So why on earth would any Business PowerPoint user want to do such a thing?

You’ve just created a presentation masterpiece and presented it at a seminar. It really was quite good and many people in the audience came up to you afterwards and wanted a copy - which you could have sent them, however something in the back of your mind stopped you - why should you released your hard work to all in sundry to copy and claim as their own? That said - you would like it to be available for reference, and also, wouldn’t it be nice if you could control who sees it - with a login perhaps?

There are a number of ways of doing this - however being part of the ‘Being Smarter‘ network - we don’t like spending money - so how about we do this for free?!

“iSpring Solutions, Inc. is innovative software company focused on high end rich media software development for global markets” according to their site - and they do good stuff.

Firstly - visit the site - www.ispringsolutions.com/download.html.

Download the iSpring Free 3.5 package and follow the simple wizard to install it.

Open PowerPoint and the first thing you will see is the “iSpring Free” toolbar. Open the PowerPoint file you wish to convert.

iSpring in action

Step 1: PPT to Flash Conversion

The free PowerPoint to Flash converter creates web friendly Flash movies from your PowerPoint content keeping its visual parameters and animation effects.

The first time you use the software, I suggest that you use the “Publish” button to ensure the settings are correct. For subsequent conversions - you will be able to hit the “Quick Publish” button.

Select “Publish”.

iSpring main screen

Enter the title of the Flash movie you would like to create in the “Presentation Title” box.

Select the folder you would like it to be saved in and choose whether it’s a single slide or all slides.

I suggest that you leave the “Generate HTML” box ticked. This will ensure that you have a web page (.html) to display the Flash movie file (.swf) (NOTE It will also generate a tiny javascript file (.js) to control the presentation.)

Choose the remainder of the options and press “Publish”.

Depending on the number of slides, the software will then render each one into the Flash format and export the final two files.

It really doesn’t get much simpler than that - or “free-er” for that mattter. Great software.

Now - the Powerpoint convert zone has shown you how to do the conversion. What are the options for getting it online?

Step 2: Display online

There are a number of options for doing this. I’ll go through a couple:

i) FTP it to your web server

The files that iSpring has generated look like this.

Files saved

Simply upload those files to your webserver using your FTP program and provide people with the link to the index.html file which will then embed the Flash movie.

ii) Use a hosted service

If you don’t have access to a web server, and no tech friends who you can beg, borrow or steal from - then there are more and more hosted services coming online. iSpring offer their own service called Slideboom. The site looks like this:

Slideboom.com

You will need to join online - it’s free of course. You can then either upload your file via their website…

Uploader screen

Or - more conveniently, now you’ve signed up - you can use the iSpring application you’ve already installed by going back to the “Publish to Flash” dialogue box and then “edit account”. Type in your login and password.

iSpring Uploader

Next time you export the presentation, select Sideboom (rather than a local directory) and then press “publish”.

This dialogue box will appear:

Upload settings

Edit the various fields to reflect your presentation and assuming you would like this to be private access only, untick the “Allow public access” box.

Once it’s been uploaded to the Sideboom server, your browser will take you to that page. To share it with others - fill in the share via email box.

You can look at the example I’ve just created here.

Simple, quick, free and massively useful. I suspect you will impress your colleagues too!

The first method of conversion from PowerPoint 97,2000,2003 (.ppt) or PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) in our PowerPoint convert zone doesn’t involve any installed software - always handy in the corporate environment or for when you’re using someone else’s PC. The wonders of cloud computing now extend into the world of file conversion and providing you have access to an email address can get hold of conversions in seconds, for free (always a good thing!).

www.zamzar.com is a free online file converter (in beta - obviously - but don’t let that put you off - most things are.) I’m not overly sure about the chameleons, however the important thing is that it works! It really is as simple as following Steps 1>4:

There’s no need to login, and sadly for Zamzar - I’m really struggling to understand why you’d pay for any of the upgraded editions - so don’t be tempted to upgrade at this moment unless you see yourself becoming a power user.

In our example, we are converting a PPT or PPTX file into a pdf.

Step 1: Click the browse button and select the PowerPoint file you would like to convert. Depending on the size of the file, you will then see it uploading. Don’t navigate away from the page - or it will stop the upload.

Step 2: As soon as you select the file in step 1, the drop down in Step 2 changes to provide the ’sensible’ options for conversion. Select .PDF in our case.

Step 3: Enter your email address. I’ve had no cause to worry about spam - however if you’re worried - be careful with the address you use.

Step 4: Click ‘convert’. Not difficult really!

In my testing experience, the notification mail comes through almost immediately, although I suspect for larger files, it will maybe take a few minutes, depending on server load.

The email will look something like:

Simple as 1,2,3,4...

Simply click the long link at the bottom of the mail and hey preso - you’ve a nicely formatted PDF for distribution.

Simply. Easy. Free - the way I like it Business PowerPoint users will hopefully think the same.

Method #2 in the Powerpoint convert zone looks at installing software to do the same job…