I Came, I Saw, I Learned...

PowerPoint 2010: Create Your Own Gauges

by AJ George 

Want to create a speedometer-like gauge for your PowerPoint or eLearning deck? I've found gauges a creative way to illustrate anything from progress through a course or presentation to positive to negative value scales. There are some relatively easy ways to build a gauge using shapes, but one of the fastest (and easily editable) ways I've found is to use Charts.

Here's what the finished product would look like: 

 

And here's how you'd do it:

1. In PowerPoint, insert a doughnut chart. (Insert > Illustrations > Chart > Doughnut > Doughnut > OK).
   
   An Excel spreadsheet will appear, along with the chart on your PowerPoint slide.


2. On the Excel spreadsheet, click in the cell that says Sales and change the title to whatever you would like. For my example I'm going to use Typos in 2012 Issues to demonstrate an acceptable versus unacceptable range of typos in one year for a publication.
   
   For the purposes of this chart, we will not be using the labels which currently read 1st Qtr, 2nd Qtr, etc., so you can leave them as is, but we will be changing the numerical values.


3. For my chart I want the total possible value of the gauge to be 100. I will only be using half of the doughnut so I'm going to set the total value to 200. The value for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Qtr should total 100. The value for the 4th Qtr will be 100. Add any three values for the first three quarters, as long as they total to 100. I will be using 60, 25, and 15. Once in the doughnut chart, this will visually give me a "good" area, an "okay" area, and a "bad" area. 
   
    
   
   If you use similar values, your chart should look something like this: 
   
   
   
   
   To get the horizontal orientation like in the finished example above, you will need to rotate the data. 
   
   
4. Select the doughnut so that resizing handles appear on all its sections.
5. Right-click the doughnut and choose Format Data Series. 
   
   The Format Data Series dialog box will open.


6. From the Series Options category, change the Angle of first slice to 270 and click Close.
      


7. Right-click the solid bottom half of the doughnut chart and choose Format Data Point.
8. From the Fill category, select No Fill and click Close. 
   
   The bottom half of the chart should "disappear."


9. Right-click each of the remaining sections of the chart and change their fill color as you see fit.
     
10. Select the Legend at the right of chart and press [delete] on your keyboard to remove it.
    
    The chart will center under the title.


11. Working on the same slide (but ensuring the doughnut chart is not selected), insert a Pie Chart. (Insert > Illustrations > Chart > Pie > Pie > OK)
12. Once again, you will be working with a total value of 200. On the Excel spreadsheet, set the value for 1st Qtr to the value (out of a possible 100) you would like the needle of your gauge to rest. I want my needle to fall within the yellow area of the chart, so I am using 66. Set the value for 2nd Qtr to 1. This will be your actual gauge needle.
13. In Excel, click in cell B4 to set the value for 3rd Qtr. In the fx field, type =200-(B2+B3) and press [enter] on your keyboard. 
     

Setting up this equation will allow you to set the first value to any number while automatically updating the third value to fit within the specified parameters.


14. Right-click the 5th row, (4th Qtr) and choose Delete.
15. In PowerPoint, right-click the Pie chart and choose Format Data Series.
16. From the Format Data Series dialog box, Series Options category, change the rotation to 270.
17. Right-click the two larger areas of the pie chart and choose Format Data Point > Fill > No Fill.
    
    Both sections will "disappear" leaving just your thin slice of the pie (your needle).


18. Right-click the "needle," choose Format Data Point and change the fill to whatever you like. (I chose black.)
19. Select the Legend at the right and delete it.
20. Select the title of the Pie chart (not the Doughnut chart) and press [spacebar] on your keyboard to delete the title of the second chart. (It's important to type [spacebar] for the title instead of just deleting it to keep the alignment of both charts the same.)
21. Select both charts and group them. (Home > Drawing > Arrange > Group)

Note: If you have a hard time selecting both charts, try holding down the [ctrl] key while you click each of them on the Selection Pane (Home > Drawing > Arrange > Selection Pane to view the Selection Pane).
 

