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Office Computing January 2002 • Vol.13 Issue 1 Page(s) 61-63 in print issue |
Pump Up PowerPoint Plug-ins To Improve Your Presentation Prowess | ||
 Microsoft PowerPoint provides plenty of functionality for newcomers to the presentation application. So much, that you will want to learn what the application can do before venturing into the world of plug-ins. A time will come, however, when you've seen and heard it all before. Besides enhancing appearance, you might also want to streamline the construction of your presentations. Or you may need a better way to publish your work on the Internet. Visit Microsoft's Web site, which regularly offers add-ons to its products. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/office/downloads/default.htm and click PowerPoint. We've grouped the plug-ins into the following groups: templates and sounds, graphics, transitions, graphs, and converters. When coupled with PowerPoint 2002, some of these plug-ins, especially those with 3-D rendering, are power hungry. We think the stated system requirements are on the conservative side. And we tested the plug-ins running Windows 98 Second Edition. While running only Microsoft Word, some effects we tried resulted in an out-of-memory message even though our system has 196MB RAM and an ATI XPERT2000 AGP video card with 32MB of memory and Direct3D—well above stated requirements for any of the plug-ins. You have to settle for less chrome or let PowerPoint have sole access to your system's resources by closing other applications. Also, know the specifications of the system on which you're going to run the presentation. If the system's different from the one with which you created the presentation, make sure it can shoulder the load.  Templates & Sounds Most templates are distinguished from regular graphics in that they specifically accommodate text. A title-page template, for example, has placeholders for a title, subtitle, and headers and footers. PowerPoint has dozens of ready-to-use templates. The plug-ins below will give you a lot more from which to choose. PowerPoint also has several sound files, including applause, drum rolls, breaking glass, gunshots, and typewriters, ready to be pasted into a presentation. Placing a sound into a slide is as simple as pasting a graphic; you just select from a list that appears in the task pane. Sounds come with many of the plug-ins we looked at, as well as with other applications you may have, and Microsoft has an add-on pack as a free download. You can find thousands more on the Web, and you can record your own if you have a sound card and microphone. PowerPlugs: 3D Titles $49 PowerPlugs: Headings $39 CrystalGraphics (408) 496-6175 http://www.crystal-graphics.com CrystalGraphics PowerPlugs: Headings and PowerPlugs: 3D Titles are two of our favorite plug-ins with the best animations, by far. PowerPlugs: 3D Titles lets you apply more than 60 title-page animations, including spinning globes, interlocking blocks, flying diamonds, and other eye-catching effects.
Choose a theme to add a soundtrack to go with the animation. Set the speed of the animation to slow, medium, or fast. Rendering Preferences lets you specify whether you'll run the animation in real-time using Direct3D or export it to an AVI (Audio-Video Interleaved) movie with a specified resolution and frame rate. PowerPlugs: Headings comprises more than 2,000 images. The business-like images emphasize subtle shadings and muted colors. You have to place the images using PowerPoint's Insert, Picture function rather than a separate toolbar, as is the case with other PowerPlugs. You can easily combine and integrate multiple images due to their semi-transparent character, which further expands your options. Digital Artware PowerPoint Templates $19.95 (per theme, downloaded) Sound Bundle Kit (downloaded) $29.95 Digital Artware Professional Bundle (on CD) $199 Digital Artware (626) 685-2727 ext. 600 http://www.digitalartware.com These templates are grouped into 12 themes: Art Deco, Aluminum, Beachin', Blueprint, Desktops, Finance, Hi-Tech, Marble, Nikko, Sandstone, Sci Fi, and Southwest. Each collection has 10 presentation templates and five media slide templates, plus a TrueType font. These collections have an artistic but casual look that would be better suited for the classroom than the boardroom. Digital Artware's Sound Bundle Kit has 20 selections. The Digital Artware Professional Bundle has 12 graphic themes and hundreds of additional graphic elements, fonts, and sounds. Graphics PowerPoint is a visual program. Well-placed graphics can augment sparse text on a slide, better illustrate a point, or stand in for text altogether. If you're not happy with the graphics that come with PowerPoint, you'll find plenty of programs and plug-ins with additional graphics, features that make importing graphics easier, or editing abilities in case a picture doesn't quite fit your topic. Digital Juice for PowerPoint & Multimedia Design $349 Digital Juice (800) 525-2203; (352) 369-0930 http://www.digitaljuice.com Digital Juice for PowerPoint & Multimedia Design has backgrounds, photos, videos, and animations for PowerPoint, but you can also use them in Web or print design. The collection is large, covering 24 CDs. The professional-quality graphics are royalty free. The content ranges the widest spectrum: still lifes, stone textures, business people, landscapes, abstract backgrounds, machinery, and much more. It's easy to find an image that fits your subject in this well-organized program. If you want a variation of the image, look at one of the 25 remixes. This bundle isn't strictly a plug-in, because everything, including the browser-based index, runs off of a CD. You'll also get a tutorial, printed index, and online gallery. The Digital Juice collection is a great buy, especially if you want to use the graphics in other formats, such as Web or print. Image Importer Wizard $35 Shyam Pillai http://www.mvps.org/skp PowerPoint supports images imported in a variety of formats, but you have to import graphics one by one. Image Importer Wizard breaks this barrier by letting you handle all of the image inserts you need for a whole presentation, at one time. If you have to import a lot of graphics, you'll find this plug-in a