Microsoft PowerPoint software is rich enough in features and functionally and fulfill almost all needs of PowerPoint users. However, there are few use cases which Microsoft has missed. Thankfully, there are few free or moderately priced Add-ins or Plug-ins available from Microsoft MVPs or independent software venders which will make your PowerPoint creation experience more enjoyable and hassle free.
Narration Timing Tweaker
PowerPoint's narration tool offers an easy feature to record audio narration to go along with the slide show. However, if you need to fine tune any of the event times in the recorded show, you have to redo the whole slide again. Narration Timing Tweaker is a free add-in which eliminates that need altogether.
Fotolia Ribbon
With Fotolia PowerPoint add-in you can instantly add high-resolution photos, vectors, and illustrations using your free Fotolia account without leaving PowerPoint. You can Insert royalty free images in PowerPoint slides using Fotolia's PowerPoint add-in.
Insert web pages in PowerPoint slides with PowerPoint Web Browser Assistant
PowerPoint Web Browser Assistant addin assists you in inserting live web pages on slides on your presentation. It uses Microsoft Internet Explorer to display the web pages.
PptPlex
Microsoft's lab product pptPlex is the coolest PowerPoint add-in which lets you give presentations in a quite astonishing way.
Embed media
Microsoft Office PowerPoint does not provide a way to embed video and audio files (with a small exception that you can embed small .wav files). OfficeOne ProTools Embed Media works around that limitation and allows you to embed media files into the presentation. Since the media files are within the presentation, you no longer have to worry about breaking links to the external video files when you move or copy the presentation. PowerPoint will play your files as it would normally do. OfficeOne ProTools Embed Media is not required for playing the video and audio files.
Microsoft Producer
Microsoft Producer allows you to get an existing presentation file, capture and synchronize video and audio narration, add additional media content, and produce a unified set of content ready for viewing in a browser on your intranet , on the web or on a DVD.
Add progress bar with Thermometer
Adding a progress bar to your PowerPoint will let your audience know at any given point that how much has been covered and how much still left. Thermometer for PowerPoint is a free add-in from Indezine that creates a thermometer style bar in the bottom area of the slide that shows how much of a presentation has progressed and how much more is remaining.
YouTube Video Wizard (YTV)
YTZ wizard lets you easily insert YouTube videos into a PowerPoint slide. All you need to do is to provide the YouTube video URL that appears in the browser address bar, the rest is taken care of by the YTV Wizard.
Mouse Mischief
Mouse Mischief integrates into Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, letting you insert questions, polls, and drawing activity slides into your lessons.
Students can actively participate in these lessons by using their own mice to click, circle, cross out, or draw answers on the screen.
Flashback PowerPoint Add-in to rewind Flash movies in PowerPoint automatically
FlashBack will rewind the Flash movies inserted using the Shockwave Flash control automatically. Click here to read more and download.
authorSTREAM Desktop
authorSTREAM desktop lets you search and insert YouTube videos and images in your PowerPoint file from within PowerPoint.
authorPOINT Lite
authorPOINTTM Lite is a free PowerPoint to Flash Converter for converting PowerPoint files in Flash. authorPOINT Lite also lets you share your presentations online on the web through authorSTREAM.
iSpring
Similar to authorPOINT Lite, iSpring is a free PowerPoint to Flash converter which can handle animation effects, slide transitions, audio narrations, video and Flash objects in output.
Slide Finder
SlideFinder Add-in for PowerPoint 2007 lets you search the web for presentations and slides from within PowerPoint.
This is not the comprehensive list of free add-ins for PowerPoint. You can find more information about add-in and other PowerPoint resources at links below:
http://officeone.mvps.org/products.html
http://www.indezine.com/products/powerpoint/links.html#addin
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
Software upgrade always involves a learning curve and many a times we don't upgrade to latest version of operating system or software package just because of this learning curve.
There are users who are still using PowerPoint 2003 or XP and have no plans to upgrade to PowerPoint 2010. Here are few links to tutorials which will help you learn PowerPoint 2010 and make your decision to upgrade.
Microsoft Tutorial: Make the switch to PowerPoint 2010
Titan Tech PowerPoint 2010 Training videos
About.com: Beginner's Guide to PowerPoint 2010
PowerPoint 2010 for Dummies By Doug Lowe
There are users who are still using PowerPoint 2003 or XP and have no plans to upgrade to PowerPoint 2010. Here are few links to tutorials which will help you learn PowerPoint 2010 and make your decision to upgrade.