The beauty of creating a gauge image this way versus drawing and grouping shapes is that you can change the value of the sections in the Doughnut chart as well as where the needle falls in a snap without having to re-do the whole graphic. Just ungroup the charts, type in new values in Excel, and shazam! Your graphic is instantly changed.

  

Using this same method I was able to quickly edit the charts into a speedometer by adjusting the values in Excel, adding text boxes with speed values and layering in a black circle behind the charts.

I'd love to see how you are using this method to create your own graphics. Send me your creations and I'll feature them in a future post.

PowerPoint: Is SlideShark Dead in the Water? (Hint: Only Minnow-mally)

by AJ George 

I've previously written about presentation apps for iDevices. I didn't have a lot of luck in my pursuit of decent PowerPoint presentation tools, but I did have success with one:SlideShark. Since my previous article, SlideShark has made some updates to its app that I'd like to share.

What is SlideShark?

SlideShark is an app for iOS with an accompanying website. First you upload presentations online at www.slideshark.comand then you can use your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch to share your presentations on the go. Animations, fonts, graphics, and colors are all preserved. Slides can also be shared through the app for on-demand viewing and statistical tracking. Interested in other sites for PowerPoint deck sharing? Click here.

So what's new? 

Version 2.0 expanded the app beyond just the iPad to include the iPhone as well. Taking the iPhone's screen size into consideration, a pinch to zoom feature (that is not available on the iPad) was added to the app. It will also work on the iPod touch.

But that's not all. Just a month after releasing 2.0, SlideShark debuted version 2.1. With the new release came direct access to Box and Dropbox accounts. Rather than downloading your presentation from Box or Dropbox, uploading it to the SlideShark site, and then accessing it from the SlideShark app, you can now access your cloud-stored presentations from right within the app.  I linked the app on my iPhone to my Dropbox account and found that the service does work as promised--eventually. Connecting the app to Dropbox was a bit of a process, as it took several tries to get the app to connect. I tried on the iPad first but found that the app would get caught up and never finish the process. The iPhone took a couple tries but was eventually successful. After connecting Dropbox, I had further troubles getting the presentations from my Dropbox account to download. A dialog box saying I didn't have access to the feature at that time popped up several times (on the iPad as well as the iPhone) before the app finally gave in and let me download the presentation. So, in summary: this feature does work. BUT don't wait 'til the last minute before an important meeting or presentation, as it may give you fits for a little while.

The newest version also boasts video support, but I had no luck with this. Videos in my presentation did not play at all. I tried clicking the video, but doing so only advanced me to the next slide. I also tried changing my Slideshark settings to auto advance the slide (so no clicking would be necessary), but this did not work either. I checked out the Slideshark blog and learned that the app does not currently support  .mov, .mp4, .qt, and .aav files. So, in the end, user error on that one, but it would have been nice to have a heads up on that within the app without having to search the Slideshark blog. If your videos are in one of the unsupported file formats, using a video converter before embedding should fix the issue for you.

Need to be able to work a room? With version 2.1 your iPhone can use Bluetooth to act as a remote control for the presentation on your iPad.  If you lose Bluetooth connectivity your phone will vibrate to alert you, as you will need to reconnect the devices. I tried it out and found that it worked flawlessly. After ensuring both my iPad and iPhone were set to use Bluetooth, it took only a couple taps to connect the two. I tested the reach of the remote feature and was able to get outside the office and about 100 feet outside the building before I lost connectivity. My iPhone did vibrate when I lost connectivity, but it also vibrated every time I progressed a slide (albeit not as much), so that was a bit confusing.

What's still missing?

I'd like to see the iPhone remote control functionality expanded to work as a remote for desktop systems as well. Being able to use the iPad as the remote in these instances would be nice too; then you could have large format notes, etc. available right in front of you with your remote. Expansion of video file format compatibility would certainly be a plus for me. I'm also excited for the release of the Android app for Google Play which, rumor has it, is on the horizon (no exact release date). 

