start time of the appointment, DataPoint will display the subject of that appointment on your monitor. Companies are using the mechanism to e.g. welcome people at the reception desk.

Finally we have NewsPoint. It retrieves RSS news feeds from the internet and inserts this information into a database. DataPoint technology is then used to add live business or sports news to your information system, next to the other data. The big advantage here is that with live news you get more attention from your audience where before only ‘boring’ company information was shown.

In the near future we will release TickerPoint; a database-driven scrolling text and image banner for Microsoft PowerPoint. It already includes the DataPoint kernel.

Thank you, Kurt. Check out DataPoint and other PresentationPoint products on their site — there are trial versions available for all products.

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

PowerPoint 2007: A Tale of Two “Points”

Woodrow Windischman explains how you could use the new slide library feature in PowerPoint 2007.

PowerPoint presentations are the lifeblood of many a corporate meeting; however, getting a consistent message across has been difficult due to the fact that a PowerPoint deck is one big file. Sometimes, it is one really big file. If you have certain key business information and you want to ensure everyone presenting “gets it right”, your choices have generally been limited to providing a “standards” deck, containing all of your company’s boilerplate, and making everyone pull out the slides they need; or going through the tedious process of saving each slide or small block of slides individually, then having your users merge each file them into their working presentation…

Read the solution here.

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