http://thedesignspace.net/ My daily explorations, troubleshooting, solutions and discoveries. en-us ellen@thedesignspace.net Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:10:18 -0500 http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000947.html Captivate allows you to import a Powerpoint file to use as the starting point for your learning activity. It's often easier for people to "think" in Powerpoint, so many users prefer to rough out a project in Powerpoint, then import it and continue working in Captivate. When a Powerpoint file is imported this way, its images become part of the... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000765.html Adobe Captivate, Articulate and Adobe Presenter can all add annoying clicking sounds or "pops" between slides when there is narration. These clicks often are associated with either picking up the actual mouse-click used to switch slides, are added in by the application by design, or added in as an audio artifact. The solutions vary depending on the application and cause.... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000698.html One of our content experts wanted to use Powerpoint to create an interactive presentation. Although Captivate would probably be the ideal choice, she only owns Adobe Presenter, so I suggested she use that to convert the Powerpoint for the web. The problem is that Presenter, by default, shows a navbar on the side and a playbar below the presentation. In... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000622.html With some microphones, particularly Plantronics USB headset mic's, you may get an error when you try to set the Microphone Level in Powerpoint. "Powerpoint is not receiving sound from the microphone. Try one of the following ...." This error can occur even if all your settings in the Sound Control Panel are correct. Just hit OK, and don't try to... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000580.html The fastest way to grab a YouTube video for Powerpoint? If you can't count on internet access at the lecture hall, you will need to download the video in a format compatible with Powerpoint. YouTube videos are Flash Video format (FLV) which Powerpoint isn't really very good at handling yet. It's easiest to download and convert in one step: go... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000521.html How can you make a shape or image move across the screen? Follow these steps to create your first motion-path animation in Powerpoint. PC-version required, unfortunately. http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000517.html One Powerpoint feature that Keynote does not yet have is animation triggers. In Powerpoint, you can set an animation to be triggered when a particular object elsewhere on the slide is clicked. This can be used to create interactivity for web-based elearning, or perhaps for presentations where there is some interaction from the audience and the exact sequence of clicks... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000493.html If you add screenshot images to a Word or Powerpoint document on a Mac, by either dragging them onto the page or pasting them in, chances are they will not be visible on a PC. PC users will see a gray box placeholder instead, containing the words "QuickTime™ and a TIFF (LZW) decompressor are needed to see this picture." The... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000453.html Over the last couple of years, Microsoft Producer has become less and less of a viable option for synching powerpoint and video. Probably because of browser changes, it works on less browsers than before, and is no longer compatible even with Powerpoint 2007. So I went in search of a Flash-based replacement for MS Producer. I've found it in the... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000210.html This procedure which will leave you with an original PowerPoint-format (to use in lectures) document, and a web-enabled version: Create a standard powerpoint presentation. Save it as ProjectName.ppt in the folder you are using for the project. Make sure every slide has a Title. These titles will be used as the titles of the buttons on the left navigation column... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000203.html Preparation: You will need to purchase a microphone or a headset Microphone. I recommend the Plantronics USB headset mics, LISTED HERE. I use the Plantronics DSP 400, but the less expensive ones work well also. Find a quiet room, preferably one with no air-conditioning or heating blower hum, and no other ambient noises. If you work in an older... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000170.html A client sent me a powerpoint with revisions from last year's version. Over the year, they must have found the "Animation Schemes" button because the presentation was filled with animated text. When I exported the presentation I found that most but not all of the text had gone jaggy. A quick search of Googleprovided a clue on the Powerpoint for... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000131.html Successfully incorporating video clips into powerpoint isn't hard, but the process will go more smoothly if you consider how the presentation will be delivered before inserting the video file. This tutorial is mainly oriented toward the PC version of powerpoint, and Windows Media Player, although I may add notes on the Mac version and Quicktime soon. Let's go over some... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000150.html Sometimes, even if you set a narration or sound file to play automatically when you first add it, it will not play until you click the speaker icon on each slide. When you look at the Custom Animation settings, it may look like it they are set correctly as Start with Previous but there is a second setting which also...