Overall, the updates are great and have the potential to really help out those who need to be able to present on the go. A little fine tuning of that Dropbox download function and some additional features couldn't hurt, but since this is afree app, there is a lot to like here. 

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations.

PowerPoint: Create an Infographic

by AJ George 

If you need to create an Infographic, there are better programs than PowerPoint that you could use. Photoshop would be a good choice, or maybe Fireworks. That being said, PowerPoint is likely on your office computer right now. Additionally, PowerPoint is often underutilized as a design platform and is surprisingly agile.

One reason PowerPoint isn't the first program people think of for Infographics is that infographics are traditionally not the same size as a PowerPoint slide. To convey a hearty amount of information you'll generally want it to be much longer. You can actually change the slide size pretty easily from within PowerPoint by choosing Design > Page Setup > Page Setup. From there you can adjust the width and height of the slide on the Page Setup dialog box. The issue with this is that it can be difficult to work within PowerPoint on that long of a canvas. Additionally, the proportions of any shapes you insert will automatically change if you change the slide size. If your infographic isn't super big and if you know the size ahead of time and don't change it, however, this might not be a bad option for you. Otherwise, if you're willing to perform one extra step, there's still no reason why you can't use PowerPoint. The following technique is similar to printing out slides on different pieces of paper and taping them together, but digitally instead.

First you'll need to design your infographic. Think of it like any other presentation, but with a couple caveats, which I explain below.

Opt for a Simple Background

Going for a solid background is a good choice, and definitely the easiest. A border (that goes just along the vertical sides or across the sides and top of the first slide as well as the bottom of the last slide) is also not too difficult to pull off. A background pattern, while possible, may give you headaches if the pattern does not easily line up with the next slide.

Avoid Empty Spaces

Empty space isn't a bad thing in most cases, but keep in mind that these slides will be "stitched" together. A common tendency when designing a slide is to leave a bit of space at the top and bottom of a slide. When designing an infographic, however, once the slides are stitched together, having space at the bottom of one slide as well as the top of the next one will give you a rather large gap in content.

For Flawless Transitions, Cut Your Graphics Exactly in Half

A good way to fill those empty spaces: set up your graphics so that some of them start on one slide and end on the next seamlessly. At first glance, that's easier said than done, but I promise it's pretty easy. In the example below I want to have the arrow shape start on this slide and seamlessly continue onto the next slide when I collage them together. 

 

To do this, I formatted the shape until it was the size and in the general position I liked. I then used the sizing handles as a guide and moved the shape up and down until the center sizing handles lined up with the bottom of the slide.

  

Next I copied the shape ([Ctrl] [C]), clicked on the next slide, and pasted it ([Ctrl] [V]). When you copy and paste from one slide to another, PowerPoint will retain the slide placement from the previous slide, so the pasted shape will now appear in the same spot at the bottom of the next slide. You won't need to worry about moving it left or right, as it will already line up perfectly. Instead, just press the up arrow on your keyboard until the center sizing handles line up with the top of the slide.

 

  

Save Your Slides as Images

1. In PowerPoint, choose File > Save As.
2. On the Save As dialog box, locate the Save as type drop-down menu and choose PNG Portable Network Graphics Format.
3. Name the file (the slide images will appear within a folder with this name).
4. When the Info dialog box opens click the Every Slide button to save all of the slides as separate PNG files.
5. Click the OK button.

Use a Free Online Photo Editor to Piece it Together

I tried out a few options and found iPiccy to be the fastest and easiest, with the best quality. Fotoflexer has a similar collaging tool, but the final image was blurry, and I didn't see any option to increase the quality as I went. The collaging could also be done in Pixlr, or a similar Photoshop-esque editing site, but without prior Photoshop knowledge that might be a bit more confusing than it needs to be.

To collage the slide together in iPiccy:

1. Navigate to http://ipiccy.com/ and click the Start Editing button.
2. From the top of the screen, click the Create New Collage tool.
     
