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Create a Video from your Powerpoint Presentation

Friday, March 26, 2010

For our latest Tips for Small Businesses, I will show you how to create a video from your Powerpoint Presentation using trakAxPC. It really couldn’t be easier and also gives you greater flexibility to introduce multimedia elements into your presentation, whether that be videos, narrations or a soundtrack.

The video above shows a very simple implementation of this, but you could take this further - record in a video and using the collage functionality / picture in picture, you could present your Powerpoint in person in your video.

Just to note, Powerpoint 2007 definitely renders your text and graphics better and the exported JPEG / PNG files are crisper. If you are using Powerpoint 2003 or earlier, you may want to play around with your fonts to find a font that exports to PNG / JPEG clearly.

Obviously the first step to creating a great Powerpoint / video combo is to have a decent Powerpoint in the first place. I tested out Powerpoint 2007 recently and I was really impressed with the improvements in the templates, default diagrams and image handling. However, if you are like me and have Powerpoint 2003 or earlier, you are going to have to put in some work to make it look professional.

I have put together some ideas for you on how you can improve your Powerpoint presentations - this is just my thoughts, you may disagree with them, so let me know!

Tip 1 - Keep it Simple

My first tip is to remember that you are presenting the Powerpoint - not the other way around. It is always tempting to add more and more information to your slides. However, your audience will be too busy reading your slide to listen to your presentation. I suggest keeping each slide to one main point and make an impact. I don’t think you necessarily need a title, date and logo etc. for each slide. You can cover all these elements on the intro slide. Remember you can always add Notes to your slides and if you are preparing handouts, you can add headers / footers in the Print Layout.

Tip 2 - Banish Tacky Clipart

I am pretty sure that I have never seen tacky clipart done well. It almost always looks cheap and unprofessional. When using graphics in your presentation, try and keep them clean and sophisticated. If you can, try and use a transparent PNG so they sit seamlessly on your background - otherwise think about changing your background to suit the image. There are tons of places online to purchase great graphics very cheaply - try iStockphoto, BigStockPhoto, Graphic River or Fotolia.

Tip 3 - Keep Gradients Subtle

If you have just discovered how to add a gradient to your background / diagrams etc. it can be tempting to go all out choosing a rainbow of gradients. Resist this temptation! Subtle gradients always look better. After you set your first colour in your gradient, choose the same colour again for your second colour (it should appear automatically in the menu) and then use the custom colour picker in Powerpoint to choose a shade just a tiny bit lighter than the original colour.

Tip 4 - Get Inspiration

This may sound like an obvious one, but look at great presentations and get inspiration. One of the best places to see some of the greatest presentations in the world is TED.com. I recently watched Stefan Sagmeister’s presentation on “The Power of Time Off” and Jamie Oliver’s “Teach every child about food” and what struck me was the simplicity of the slides, but the power of the presentation. Another great place for inspiration is Apple’s Keynote speeches - the slides are always completely and utterly beautiful (if you can ignore the sometimes nauseating whoops and cheers from the audience).

If you really struggle with graphics, you may want to consider purchasing a Powerpoint template. The quality of templates varies hugely. Here are a few links to template providers which by and large are pretty ok - Slideshop, Presentation Load and Microsoft Office Online.

I hope that some of these tips may be useful for your next presentation. Have some tips you want to share? Please drop me a comment below and let me know your tips to creating a great presentation.

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Posted by Catriona in Tips for Small Business   |  Leave a comment

trakAxPC Video Tutorials - en Francais!

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Jean-Claude Arzur has created the most fantastic trakAxPC Video tutorials for French speakers - vraiment super! The effort that Jean-Claude has put into these videos is really stunning and these will be a fantastic resource for any French speakers who are new to trakAxPC.

To watch the videos, please visit Jean-Claude’s website at: http://www.1colibri.1cd2.com/trakaxpc/index.php

He covers the following topics (in great detail):

• L’interface de la version Pro
• Les fenêtres et la barre d’outils de TrakAxPC
• Créer un mixage audio
• Créer un montage d’images et /ou de vidéos
• Exporter votre mixage audio ou votre montage vidéo

We really can’t thank Jean-Claude enough for the time and effort he has put into creating these videos - it is much appreciated. We are completely blown away by both the quality of these videos and the effortless way that Jean-Claude explains the features and functionality of trakAxPC.

Again, the link to the French video tutorials: http://www.1colibri.1cd2.com/trakaxpc/index.php
Click on “Débuter” to start the videos.

Merci Jean-Claude!

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Posted by Catriona in Tips & Tricks  TrakAx News   |  Leave a comment

Nice Shout Out from PC Magazine

Thursday, March 18, 2010

As part of a St. Patrick’s Day campaign, we put together some short videos for a selection of American journalists who had surnames with an Irish origin, to highlight their Irish heritage.