timesaver. The Image Importer Wizard imports graphics. You control the type, scaling, positioning, and insertion point. Specify what types of graphics you want to import and designate whether you want the graphic to serve as a link. The Wizard supports popular image files, including JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), BMP (bit-mapped), and TIFF (Tagged Image File Format). You control the order in which the graphics are imported and which slide they'll occupy. Visit Shyam Pillai's Web site for other PowerPoint-related plug-ins. According to Microsoft, Pillai is a member of Microsoft's MVP alliance of professionals who "voluntarily give of their expertise to enhance the online experience and technical skills of others." PowerPlugs: PhotoActive FX $49 As with its other plug-ins, CrystalGraphics' PowerPlugs: PhotoActive FX lets you tweak your presentation to impress even the most jaded boardroom audience or sleep-deprived class. Select a graphic on a PowerPoint slide and open the PhotoActive FX plug-in from the floating Taskbar. Choose from still and animated effects, including coloring, fine arts (from Picasso to Warhol), lights and shadows, rotations, and atmospheric effects. You can preview your selections, and the more complex effects take several seconds to load. PhotoActive also provides more prosaic functions, such as adjusting brightness, contrast, and cropping. PowerPlugs: Transitions $59 Transitions are how presentations get from one slide to the next. PowerPoint has about 60 special effects for transitions. These effects are serviceable but not terribly exciting; they'll probably look familiar if you've seen your share of presentations. The plug-in described below from CrystalGraphics spices things up considerably. This CrystalGraphics plug-in provides 140 3-D transition effects with matching sound, including revolving doors, rotating cube, and our favorite, reassembling tiles. To inset a transition, in PowerPoint's Slides you choose the slide you want the transition to introduce. If you want a transition between slides 2 and 3, for instance, choose slide 3. You also have the option of applying the transition to all of the slides. To apply a transition, choose one from a drop-down list. A preview window shows the transition effect. Arrows may appear alongside the preview window with the number and location of arrows, depending on the transition. Click an arrow to determine which direction the effects take; whether, for example, a spinning box exits to the upper left or lower right. Graphs A presentation must present data accurately and clearly, and it doesn't hurt to have attractive graphs; especially when bearing bad news. PowerPoint uses Microsoft Graph, a separate but integrated application. It lets you create the usual graphs, such as pies, bars, lines, areas, scatter, bubble, and 3-D. A Datasheet, which is a table that resembles a database's worksheet in form and function, is used for inputting figures. Amigo 2000 $99 (as a download) $124 (on CD) Three D Graphics (800) 913-0008; (310) 231-3330 http://www.threedgraphics.com To augment PowerPoint's graph abilities, look to Amigo 2000 by Three D Graphics. This plug-in lets you make graphs in the usual formats plus true 3-D charts. The 3-D effects, created using rendering, a process in which shadows and variations in color create the effect, are quite impressive. With this plug-in, you can modify every aspect of your charts and 3-D graphs.
Converters PowerPoint 2002 lets you save your presentation in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) format so you can post the presentation on the Internet, thereby presenting your information to a wide audience regardless of whether they have PowerPoint installed. You can conduct training sessions, for example, across a wide area without the trainer having to physically visit sites. PowerPoint pages are compatible with Internet Explorer 3 and later and Netscape Navigator 3 and later. Animated effects only work with Microsoft IE5 and later. Click to Convert $119 Inzone Software 64-9-4456565 (New Zealand) http://www.clicktoconvert.com This plug-in from Inzone Software converts presentations to HTML. After installing Click To Convert, the plug-in shows up, along with any installed printers, when you select the Print option in any Microsoft Office application. You can also drag and drop the files you want to convert onto the Click To Convert icon. Use this option to convert PowerPoint files. You can then edit the HTML files using any Web design application. Click To Convert will convert hyperlinks from the original presentation to the HTML version, but it won't convert internal links. Conversion options include Page Cropping, which removes any excess white space from the Web page; character spacing and page width; building a table of contents; and designating graphics to be produced automatically or specifically as JPEG or PNG (Portable Network Graphics) files. The options are explained as you go, making the plug-in suitable for a newcomer. impatica for PowerPoint $499 impatica.com (800) 548-3475; (613) 736-9982 http://www.impatica.com impatica for PowerPoint converts your PowerPoint file so you can post it on a Web site or e-mail it over connections as slow as 28.8Kbps (kilobits per second). You don't need browser plug-ins, and your recipient doesn't need to install impatica for PowerPoint to read the file. impatica compresses the PowerPoint HTML file, making it up to 95% smaller than the original. impatica preserves text, graphic, sound, animation, and links, as well as their attributes, but it doesn't support all PowerPoint features. You'll need to save graphs, for example, as pictures. You can view the "impaticized" presentation in Java-enabled browsers, including Netscape Navigator 2.0 and newer and IE3.0 and newer, and in Java enabled e-mail clients, including Netscape Mail 3 and Messenger 4 and later, Outlook Express 5.0 for Windows, Outlook 2000 and later, and Eudora. Press On With PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint includes enough content and function to get you started. But when you are ready to take your presentations to the next level, or if you are bored with your current presentations, the plug-ins above will give you the power and finesse you need.  by Tom Hancock |