3. From the top left click the Add Images button. (You will be asked to give permission to iPiccy, to store your images until you delete them. I found deleting images when I was done with them to be easy and pain free. Click Allow to continue.)
4. Click the Upload Photos button, navigate to your slide images, and upload all of them.
5. Click the Done! button.
6. From the Basic area, choose a vertical stacking collage to accommodate your slides.
     
7. Click the Auto-fill button at the top of the window to fill the collage with your slide images.
8. Drag your slides until they are in the correct position.
9. At the left of the window slide the Spacing bar to the left until it is at 0.
10. Slide the Proportions bar until you can see all of your infographic. For mine that ended up being 57:43.
      
11. Select High Quality from the upper right of the window and then click the Done! button.
12. Click the Save button at the top of the window.
13. Give your infographic a name, slide the quality up to100%, select PNG format, and click the Save Photo! button to save the infographic to your computer.
      

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations. 

PowerPoint: Sites for Slide Sharing (Say that 5 Times Fast)

by AJ George 

There are infinite reasons why you may not be able to give a presentation in person, many of which I covered in my article on adding Text-To-Speech to PowerPoint presentations. When you can't be there in person, but you want to send along a PowerPoint deck in your place, there are a few reasons why you might want to use a slide-sharing site. Maybe your recipient is using an old clunker of a computer that would have compatibility issues with whatever you're sending, maybe they're concerned about viruses, maybe your recipient will be viewing your presentation from a mobile device or a different operating system than you're using, or maybe you have no intended recipient but want to post your presentation somewhere where it can garner eyeballs on its own, like YouTube, but for slides.

Whatever the case, a slide-sharing site can give you the peace of mind of not having to worry about technical snafus while giving you a platform to attract potential viewers. Today I'm going to explore five slide-sharing site options.

SlideShare

SlideShare was my least favorite of the bunch. My first issue came when I uploaded a test presentation and subsequently tried to delete it. I clicked to delete but nothing seemed to happen. I refreshed the window and the presentation was still there. I repeated this several times and my presentation did not delete. The next day when I logged in to my SlideShare account the presentation was gone, but I have no idea how long it took to actually delete. I thought it was perhaps a once off occurrence, but the same thing happened that day when I tried the process again. This made me really uncomfortable. What if I'd uploaded a presentation that could be damaging to my reputation or my company? Hopefully I wouldn't be in that position, but mistakes happen and I don't like knowing that there isn't a quick "undo."

SlideShare does not support animation and gives you the typical sharing options of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus, among a few others. To use any sort of advanced functionality (like analytics, capturing leads, or adjusting privacy), you'll need to pay for it. I don't necessarily have a problem paying for this, particularly if I'd be using the site for business needs-but I can get this same functionality for free from other sites, so I don't see much logic in paying for it on a site I'm not otherwise in love with. The good news is that SlideShare is quite well known, and although I didn't do the research, has possibly the largest audience. If you're aiming for visibility this isn't a bad idea.

Bottom line: High visibility, subpar interface, low on features.

authorSTREAM

authorSTREAM is a pretty standard choice among slide-sharing sites. After uploading your presentation, you can edit settings, share on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, download as either a Flash or a PPT file, or convert to a video. Animations worked--but not all the time and sometimes grouped objects came in mangled or missing elements. Animations did not come in automatically, which makes for an awkward viewing experience because your viewer probably does not know when to stop clicking to finish the build on that slide. Given the inconsistency/awkwardness associated with animations, you'd probably be better off just not using them. authorSTREAM does have basic analytic tools to track views, as well as an available presentation transcript.

Bottom line: The "kind of" working animations will have many users pulling their hair out, but if you don't have animations or grouped elements on your slides, this is not a horrible option for getting your presentation in front of eyeballs.