One of the journalists, Sean Carroll from PC Magazine, gave us a great shout out yesterday:

“My favorite St Pat’s day tech pitch: (http://bit.ly/97ItmV) The swag box (from trakAx.com, in Dublin) even smelled like a smoky pub! #pcmsw”
See Tweet Here

You can view the full “Carroll” page here: http://www.trakax.com/software/pc/carroll and the “Carroll” video is below:

Many thanks Sean!

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Posted by SysAdmin in  |  Leave a comment

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone from Dublin!

I went to town today to see the parade - being both short and late, I couldn’t actually see a thing, but here are some sights from around Dublin today.

Music is by Mundy and Sharon Shannon. Video was made with trakAxPC - which you can buy here for $24.95!

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Posted by SysAdmin in  |  Leave a comment

3 months since trakAxPC Launched!

Monday, March 15, 2010

I realised yesterday was our 3 month anniversary since launching trakAxPC. I thought I should give a quick update on where we are at. Well, firstly it has been great three months since launching. We’ve been completely delighted with the amount of people who have bought the application and more than that, how diverse the audience has been. Below I have attached a screenshot showing all the countries that people have bought from, which is pretty cool:

Secondly I would like to thank everyone who has written to us personally about the application. It is really so great to receive in messages on how you are using the application, what you like and what you would like to see. Below are a selection of snippets from mails we have recently received:

“I really appreciate your continued support, I hope your business prospers as you definitely have the customers interests at heart.”
Marcus, West Midlands, UK

“Thanks - I just downloaded it yesterday and without being able to view the tutorials online (was on the train, no internet connection) I managed to put together a simple video.  Watching a couple tutorials today, I was really blown away and knew it was easily worth the asking price!  I look forward to using it on more projects! “
Chris, Pennsylvania, US

“I love the program.  It is easy to use and the features are great.”
Frank, Michigan, US

“I am frankly astounded at the level of customer support I’ve received, before I purchased and after. “
John, Maine, US

“Just thought I’d drop you a note...I finally had a chance to install and look at trakAx. I’m impressed! (That takes some doing)...So impressed that I just placed my order.”
Richard, Arizona, US

I would also like to give a huge shout out to the guys who run the Japanese trakAxPC Wiki - http://www29.atwiki.jp/trakaxwiki/
I know this is a really valuable resource for all our Japanese users and we hope to be able to add some of our own Japanese support later this year.

As per my previous post, we will be making a new release available shortly which will include thumbnail views and in-track parsing - you can read more about this update here.

We are also working on extensive resources for trakAxPC in an educational environment, as well as using trakAxPC to showcase your small business - both of these resources should be online shortly.

Thanks again everyone. As always, if you have any questions, please drop us a comment below or see us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Posted by Catriona in TrakAx News   |  Leave a comment

50% Off All Loops and Beats Today!

Friday, March 12, 2010

We are delighted to announce a very special ONE DAY SALE - 50% OFF ALL LOOPS & BEATS - TODAY MARCH 12TH

To receive your discount, please enter the following following discount code on checkout: trakpackMarch

We have hundreds of loop packs in genres such as Hip Hop, Jazz, Dance, Techno, Drum and Bass - all professionally produced and mastered. This is a great chance to build up your library of loops and beats at prices that can’t be beaten.

Browse all our royalty-free loops and beats here.

Offer will end at midnight tonight.

Hope you enjoy!

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Posted by Catriona in trakPack News   |  Leave a comment

Development Update - Thumbnails and Quicker Parsing Coming Soon

Thursday, March 04, 2010

We have been working hard in the last few weeks since the launch on integrating some new features to trakAxPC Pro. Personally I am really excited about them and wanted to give you a sneak peak of what you can expect.

Video and Photo Thumbnails

If you are like me with thousands of photos and images (not very well organised), it can sometimes be difficult to find the footage or photo you are looking for. Currently I use the “View in Windows Explorer” function and drag the images directly from Windows Explorer into trakAxPC. We realise however, that this is not a perfect solution. That’s why for the next release, we have integrated a Thumbnail viewer. Whether you prefer the regular Explorer, Scan or Recent Files style Media Browser within trakAxPC, you will be able to view all your videos and photos as Thumbnails.

Although this is still a work in progress, I have attached some screenshots below:

We have a few more plans for how we deal with photos, but I’ll come back to that when I have something solid to show you guys.

In Track Parsing

Another feature we have been working on is ”In Track Parsing”. At the moment, when you drag in a large video track or open a large mix, trakAxPC must parse these files before placing them in the track. With our new In Track Parsing, you simply drag in your files and the parsing will take place in the background. This means that you never have to stop working on your mix and should lead to a much more productive workflow. To give you an idea of how this will work in action, please see the screenshot below:

If you buy trakAxPC, you are eligible to these features as a FREE UPGRADE once they become available - Visit our store today.

Would love to hear your feedback and comments on these upcoming features!

Catriona

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Posted by Catriona in TrakAx News  Development Roadmap   |  Leave a comment