PowerPoint

My Late Review for Acrobat.com - Adobe’s Silly Trick over Online Presentations

For Adobe’s newborn Online Presentations on Acrobat.com Labs, a lot of details could be read thru Digital Inspiration’s first look: “Adobe Introduces Acrobat.com Presentations - Create Impressive Slides Online“. I’m definitely late for this big mashup from Adobe. But when I found out the truth on the experimental product, “oh my god”, it was not what I expect.

No connection to Microsoft PowerPoint slides just makes it a Flash-based slide designer toy. No sounds, no transitions, but Flash Video embedded? It’s immature. All the competitors from Google Docs, Zoho Show to ThinkFree have their right concept for users. I can’t believe that it’s our brother Adobe’s homework…

Last point, this toolkit just let you export slides as PDF? Oh, okay, it’s all about Acrobat. We know that now. More and more brilliant ideas are coming from our great Adobe Labs, but how about any serious evolution later?

Presentation Veteran
William Peterson

[Referral] 5 Ways to Convert PowerPoint to Video

=== my friend Judith recommended her masterpiece for everyone who wants his PowerPoint presentation as video show. the article might be published anywhere else, and all rights reserved for Judith. ===

There is a famous PowerPoint called death by PowerPoint spread widely on the website. In this presentation, the author indicates that people do 30 presentations everyday but 50% of them are unbearable. Another data shows that in January 2008 alone, nearly 79 million users had made over 3 billion video views on YouTube, compared with PowerPoint presentation, video is easier for sharing and delivering. When searching news or information, we disposed to accept the videos because it is very concrete. But when we want to show our opinions we usually make a PowerPoint presentation because it is easier than making a video.

There are 5 ways for you to convert your PowerPoint to video.

1. Using Wondershare PPT to Video to convert PowerPoint to video with animations, transitions, sounds, video clips retained in the output.
2. Using windows movie maker to create a PowerPoint video if there are no dynamic elements in your computer.
3. Log in the slideshare.com and create a PowerPoint video online.
4. Using some screen recorder such as Camtasia to record your PowerPoint.
5. Make QuickTime movie on Mac.

Now there are the details of these 5 methods.
Continued »

Enrich Your Presentation: Yet Another Note about Video Sharing on PowerPoint

Rolling back to a year ago, right here I alleged that “Why Not Add YouTube Flash Video in Your Next PowerPoint Presentation“, as well as something more about rich media in presentation topics, such as “Best Practices for Playing and Controlling More in PowerPoint Presentations” or “Make Your Live Homepage in PowerPoint Slides. Maybe my old tips of YouTube video on PowerPoint is kinda obsolete now, and luckily Microsoft PowerPoint Team released its own illustrated tutorial on a blog post “How to insert that funny clip you found online“. Yeah, not late to learn more about this, as video sharing is still hot on the air.

Certainly the core technologies on this is simple, if you know Developer tab and Controls in PowerPoint. Something new I got, is now we can embed and play 720p HD (High Definition) YouTube video. It’s still easy to catch up: add “&ap=%2526fmt%3D22” at the end of the URL of the video file, making it look like “http://www.youtube.com/v/zlfKdbWwruY&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&ap=%2526fmt%3D22″. Enjoy our video sharing in every presentation!

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

[REFERRAL] Please, for Your Audience’s Sake, Use PowerPoint Animation Well

Please, for Your Audience’s Sake, Use PowerPoint Animation Well
http://www.managesmarter.com/msg/content_display/presentations/e3i0d287909ecf291eb71ef75c54e03a16b

How many times have you seen terrible PowerPoint presentations that use those horrible fly-in animations along with the unbearable screeching tires sound effect? That’s not a presentation—that’s a disaster….

Highly recommended for any PowerPoint users. The author Aaron Stannard is community outreach manager at SmartDraw, the world’s most popular business graphics software. But this article is not a product promotion for their smart PowerPoint integration with fantastic graphics. He indicated that, the systematic misuse of PowerPoint’s capabilities caused that well-known “Death by PowerPoint” syndrome around the world. And using PowerPoint animation wisely could make presenters out of trouble.

• Animation lets you present your ideas in a logical sequence, when done correctly.

• Animation helps your audience relate to an idea by focusing their attention on one point of order at a time.

• Animation builds up to your punch lines.

We’re making a public show for our business advancement, so we shouldn’t make business presentation boring anyway. That’s my idea.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

No News is Good News for Microsoft PowerPoint in Office 14

PowerPoint 2007 offers a lot of surprises to us when she made her debut with ribbon coat and SmartArt accessories years ago, however, those tremendous changes lead a lot of problems, such as incompatibility. Since Office 14 is going its way from alpha to beta at Microsoft labs, my only expectation on potential PowerPoint 14 is the full-featured Web presentation.

Among those leaked Office 14 “alpha” screenshots and new feature rumors, I can’t find too much information about our PowerPoint baby. So how will Microsoft treat the leading presentation software in the world? Frankly speaking, Microsoft’s PowerPoint has changed little over the years, while competitor Apple’s Keynote coming with more improvements like “cinematic transitions”.

Right, SmartArt in PowerPoint 2007 is just sort of luxury accessories for a presentation. Microsoft should focus more classic elements like transitions, animations, since the ribbon and SmartArt are already well done. Hopefully Microsoft is working on kinda this, so no news about PowerPoint 14 yet.