Speaker Deck

Speaker Deck has a relatively streamlined interface, which was nice. Files must be uploaded in PDF format and cannot exceed 50 MB. PowerPoint will save presentations as PDF files, so this isn't necessarily a problem, but may mean extra work for some users. Since decks are uploaded in PDF form, animations do not convey. If your presentation relies upon animations, this may be a deal breaker for you. But if not, I think it's actually kind of nice not having to wonder if they'll work or not by eliminating the possibility altogether. The addition of a YouTube-like "like" system gives Speaker Deck a bit of a social side. Analytic reporting is minimal, but will tell you how many views you've garnered. Sharing options include Twitter, Facebook, embedding, downloading a PDF version, and direct linking. You can include a description and a speaker bio, and give the presentation a category (to make stumbling upon it by others easier).

Bottom line: Having to have the presentation in PDF format may annoy some users. Knowing off the bat that animations aren't going to work at all could either be helpful or a hindrance to you, depending upon how you look at it. Not the best choice out there, but no glaring flaws.

SlideBoom

SlideBoom is by the same people who make iSpring converter, which I have previously written about (and liked).  Just as with authorSTREAM, animations came in, but required a click of the next button to start. As I mentioned before, I think this could be confusing to a viewer who doesn't know how many clicks of the next button each slide takes to finish the build. That being said, SlideBoom worked much better (animation-wise) than authorSTREAM, or any of the other options, and every animation I tried worked. Grouped elements did not come in mangled or missing. The free version will let you upload 100 presentations and does not provide detailed analytics, but does show the number of views and has a thumbs up/thumbs down system similar to YouTube.  Upon presentation upload, you can elect whether or not you want your presentation to be available to everyone online and whether or not to allow people to download your presentation.

Bottom line: I had the most success with animations here. The interface was slick and easy, but there's not a whole lot of "extra." If you don't need the extra, then this would be my pick.

myBrainshark

When it comes to "extra," myBrainshark is the most feature-rich of the bunch. Once your presentation is uploaded, you can edit it by recording audio or adding in background audio. Some animations worked, which is an improvement over some slide-sharing sites, but even so, some did not, so I would still recommend canning any animations to be safe. Attachments can be added in the form of a file or web URL. You can also add a poll or survey question slide as well as individual video, URL, document, PPT, and photo slides. Your deck can't be seen until it is made active, so you can edit until it's perfect and then set it to active so it can be seen. When you're finished making on-site edits, you can either print the presentation or share it via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, YouTube, and hordes of lesser known social networks.

myBrainshark's analytics reporting is the most fleshed out of the free versions, providing information on a number of views, what percentage of the deck was viewed, and a map showing where in the world your viewers are viewing from. Your content is also broken down into a table of contents--pulled from the title of each slide.

For even more features, you can pay for the Pro version to allow for embedding, password security, and the option to make the presentation private. A ProTrainer account will allow you to merge content, provide testing and scoring, and integrate with an LMS via SCORM, which could be of particular interest to those of us in the eLearning field.

Bottom line: If you are just trying to share your finished slide deck, this may be more over the top than you need. If, however, you need the extra features, I would highly recommend this option.  

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations.

PowerPoint: Converting Presentations to HTML5 with iSpring Converter

by AJ George 

 

If I don't like a PowerPoint app or add-on, rest assured I'll tell you. And I have found plenty of tools not to like when it comes to making your PowerPoint presentation play on iDevices.  But in iSpring Converter, I have finally found a PowerPoint distribution tool to really like.

 

Here's what iSpring Converter does. Imagine you want to create an eLearning module in PowerPoint and then distribute it--to everyone (even people on iPads and iPhones). The latest and greatest way to ensure the maximum number of devices can play with your end product is to ensure it is formatted in HTML5.

 

In the past, I have saved my PowerPoint presentations intended for mass distribution as videos. This wasn't a bad option, per se, but doing so eliminated any interactivity I had built into my course. For example, I have a presentation that allows the user to click an image of a folder to "view" its contents. The apparent functionality was created with PowerPoint triggers and actions, which cause the presentation to branch to the relevant slide. When I saved the presentation as a video, all of this interactivity was gone.