Microsoft Tutorial: Make the switch to PowerPoint 2010
Titan Tech PowerPoint 2010 Training videos
About.com: Beginner's Guide to PowerPoint 2010
PowerPoint 2010 for Dummies By Doug Lowe
Monday, June 14, 2010
If you've ever inserted videos in your PowerPoint, you must have felt the pain when your friends or audience reported that video didn't play in the slide show you shared on email. Those who are well versed with PowerPoint know that video files are always linked. This means that PowerPoint always play the video file from the path it was lying when it was inserted. Smart PowerPoint users have been following the practice of keeping the PowerPoint file and videos in a common folder, zip it and share the zip file on email. This way the video inserted always refer to the path of the folder.
Lately, PowerPoint users have started using online PowerPoint sharing websites to share their presentations. Tools like authorSTREAM Desktop, which automatically ship video/audio along with PowerPoint file to their servers make sure that the online version of PowerPoint (Flash output) plays the video and audio. However, original PPT if downloaded, still fails to play the video inserted.
PowerPoint users have always longed for video embedding feature, similar to audio embedding. Finally, Microsoft has fixed the video insertion issue in PowerPoint 2010. With PowerPoint 2010, you need not to worry about the video file path or annoying "Cannot find the specified file.." errors at audience end.
Embed video files in PowerPoint 2010
In PowerPoint 2010, videos inserted from hard-disk are embedded directly into the presentation unless you deliberately choose to link. You just need to insert videos and forget about the rest. PowerPoint 2010 has also got some nifty features of optimizing and editing videos inserted.
Compatibility and Optimization of the file size
As the video files are contained in PowerPoint itself so PowerPoint size can be a major issue when it comes to sharing on the web. Also the non availability of video codec at audience end can be an issue. Optimize Media Compatibility feature of PowerPoint 2010 and Compress Media button takes care of codec and file size issues. Click optimize media compatibility on the backstage to get rid of codec issues. The compress media button available on backstage compresses the media file(s) thus reducing the total size of the PowerPoint file.
Video editing in PowerPoint 2010
PowerPoint 2010 provides many ways and means to edit the video. You can recolor videos, change brightness and contrast, set the bookmarks, change the shape and design of the video inserted. You can also trim unwanted portions of a video which you don't want to show up in the slide show.
Simply insert a video, and select the “Trim Video” option on the Playback tab. Set the “Start Time” and “End Time” either from the time-line or enter the values in respective text boxes. Trimming helps you crop unwanted stuff from the video.
Trim video
So now no more zip folders, no more video file missing errors. No matter how you insert, what's the file size, what video codec you used, with PowerPoint 2010, your videos are gonna play everywhere for sure.
PowerPoint 2010 also lets you insert Flash embeds of video sharing websites like YouTube, Vimeo. Such embeds just store the reference of path and player they are hosted on and require Internet connection to play during sideshow.
Lately, PowerPoint users have started using online PowerPoint sharing websites to share their presentations. Tools like authorSTREAM Desktop, which automatically ship video/audio along with PowerPoint file to their servers make sure that the online version of PowerPoint (Flash output) plays the video and audio. However, original PPT if downloaded, still fails to play the video inserted.
PowerPoint users have always longed for video embedding feature, similar to audio embedding. Finally, Microsoft has fixed the video insertion issue in PowerPoint 2010. With PowerPoint 2010, you need not to worry about the video file path or annoying "Cannot find the specified file.." errors at audience end.
Embed video files in PowerPoint 2010
In PowerPoint 2010, videos inserted from hard-disk are embedded directly into the presentation unless you deliberately choose to link. You just need to insert videos and forget about the rest. PowerPoint 2010 has also got some nifty features of optimizing and editing videos inserted.
Compatibility and Optimization of the file size
As the video files are contained in PowerPoint itself so PowerPoint size can be a major issue when it comes to sharing on the web. Also the non availability of video codec at audience end can be an issue. Optimize Media Compatibility feature of PowerPoint 2010 and Compress Media button takes care of codec and file size issues. Click optimize media compatibility on the backstage to get rid of codec issues. The compress media button available on backstage compresses the media file(s) thus reducing the total size of the PowerPoint file.
Video editing in PowerPoint 2010
PowerPoint 2010 provides many ways and means to edit the video. You can recolor videos, change brightness and contrast, set the bookmarks, change the shape and design of the video inserted. You can also trim unwanted portions of a video which you don't want to show up in the slide show.
Simply insert a video, and select the “Trim Video” option on the Playback tab. Set the “Start Time” and “End Time” either from the time-line or enter the values in respective text boxes. Trimming helps you crop unwanted stuff from the video.
Trim video
So now no more zip folders, no more video file missing errors. No matter how you insert, what's the file size, what video codec you used, with PowerPoint 2010, your videos are gonna play everywhere for sure.
PowerPoint 2010 also lets you insert Flash embeds of video sharing websites like YouTube, Vimeo. Such embeds just store the reference of path and player they are hosted on and require Internet connection to play during sideshow.
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