Looking for an iPad APP that does this ??? Help

Ecocabbie

Hi there,

Ive an iPad 2 I use for work presentations.

I am looking for an APP which will play powerpoint (ppt/pptx) presentations- big ones, with videos embedded in them

Current using slideshark which is very cool but doesnt do video embedding. This part is really important!!

Any ideas of an APp. Thanks a million!!

Andrew

waynegalway

Simple answer, get Keynote! I have it on the iPad and it's great. You can embed video on slides very easily with it. No hassle with compatibility between the iPad and PowerPoint, but sometimes you loose some Microsoft animations that keynote doesn't have. The animations in keynote are nicer anyway!

Ecocabbie

Hi Wayne, that sounds like a good suggestion. I will get Keynote.

Howevre on Keynote:

-Can it support existing ppt and pptx presentations? (I have loads and would rather not have to remake them in another format)

-It can definitely support video right?

- Can you think of any other limitations?

Gonna find it now anyway, thanks !

waynegalway

Ecocabbie wrote: »

Hi Wayne, that sounds like a good suggestion. I will get Keynote.

Howevre on Keynote:

-Can it support existing ppt and pptx presentations? (I have loads and would rather not have to remake them in another format)

-It can definitely support video right?

- Can you think of any other limitations?

Gonna find it now anyway, thanks !

-Can it support existing ppt and pptx presentations? (I have loads and would rather not have to remake them in another format)

It will definitely support existing ppt and pptx formats. Where it can get a bit messy is if you've used a font in PPT that doesn't exist in Keynote. Then Keynote will try to find a suitable replacement, which sometimes may need to be re-sized if it doesn't look right on the iPad. In general, it should work fine, but like the fonts, not all animations in Keynote are the same as PPT, so some of them may get replaced too.


-It can definitely support video right?

You can definitely embed videos on it, yes. I use a program called freecorder to download videos from YouTube, I then copy those vidoes to the iPad (through iTunes or Dropbox) and they then reside in my photo album on the iPad. They can then be dropped into a Keynote presentation like an image would be dropped into PowerPoint on a PC. Very easy. Not sure every single format of video will work. If you download Freecorder, it gives you an option to choose the format, and so far I've been able to download the videos as mp4, which works fine.

- Can you think of any other limitations?

The screen size on the iPad may be a different resolution to the way you've done some PPT files. What I mean is if you've done your slides to suit a widescreen TV of computer, you may need to re-size them to suit the aspect ratio of the iPad. If this is the case, you're better off doing that step in PPT before importing, as you can't re-size the overall slide shape in Keynote later.

Another thing that kind of annoys me about it is that if you want to apply a transition in Keynote, you have to do it to every slide individually. You can't "apply to all" like you can in PPT. So again, things like that are easier to get right in PPT first and then transfer them over.

I've used Keynote for nearly a year now, for giving lectures. Some of the slides have a legacy of coming from PPT, and have required little tweaks for font sizes and things like that. Nothing major. What I find now is that I draft up my lectures on the desktop, zap them over to the iPad and apply the animations and transitions there, simply because I think Apple have some nicer animations than MS. But if you're in a hurry, apply the transitions and animations in PPT (it's quicker because you can apply to all really fast) and zap them over as they are.

Bear in mind that Keynote is not simply a slideshow "player" for your iPad, it's a functioning slideshow creation tool too. It's probably one of the more expensive apps for the iPad, but definitely worth it.