 

Enter iSpring Converter. Within moments of installation (it installs to PowerPoint's Ribbon), I was able to click iSpring's Publish button from within PowerPoint and bazinga! HTML5! I'd done my research, so I knew before installing that iSpring would maintain my presentation's transitions, embedded audio and video, animations, and styles. But I was unsure whether the actions and triggers for branching in my presentation would be maintained. I am happy to report that after conversion with iSpring Converter my actions and triggers still work beautifully!  

 

To see a PowerPoint presentation converted to HTML5 using iSpring Converter, check out my sample presentation. You'll notice that clicks and mouse over actions linked to other slides remain intact, as do animations and video playback. There is also an option to publish the HTML5 file with a menu at the side so viewers can choose to skip around to different slides (and could also serve as a Table of Contents) but I chose to disable that feature for my test.

 

iSpring Converter is free to try for a month (but adds a relatively large watermark to the converted HTML5 presentation). I found it well worth its purchase price of $99. 

 

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations. 

PowerPoint: Text-to-Speech Voiceover Tools

by AJ George 

When you give a PowerPoint presentation live, what you say verbally is more important, probably more interesting, and certainly more fleshed out than the few words or pictures on the slides. But what if you want to send your presentation off to be viewed by a faraway audience or online viewers, where you will not be there to fill in the gaps? You could, of course, record a voiceover in PowerPoint, but maybe you have a cold and your voice isn't up to par. Or maybe your own voice sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard to you. Several new tools allow you to type the text you would normally say, and have text-to-speech technology (TTS) generate the voiceover for you. Later, if the content changes, editing the typed text will be way easier than re-recording an entire voiceover. Read on to learn about three different TTS tools for PowerPoint.

HelloSlide

HelloSlide worked great. To add a computer-generated voiceover via TTS to your presentation, first save it as a PDF and then upload it to the HelloSlide website. The presentation must be in PDF format and can't be more than 100 MB (if your presentation is larger than this, try selecting minimum quality when you save it from within PowerPoint). Transitions and animations are not preserved, but if this isn't a problem for you, HelloSlide is a good option. You add the text for your slides right on the HelloSlide website. Presentations can be shared by linking to the presentation through the HelloSlide site or by using an embed code for playing elsewhere. On playback, your presentation will play one slide at a time for as long as it takes the voiceover to be read. I particularly enjoyed the English accent, but there are 20 languages to choose from. Be sure to type your text phonetically to get the best pronunciation quality (ie: instead of "live, online eLearning," type "lyve online ee-Learning").

SlideSpeech

With SlideSpeech, uploaded presentations don't need to be saved as PDFs, so that's kind of nice. Also, you don't have to enter the text on the site, because text is lifted right from the notes fields of your slides. If you typically enter the voiceover script there by default, this is probably a good option, as it will eliminate a step for you. Also on the plus side: after uploading your presentation and setting up the voiceover, SlideSpeech sends you a link to your presentation for easy editing and distribution. On the down side, the computer-y sounding voice doesn't sound as good as HelloSlide's options, and there are only two language choices (English and German). As with HelloSlide, typing your text phonetically will help with pronunciation.

PowerTalk

There are a couple benefits to PowerTalk. For one, if you've already made your presentation 508 Compliant and added alt text to all of your images, this may be a very quick way to add TTS, since it reads directly from the slide as well as reading alt text on images. Additionally, the text is read as it appears on the slide, so if you're working with bullets, the text won't be read until that bullet appears. However, I've already beaten into the ground in my articles that you shouldn't be using bullets, so perhaps this is a moot point. On top of that, the TTS voice used is VERY robotified. I would consider PowerTalk a last resort that you turn to out of necessity. Since it reads right off the slide you won't be able to type the text phonetically and a lot of things may be mispronounced.

PS: Need some crafting that voiceover text? Not sure whether or not you should be reciting what's on the slide for your voiceovers? You might want to check out our Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts class.

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations. 

