Home | Products | PowerPoint | Add-ins
PowerSearch 2.x
reviewed by Geetesh
Bajaj, updated December 8th 2003
Stacks Of Presentations
A Needle In The Haystack
Who Makes PowerSearch?
Download & Installation
A Search In Action
Pricing & Support
In Conclusion
Stacks Of Presentations
Your job, designation or title may entail your involvement with
presentations of all sorts - and you either personally or professionally
may have accumulated a bank of presentations - someone created
those presentations in the first place and you could be sure that
somewhere on your hard disk is just that slide you need for tomorrow's
vital event. This particular slide in question has all the figures
you need - it's presented with just the right timings and animation.
Now, if only you could unravel it from the scores of mysteriously
named presentations that inhabit corners of your hard disk! Needless
to add, all these presentations were created using PowerPoint -
and PowerPoint's lack of an exhaustive search facility never prickled
your brains as sharply as now. Such an enormous complication -
and yet such an easy solution! Did you ever hear about PowerSearch?
Let's proceed...
Back
A Needle In The Haystack
 You
load PowerPoint - and click the 'new' PowerSearch button. You are
now presented with a search box - you opt to search all your drives
for keywords like 'third quarter figures'. Lo and behold, PowerSearch
creates a new presentation for you from around 5 slides it found
in over 800 presentations. And these slides are pure gold - not
only do you lay your hands on the actual slide you required, but
you also have at your fingertips figures for the previous 5 years.
Now, what was that metaphor called - a needle in a haystack?
Now that we have a brief idea about PowerSearch's scope and abilities,
let's proceed to analyze the product.
Back
Who Makes PowerSearch?
Accent Technologiess, creators of the popular 'Presentation
Librarian' product make PowerSearch as well. Founded in 1990 and
focused to provide multimedia and presentation solutions, Accent
Technologies diversified in 1995 to encompass software development
to create products like PowerSearch. Their client list includes
the likes of Adobe Systems, Avaya, Aetna US Healthcare, Intersil,
and Putnam Investments. Accent Technologies has also been the recipient
of several distinguished awards - for more details visit their
site:
Accent
Technologies
Back
Download & Installation
You can download a trial version of PowerSearch from the following
site:
PowerSearch
Download
The trial version is the same as the full version in all respects
- although the trial version is limited to 15 actual searches -
thereafter or even before that, you can opt to buy the product.
You will be sent a unique registration code which converts your
trial version into the actual full commercial version.
Installation is a simple affair - the actual buttons to access
PowerSearch are automatically created within your PowerPoint interface.
On my test system with PowerPoint 97, 2000 and 2002 installed,
PowerSearch managed to surface as a button to click in all three
versions.
Interesting to note here is the fact that while PowerSearch is
supposed to work across the last three PowerPoint versions, it
is actually optimized for PowerPoint XP (aka PowerPoint 2002).
Update: PowerSearch works with PowerPoint
2003 as well.
Back
A Search In Action
I loaded PowerPoint 2000 - and sure enough the PowerSearch button
was existent. Click it to open an unobtrusive find box (see screenshot).
You can enter either case sensitive or insensitive keywords in
the search box - these keywords are searched from actual text content
within the PowerPoint presentations available in a particular location
(including subfolders). Such locations could be a particular drive
or a particular folder. Surprisingly, PowerSearch did not allow
me to choose 'My Computer' as a search location. Even drive names
have to be actually typed into the 'Look in' box - you can choose
any folder using the browse dialog box though.
If you need to fine-tune your searches, further options are a
mouse-click away - just check the box next to the 'More options'
caption. This causes the PowerSearch interface to extend in size
to include many more parameters (see screenshot).
Search speeds are dependent on a variety of factors, including
computer speed, RAM, the quantity of PowerPoint presentations at
a particular location, the folder location itself and many more
aspects. However, it does not take too long considering the fact
that searches are carried out with no indexing - and that each
slide in a presentation has to be ascertained for search worthiness.
Search results take the form of a basic presentation itself -
all slides accumulated from various presentations are compiled
into a single presentation - as the user, it is up to you to find
which slides meet your need. Naturally, you might opt to create
a new presentation from the searched slides or copy individual
slides to existing presentations.
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Pricing & Support
PowerSearch costs US$99 as an ESD (electronic software distribution)
option - and also available conventionally on CD-ROM. The CD-ROM
edition costs US$15 more and also incurs extra shipping charges.
Volume pricing discounts are available if you would like to procure
more than 5 copies. Payments are processed electronically by credit
cards through a secure server.
Support options for PowerSearch is limited to email. This is what
I heard from Andrea Rogers of Accent Technologies:
As far as support is concerned we provide only email support
for the
PowerSearch Plug-In and promise to respond to technical support questions within
24 hours of the time we receive them. Our tech guys are phenomenal when it
comes to technical support and customer service as they know the importance
of happy customers.
Back
In Conclusion
All in all, PowerSearch is a one-trick pony, which does what it
set out to perform very well indeed. If your system is loaded with
PowerPoint files, and you need to find information quick - then
PowerSearch is indispensable. Ironically, PowerSearch's closest
competitor is its own next-of-kin - 'Presentation Librarian'. Presentation
Librarian may be overkill for basic searches - on the other hand,
if you need to catalog and index your presentations, it might be
just what the doctor prescribed. Now, that's a thought for some
other day...
As of now, one magical PowerSearch activity on your system could
make your day - and your presentation as well!
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