Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com)

5 Mar 2001

Macworld SF 2001 - AEC Report - pg 7

Report Index. This is a multi-page and multi-document report so come back later for further segments:

• What AEC document tools were shown at the Macworld Expo?

• How do I print my AEC documents?

• How do I print my CAD/3D documents in large format?

• How do I work with my AEC documents in the field?

• How do I photo-document my AEC projects? New!

• What tools can I use for digital photo editing? New!

• How do I manage my digital media files? New!

• How do I showcase/promote/publish my AEC work? New!

• How do I showcase/promote/publish my AEC work?

Presentation Software & Equipment

Not surprisingly the number one presentation (digital slideshow) software is tied to Microsoft's Office product suite. This isn't to say it's bad software but it isn't the only game in town either. Still MS Office for Macintosh 2001 has some great improvements in it MS PowerPoint application that make it worth seriously looking at.

MS PowerPoint 2001 has some nifty new features and probably the coolest is its advanced QuickTime support. This latest version allows you to embed multiple QuickTime movies on a single slide as well as save an entire PowerPoint presentation as a QuickTime movie. Additionally PowerPoint 2001 supports the creation of tables without needing to use Word or Excel. Lastly, a new feature is the Multiple Masters feature which enables you to create different templates within the same presentation.

AppleWorks 6 is no slouch either when it comes to presentations. Naturally AppleWorks 6 supports advanced QuickTime support as well. AppleWorks supports up to 128 slide masters and features 25 types of QuickTime transitions between slides. Additionally you can embed QuickTime movies directly in your slides. A nice touch is that you can set your presentation to Auto Advance so it runs by itself. There is also a handy AppleWorks Notes view so you can draft your speaker's notes and you can create slide notes to print out and hand to your audience.

Katabounga 3.5 is Abvent's latest version of their presentation software. Multimedia authoring is available only on Macintosh but Runtime versions of Katabounga are supported on both Mac and Windows, including NT and 2000. Additionally, Katabounga also has a Web player to run presentations. Anyone can download this Web player to play Katabounga 3.5 presentations. Katabounga 3.5 supports some interesting features, including alpha channel support, rotation, deformation and zoom.

For the path motion tool there is support of Bezier curves. And the final crowning feature of this latest version is its support of native Photoshop files, including the ability to bring in all layers intact from which you can then perform transition on them. Pretty nifty stuff! You can download a demo for free.

LiveSlideShow by Totally Hip software is the last slide-show like presentation application we will talk about here. The program has gotten some recent attention at the latest Macworlds. We saw it in person at Macworld New York 2000. It looked pretty interesting, but is overshadowed by its more mature sibling LiveStage Professional 2.1.

LiveSlideShow's interface is very simple and intuitive and features things like Drag & Drop (pictures, graphics, navigation buttons, sound effects, etc.). The program features a media library and timeline structure. There is both a Mac and Windows version. You can check out some samples made by customers and company employees here.