Adobe Captivate 6: High Fidelity PowerPoint Imports

by Kevin Siegel  

Have you, or a Subject Matter Expert, created a presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint? Are you moving away from presentations and toward eLearning lessons created with Captivate? And are you bummed because all of that great PowerPoint content is basically going to have to be redone in Captivate? Don't throw those PowerPoint presentations away. You can import PowerPoint presentations into an existing Captivate project, or create a new Captivate project that uses the PowerPoint slides.

Importing a PowerPoint presentation into Captivate couldn't be easier. From the Welcome screen, select From Microsoft PowerPoint, open the PowerPoint presentation and a few clicks later, the presentation will be reborn as a Captivate project.

During a standard PowerPoint import process, PowerPoint pptx presentations are first converted to the ppt format, and then converted to SWF. However, if you have ever used the PowerPoint to Captivate workflow, you are likely aware that some PowerPoint features, such as certain animations, Smart Art, text effects (glow, shadow, 3D, reflection, etc.), and audio bookmarks were not supported within Captivate.

In Captivate 6, if you select the new High Fidelity option, the import process will take native pptx files directly to Captivate SWF (the ppt conversion is skipped). This option, which is only available in Captivate for Windows, will result in content in Captivate that matches the original PowerPoint presentation better than ever before.

If you elect to go with a High Fidelity import, keep the following in mind:

• As mentioned above, High Fidelity is only available for Windows users.
• It will take much longer to complete the import process if you select High Fidelity.
• You should not be actively working with PowerPoint during the High Fidelity import process.
• Do not perform any copy-paste actions until the import is complete.
• Ensure that both PowerPoint and Captivate use the same access privileges (Administrator Mode is recommended).

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Looking to learn Captivate quickly? We offer two live, online Captivate 6 classes. Adobe Captivate Essentials and Adobe Captivate Beyond the Essentials (Advanced).

PowerPoint: Presentation Apps for iDevices

by AJ George 

Today we are always on the go, and we are seldom without our mobile devices. For this reason I thought it would be a good idea to investigate some just-in-time app solutions for presenting PowerPoint presentations on the road. Spoiler alert: it didn't go well.

First, the good news.

iPad: SlideShark

SlideShark is available in the AppStore for free and does a terrific job. To use SlideShark, you first upload your PowerPoint presentation from your computer to www.slideshark.com. Then you download the SlideShark app on your iPad. Once you have logged into your SlideShark account, your uploaded presentation appears in the SlideShark app on your iPad, ready to be presented with full animation functionality. You advance the slides by using a simple swipe gesture. Click-to-start animations start with a tap of the screen. To skip between slides, you swipe the screen up to reveal a pane containing all of your slides and then tap the slide to which you would like to advance. You can also hide slides from within the app so they do not show in your presentation. I am extremely pleased with this app. Rating: Highly Recommended

Now the bad news.

iPhone: iPresenter for Microsoft PowerPoint

Hypothetically speaking, this app will allow you to move through presentations on your computer by using your iPhone as a remote. My best advice, however: don't even waste your time. I spent $3.99 on this in the AppStore, which is roughly $3.99 too much, considering I could never get the partner software to install correctly on my PC. I tried several times, checked and re-checked that my system requirements were correct, but it never worked. Rating: Disappointing.

iPhone: mbPointer

Deja vu: this app should do the same thing as the iPresenter, but, alas, it falls short. I spent $2.99 on this app, but it did not work. The instructions in the app say nothing about downloading the receiver software to your system. Had I not read the reviews, I would not have known at all. However, even after reading the reviews, downloading the receiver software to my computer and ensuring that both my iPhone and the computer were on the same wireless network (which they also don't tell you, but someone in the reviews did), it still could not connect to the receiver, giving me "Error Code 60" but no solution for what to do about said error code. Rating: Disappointing.

iPhone: iClickr

This free app should function as a remote clicker for your PowerPoint presentations. I, however, could not get it to work. First the computer download told me I didn't have the correct version of Microsoft PowerPoint on my PC (even though I did). Then the iPhone app told me it was unable to connect, either through a digital Bonjour connection or through a manual connection via IP address. I fooled around with this app for about half an hour, and made sure to check the instructions given in the App Store, but could not get it to work. Judging from the app's reviews, I am not the only person to have these issues. Rating: Disappointing.

