For those of you who read Indezine  - there’s a special offer on right now.

“This book is worth its weight in gold. Once you buy it, you’ll have, in one place, a fantastic resource that can unlock for you all the secrets of the greatest presenters. It not only covers the 3 Ts (presentation tips, techniques and technologies) it also helps you to understand and connect with your audience so that you can be a much more successful and relaxed presenter than you may have ever thought possible. And, thanks to Claudyne’s enthusiasm for the subject, you’ll find Point, Click and Wow! to be a fun read, as well!”
- Dennis Ricks, President & CEO, CrystalGraphics, Inc

You can order the book now directly from Claudyne, and receive a free Delivery Skills job aid card, plus one of her PowerPoint formats from her CD: Presentations in a Hurry!!

This offer ends on January 31st, 2009.

This sample presentation shows you how you can use motion path animations in PowerPoint on ungrouped vector objects to create a very effective introduction or section slide.

Learn more here…

Categories: animation, powerpoint, presentation_samples

I just read TechCrunch’s coverage on SlideSix.com, a new presentation sharing site that lets you upload and share your PowerPoint presentations and other file formats such as ODP (OpenOffice), PDF, QuickTime MOV, etc.

At first glance, this looks like an interesting site not too different from other presentation sharing sites like SlideShare, authorSTREAM, and SlideBoom. But SlideSix’s Todd Sharp says there’s a difference. He adds: “Simplicity and identity are keystones of our presentation sharing community. Social networks, more often then not, are utilized by people looking to create a unique web identity. The motivation for the desire to create such an identity varies. Some people use social networks for personal reasons – to keep in touch with friends and relatives or reconnect with others whom they may have lost touch with. Others use them for business reasons - to create an online presence for a company or product. Often folks use them for a combination of business and personal reasons. SlideSix is a social presentation sharing community that caters to everyone.”

Categories: online_presentations, powerpoint

Here’s a list of the updates, provided by Joel Harband of Tuval Software:

Bundled Premium TTS Voices: In addition to SpeechOver, a software for generating narration in PowerPoint presentations with text-to-speech voices — customers receive a high-quality, natural sounding text-to-speech voice that is automatically installed for immediate use with SpeechOver. This is a marked improvement over the regular version of SpeechOver, which comes only with the basic quality text-to-speech voices provided free by Microsoft.

Low Cost Commercial License: The Acapela TTS voices in Speech-Over Plus come with a commercial license that allows you to produce narrated presentations for internal business requirements such as corporate education and training, e-learning, and marketing presentations, — and you can put the material on an internal corporate network. For the price, this is an excellent value and can help businesses save costs in these difficult economic times.

Additional Voices and Languages: Acapela Group produces 50 premium TTS voices in 25 languages. Right now, US English and Danish versions of SpeechOver Plus are available and different language versions are being added all the time. A basic language version includes one TTS voice in that language (for example, the US English version includes Heather) and TTS voices in the same language or in different languages can be purchased and added to the basic version. In fact, any vendor voice can be added as long as it is SAPI-compatible.

More info and free trials can be found on the SpeechOver site…

Categories: add-in, narration, powerpoint, sounds

Brad previously held various positions at Click2learn/Asymetrix including Director of Learning Management Systems Engineering and Director of Enterprise Products.

In this interview, Brad discusses the ToolBook product from SumTotal Systems, and its PowerPoint related abilities.

Read the interview here at the indezine website…

SlideShare, a leading site that lets you share PowerPoint presentations now supports Apple Keynote files too. All you need to do is zip up your Keynote presentation files and upload.

There’s an interesting tutorial on the SlideShare site that’s embedded here.

Related articles

• SlideShare to Microsoft: “All Your Powerpoint Are Belong to Us.”
• Share Your Keynote: SlideShare Finally Accepts Native Apple Presentation Files
• SlideShare makes PowerPoint a social application

AnimationFactory.com is a huge resource of visual content that I have known for a very long time now. Founded in 1996, the site now comprises over 500,000 animations, video backgrounds, PowerPoint templates, backdrops, web graphics, sound clips, Flash source files, etc. They have a dedicated team of on-house artists who create this content. Their media elements can be use in any kind of presentation.

Read the review here…

Categories: animation, clip_media, powerpoint, templates

Design Science announced the new 6.5 release of MathType for Windows — starting from this release, Design Science is positioning MathType as a universal editor for mathematical notation. There are no new PowerPoint specific features, but here’s a list of the updates, provided by Bob Mathews of Design Science:

Equations Everywhere and Anywhere: Up until now, MathType has been thought of mostly as a tool that works with Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. But it has always been much more than that. You can label graphs with equations, create equation images for websites, blogs, wikis, export equations to TeX or MathML, and much more. See Works With .. to see our MathType Interoperability Registry which lists the many, many applications and websites MathType works with. More info here…

Enter equations in TeX/LaTeX directly in Word: If you know the TeX typesetting language, you can type it directly into your Word document. When you are done, the TeX code will be converted to a MathType equation. [Bob's note: This isn't automatic. You can either click an icon on the toolbar or Ribbon, or use the Alt+\ keystroke.] The TeX Toggle keyboard shortcut allows you to toggle between TeX and MathType views of the equation.

New keyboard shortcuts in Word to open equations for editing: Many of our customers like to use the keyboard. Now you can open an equation next to the insertion point using a keyboard shortcut. Together with our new TeX Toggle feature, you can now enter and edit equations completely from the keyboard without leaving Word.

New translators for Maple, Mathematica, Physics Forum and more: As part of our “Equations Everywhere and Anywhere” effort, we have added new translators for many applications and websites.

MathML Import: Now you can import mathematics defined using MathML from the many applications that produce it. MathML code can be either in the new MathML Clipboard Format that is supported by a growing number of mathematical and scientific applications or plain text such as from an XML editor, for example. The MathML can be imported via cut and paste or drag and drop.

Thank you so much, Bob!

Categories: education, equations, mathtype, powerpoint

In this discussion, Andy discusses the Chart Pattern Fills add-in for Excel 2007.

Geetesh: Tell us more about your Chart Pattern Fills add-in for Excel 2007, and what motivated you to create this add-in.

Andy: I developed the add-in in response to posts by users who need the pattern fills feature that was depreciated in Excel 2007. Apparently pattern fills are heavily used by those in academia. I was aware that actually only the user interface for the feature had been removed so I went about reconstructing the Patterns dialog. I enjoyed the challenge of creating a dialog that would dynamically reflect the users color choices, rather than just using static images.

It’s a totally free add in and available on my site.

Geetesh: PowerPoint 2007 users also no longer have access to the pattern fills so will this add-in work for them too?

Andy: Unfortunately not directly within PowerPoint. The porting of the add-in to PowerPoint is not currently possible. This is due to limitations in PowerPoint’s VBA Object Model and how the add-ins function works compared to those in Excel. As and when/if Microsoft make appropriate changes I will attempt to make a PowerPoint version.

In the mean time for those wanting to use the add-in, you can create their chart in Excel, format it as required using the add-in and then insert the saved file as an Object within PowerPoint.

See Also: Pattern Fills Add-in: Conversation with John Wilson

Categories: add-in, charting, excel, powerpoint