Log in ....Tribune

Monday, December 29, 2003
Downloads

Powerbullet for powerful presentation
Raman Mohan

MANY computer users find Microsoft Powerpoint too complicated for building presentations. But with increasing dependence on presentations in offices, there is little choice. However, you need not despair. There is now a freeware that makes building presentations a much simpler task. It can help build any kind of presentation. The results depend on your own imagination and artistic skills but this program will make your task easier to a large extent.

Powerbullet Presenter

Powerbullet is designed to make it as easy as possible to rapidly build presentations. If you have used a common software program such as a word processor, you should be comfortable using Powerbullet. Whether your goal is to design sales brochures, create tutorials or build informational presentations such as school projects, Powerbullet can help get the job done quickly and easily. There are two ways of creating text. You can type directly onto the page, just as you would in an ordinary word processor, or you can create ‘text blocks’ by clicking the text block tool. The important difference is with a text block you can move it around - reshaping and repositioning it - and animate it. You can also set a transparency level and move it in front of or behind other text blocks, shapes, images or whatever. If you have typed text directly on to the page that you wish to manipulate, just cut it and paste it into a newly created text block. Powerbullet works in ‘pages’, a little like ‘slides’ in Powerpoint. You create and layout each page and they get played back in sequence. Page-forward and page-backward buttons are automatically created. Each page can have an entrance and exit animation (also called transitions, such as fade in/out, zoom in/out etc.) and an introduction sound. Each moveable item within the page (such as text block, picture or shape) can have an entrance animation. There is no limit to the length of the animation. When you click the ‘preview’ button you get to see what the current page you are working on will look like in the final production. When you click the ‘export’ button, all pages are packaged into a Flash ‘movie’ and saved in the project folder, along with an HTML page for hosting the Flash movie. Download available at www.powerbullet.com.