For me, except for the success with SlideShark, the world of iDevice apps for PowerPoint is still in its infancy. How about you? Are you having success with an app that you'd like to share? Let us know in the comments below.

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations. 

PowerPoint: Another Polling Tool, Poll Everywhere

by AJ George 

I've previously written about Shakespeak, a tool that allows presenters to collect and display responses to open-ended and multiple choice questions via text, web, and Twitter. One of our readers, April Edmonds let me know that she has used an alternate polling app for her PowerPoint presentations, Poll Everywhere. I decided to give Poll Everywhere a try.

The concepts (as well as methods for audience participation) of both apps are very similar. After using both applications, I think they are solid choices if you're in the market for a polling feature to add to your PowerPoint presentations. The main difference between the two is that with Shakespeak you do the bulk of setup from within PowerPoint, whereas with Poll Everywhere, most of this is done on the Poll Everywhere website.

With Poll Everywhere, your multiple choice and open ended questions are created on www.polleverywhere.com. Working within the website you can hover over your created poll to change the settings, including the general look and feel. There is a decent amount of customization you can do, but since you are not editing it within PowerPoint (as you would be with Shakespeak), some developers may find it hard to get the poll to exactly match the design of the rest of the presentation. That being said, I fiddled around with the settings options and found that I was able to get it pretty darn close. There is also an option to add in a logo, so don't worry, you can brand that puppy to your heart's content.

 

After completing your poll and tweaking the design, you can either download, copy and paste the slide into your PowerPoint presentation, share it on Facebook, Tweet it, add it to your blog or web page, email it, or download it for Prezi presentations. While I do prefer Shakespeak's direct integration into PowerPoint from a design stand point, I think Poll Everywhere's ease in sharing across multiple platforms makes it a really great alternative. Which of the two is the better option really depends on what you plan to do with the polls you create.

Poll Everywhere is free at an introductory level. If, however, you would like to poll an audience larger than 40, moderate responses, or customize how people vote, you'll need to pay for the service. Click here for pricing plans. 

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations. 

PowerPoint: Shakespeak for Presentations

by AJ George 

I typically write about PowerPoint as it pertains to eLearning. This time I'd like to share a cool add-on I've discovered for PowerPoint for live presentations. Let's say you're presenting to a large, perhaps unfamiliar, audience. Audience participation can be a problem. Many people in your audience with perfectly great ideas might be scared to speak up. Maybe the room is so large that even if someone does speak up, it is hard to hear what he or she has to say. Or maybe you want to survey the entire room, but that room consists of hundreds of people. Shakespeak serves to eliminate all of these problems.

Download and add Shakespeak to your PowerPoint deck and you'll be able to create presentations that allow your audience to text, tweet or use a Shakespeak website to send in votes to polls or written responses to questions, which can appear right up on your screen. (The obvious negative side effect of the latter is that you may have that bad seed in your audience who would send in something inappropriate, but never fear, you can adjust the settings to choose whether or not you want these messages to automatically display.

Downloading Shakespeak adds a tab within PowerPoint with options to add a vote slide, add a message slide, edit the presentation/vote/message, start/stop the session, clear the results, open the moderator, or watch a tutorial on how the plug-in works. When you enter a vote slide or a message slide, the plug-in automatically inserts an instruction slide that will alert your audience how to vote or submit messages.

 

Don't like the way that slide (or anything else added by Shakespeak) looks? That's cool; it's all fully editable just like any other PowerPoint slide. 

Clicking the Start Session button allows you to choose how you want votes and messages to come in (SMS, Twitter, online, or all of the above), and then you can get started. After the session you'll be given the option to save or discard the results of your vote and message slides. The service is not free, but you'll receive 20 credits with your download. Additionally, you can test out the slides for free prior to your actual presentation. Click here for pricing information.

Are you using Shakespeak or something similar to collect responses from your learners? How's that working out? I'd love to hear from you.

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations.