The PowerPoint Ezine - 17

by Geetesh Bajaj

Introduction

Let's begin this issue with a much awaited look at PowerPoint 2003 - this is followed by info on using Handouts in PowerPoint. A listing of Quick News is followed by a look at TechSmith's new and amazing SnagIt add-in for PowerPoint. We next look at Glen Millar's site and then discuss Dick Rodstein's PowerPoint voiceover services. We also look at creating PowerPoint presentations from Word outlines and finish this issue with a listing of upcoming seminars and events.

First Looks at PowerPoint 2003

PowerPoint 2003 is now already in public beta as part of the Office System 2003 beta. You can opt to take part in the beta here...

Topping the list of new features in PowerPoint 2003 is a new Viewer that is compatible with all new animations and transitions introduced first in PowerPoint 2002. This is all the more important, since this is the first Viewer release after PowerPoint 97 - that's four releases ago. Microsoft have gone further by introducing a Package for CD feature that copies an active presentation and the Viewer to a folder that can be copied to a CD. Such CDs are autorun enabled and run on systems without PowerPoint installed.

PowerPoint now integrates with Windows Media Player to play video full screen. There are also slide show navigation improvements and support for Smart Tags and the Tablet PC platform.

Other new features include a Reference task pane that adds the Office thesaurus to PowerPoint. There's also the new Microsoft Office Document Image Writer that outputs presentations to MDI and TIF formats.

A new Clip Art and Media web site that includes a Template Gallery replaces Design Gallery Live. Microsoft has removed the Meeting Minder feature.

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PowerPoint Handouts

There's a new article on PowerPoint Handouts on this site. Here's an excerpt:

Beyond slides, PowerPoint offers both Handouts and Notes that can be viewed, edited or printed along with a presentation. For many PowerPoint users, both Handouts and Notes are under-used features. That in itself is very unfortunate, because both these elements can make the entire presentation experience more complete and enriched. In this article, we'll look at Handouts - Notes will be discussed in a future article.

Read the full article here...

Quick Poll

I've also added a new poll onsite that aims to find out how many people actually use the Handouts and Notes features in PowerPoint.

Vote and see results here...

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Quick News

Corel has announced a free SVG Viewer - the product is an open standards-compliant SVG viewer plug-in that is designed for Windows based desktop and tablet PCs. More info...

Corporate Imaging's Effects Library is a PowerPoint 2002 add-in that allows you to save and re-apply your PowerPoint custom animations with one click. All saved effects can be organized within libraries. More info...

The QTVR ActiveX Control allows you to insert all QuickTime movies and QTVR (QuickTime Virtual Reality) walkthroughs and panoramas within PowerPoint on Windows. Look out soon for a full tutorial on this site. More info...

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TechSmith Announces SnagIt Add-in for PowerPoint

TechSmith has announced a new SnagIt add-in for PowerPoint that comes as part of the new 6.2 version of the product.

The new version also includes similar add-ins for Word and Internet Explorer - these add-ins provide one click access to screenshots that are automatically inserted in active documents. I used the add-in with PowerPoint and I must say the whole process is very impressive.

There a full review on SnagIt (the product and the add-in) on this site - you will enjoy reading this...

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Glen's Site

Glen Millar is from Australia and he's been very active on the PowerPoint newsgroups. His site is rapidly developing as an excellent PowerPoint resource. Visit the site...

The Tutorials page on Glen's site has extensive info on using connectors between AutoShapes, some cool VBA tricks (even beginners can follow this) as also great content on 3D Bezier curves and animations. He also has a demo presentation that you can download.

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PowerPoint Voiceovers from Dick Rodstein

Dick Rodstein runs a unique online service - he provides voiceovers for your PowerPoint presentations!

While at his site, you can view demos, read client quotes, send him a script for a voiceover and also process payments to him.

Dick recommends Maggie Albright if you need a female voice.

For more info, visit Dick's website...

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From PowerPoint To Word

This is excerpted from:

http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/ppquestions2.html

Q. I just opened my 50 page Word document and chose File | Send To | Microsoft PowerPoint. Amazingly, the resultant PowerPoint presentation ends up with 1 word to each slide! Can anyone help me?

A. Probably, you've set your entire Word document to the Heading 1 style - you'll have to do a little housekeeping now. The Word to PowerPoint conversion converts Word styles into PowerPoint elements. The Heading 1 style translates into the Title Text designation in PowerPoint. Similarly, the following change into:

Heading 2 becomes Bullet 1
Heading 3 becomes Bullet 2
Heading 4 becomes Bullet 3

Finally, any text in your Word document that is set to "normal" will not import into PowerPoint.

A quick way to change Word formatting is to apply the Heading 2 style to an entire document - thereafter, apply the Heading 1 style to whichever part of the document you want designated as a Title Text within PowerPoint.

You may also want to check up this Microsoft KB article.

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Events & Seminars

Winning Presentations Seminar
April 8 and 9, 2003
May 20 and 21, 2003
Boston, USA
Claudyne Wilder, Wilder Presentations
http://www.wilderpresentations.com/

PowerPoint Live
October 12 to 15, 2003
Tucson, Arizona, USA
Rick Altman, R Altman Digital Consulting
http://www.pptlive.com/

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Credits

During the preparation of this issue of the PowerPoint Ezine, I received assistance and feedback from April Dalke, George Birbilis, Glen Millar, Jennifer Veldman and Keith Tromer (all in alphabetical order). I would like to use this platform to thank them for their help.

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