The selection of presentation software is important, because we can easily tell the difference between PowerPoint and Keynote presentations. Intriguingly Microsoft shows a little interest in Web apps recently, and we can see these Web PowerPoint fantasies from last PDC weeks ago. Get all elements done in online editing of Web PowerPoint, better than those free services online to reveal your power, okay? This is my another request on our estimated PowerPoint 14 to Microsoft.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Besides Presentation Skills, More about Those PowerPoint Professionals…

As I introduced before about Microsoft Certified PowerPoint Most Valuable Professionals (refer to my previous post Know Those PowerPoint MVPs to Help Yourself), who are really great PowerPoint professors and active contributors on presentation skills, the official Microsoft PowerPoint Team finally wrote something more (more than I knew at least) about those PowerPoint MVPs on its PowerPoint Team Blog.

PowerPoint’s Most Valued Professionals…

So how about PowerPoint’s MVPs?

PowerPoint’s MVPs are a great group, excellent folks who represent a diverse set of specialties and talents with the PowerPoint product. We have world-class designers, design consultants, writers, programmers, and some amazing feature hackers. A terrific, talented, and generous group of folks you really should get to know better.

Where Do Most Valuable Professionals Hang Out?

Sadly I’m not a PowerPoint MVP like them, because I’m not an active community member, and am totally a businessman. However, I appreciate Microsoft’s MVP program to reward these real helpers, for everyone.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Project Presentation Essential: Create Project Report Effortlessly in Office 2003

“As a Project Team Leader, how much time have you lost trying to take information from Microsoft Project and drop into to PowerPoint presentation? If you are like me, you’ve probably done a few ‘Print Screen’ and Pastes…”

I’m not a skilled Microsoft Project user, but I suddenly found this old add-in for Project 2003 terribly useful here. Basically, the installation drops a new toolbar within Project with a button labeled “Create Report Presentation…” and it allows you to select which milestones to show as well as which fields to include. Magically, now you get an auto-generated PowerPoint presentation with a slide dedicated to the project tasks. Maybe it’s a little out to use Office 2003, but I can’t find such good add-in with Office 2007. Whatever, it’s not bad trying this for just project leaders.

The Project Report Presentation Add-in for Microsoft Office Project 2003 helps a user to quickly and easily create a Microsoft Office PowerPoint presentation containing user-selected task information from Microsoft Office Project.

Download Office 2003 Add-in: Project Report Presentation Here > >

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Ideas about Showing PowerPoint Presentations on iPhone

These days I was totally hooked with Apple iPhone from a friend. Certainly it’s not that fancy touch screen abuse, but those more and more interesting iPhone Applications from various innovative developers. Then I became wondering, how could I make my PowerPoint presentations displayed on iPhone, since it doesn’t like Windows Mobile to install such applications. After a little research, I got these ideas as below:

1. Export as a Series of Pictures to iPhoto on Mac
As Microsoft announced Microsoft PowerPoint 2008 for Mac last year, getting presentations from Mac to iPhone is relatively easy. PowerPoint exports your presentation as a series of pictures directly to iPhoto, or saves those same slide images as pictures to your Pictures folder. From there, sync pictures to your iPhone through iTunes as usual, then use the built-in Photos or slide show program on your iPhone to show your presentation.

It’s really easy to go and try this way. However, the presentation on iPhone becomes kinda picture slideshow, not with all animations along.

2. Convert as Supported MPEG-4 Video Formats
Since iPhone support MPEG-4 video in .mp4, .m4v, .mov formats, some software vendor offers the idea of presentation to video conversion. You can just convert your PowerPoint presentations to MPEG-4 video first, then import or sync the video to iPhone with iTunes.

This method sounds reasonable, and all animations are here. But please see, video presentation is not slideshow anymore, because you can’t control them easily slide by slide. Right?

3. Remote Control PowerPoint from Computers
So some iPhone application developers find this way to connect PowerPoint with computer via Wi-Fi network. Then you can remote control your PowerPoint presentations wirelessly from your iPhone, with a realtime view of your slides. Show your slides on your PC and use your iPhone or iPod Touch as a clicker.

I haven’t tried this app yet, but the idea seems not bad. If everything goes fine in presentation, that’s the best way so far, if you have a reliable Wi-Fi connection on your iPhone.

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

Online Holiday Boom with Stand-Out Sales Presentation

Because of the weak economy, consumers seem to prefer more online shopping with discounts or free shipping on this holiday season. At least, this is good news for most long-waiting online retailers. Based upon sorta great prospect, Abhay Parekh, founder & CEO of an interactive multimedia platform company, is presenting a wiselike guidance for business communicators, on Sales & Marketing Management Magazine:

Five Tips for Creating a Stand-Out Sales Presentation

Looking to create that perfect eye-catching sales presentation to lock in some last-minute Q4 sales? The you had better rethink your strategy and take your presentation to the virtual scale.

1. Show, rather than tell.
2. Ditch your static slide presentations.
3. Go virtual.
4. Survey says?
5. Know when to stop.

Read full article at:
http://www.presentations.com/msg/content_display/presentations/e3i54e0d1d9416e8c7fbf73d212d777bd11

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran

No Death by PowerPoint: We Know Its Midlife Crisis

Recently Ms Laura Bergells showed us an interesting research on PowerPoint Death with data analysis. Clearly, more and more people is concerned about the health statistic of our PowerPoint, because we’re still using it well now and gonna use it more in the future.

I agree that PowerPoint is the best ever presentation tool for desktop authoring. And I guess everyone is considering the inevitable threats from so many Web apps for presentation. PowerPoint is experiencing a midlife crisis as everyone does, but we still like it, don’t we?

William Peterson
Presentation Veteran