PowerPoint Presentation with Entourage

If I wanted to do a powerpoint presentation with my Entourage, is there a way that I can view my powerpoint using a "presentation mode" (where only the powerpoint slides will show and nothing else). When I open powerpoints in Docs to go, a lot of gray space shows up on the sides and the top menu is still visible. I would like to know how feasible it is to do a presentation with the Entourage before I invest in a USB to VGA. Thanks!

I see what you mean. I couldn't find anything in the settings to make it full screen, even when rotated to landscape mode.

enTourage I believe has done in-house testing of VGA adapters, and most likely with Powerpoint (what else would you want to project, lol?), so feel free to email techsupport@entourageedge.com to see how they handled this.

Or, maybe there's another forum member that has solved this.

most likely with Powerpoint (what else would you want to project, lol?)

Power Point is for dogs and Communists. There is a much better presentation format which can be saved to a PDF, often created using a LaTeX toolbox called Beamer, but I'm not sure if the stripped-down PDF viewer on the Edge's LCD side can display these types of presentations. (Adobe Reader has no problems with them.) I'd be even more surprised if the e-ink side can display them, but I guess you can't project that anyway so it's irrelevant.

Originally Posted by Chubulor

Power Point is for dogs and Communists. There is a much better presentation format which can be saved to a PDF, often created using a LaTeX toolbox called Beamer

Lol....Actually I do not use the full version of Microsoft Powerpoint. I use Openoffice's version, which lets me turn my powerpoints into pdfs easily. However, turning the slides into pdfs does not improve the presentation. :-(

After I saw someones presentation using an Ipad, I tried the Edge. Alas, I had the same negative experience (using a pdf, made from a Microsoft powerpoint presentation) : on the lcd, grey fields on both sides (in landscape). When zooming in the page doesn't fit on the page anymore, so that's no option. And there is even a bigger problem: it is very difficult to go to the next slide. When touching the screen to scroll to the next slide or to position a slide correctly, it automatically zooms in uncontrollable and it is difficult to postion the new slide centered on the lcd screen. Third problem is, that de slides load very slow. Using the eInk screen for the presentation doesn't have most of the above mentioned problems. Only the grey fields (above and below the slides). But it's not in color, so not a very good alternative. All in all my conclusion is, that the Edge cannot be used (yet?) for presentations.

Originally Posted by Chubulor

I'd be even more surprised if the e-ink side can display them, but I guess you can't project that anyway so it's irrelevant.

Just to clarify that the e-ink side *can* be projected, too.

Really? That is kind of cool. I haven't had any reason to use it with a projector yet so I didn't know that.

I wonder how many of the problems with PDFs are unique to PowerPoint-originated presentations (or those created by its open-source imitators). In math we never use PowerPoint or PowerPoint clones to make presentations, we produce them directly from LaTeX documents. I don't have an adapter so I can't test it on my own Edge but maybe someone else can download a Beamer/LaTeX-created PDF and see if it has the same problems.

And there is even a bigger problem: it is very difficult to go to the next slide. When touching the screen to scroll to the next slide or to position a slide correctly, it automatically zooms in uncontrollable and it is difficult to postion the new slide centered on the lcd screen.

That might be solved by attaching an external keyboard. Can you move to the next slide using the arrow keys as you do with a PDF or PowerPoint presentation on a computer?

The color issue for PDFs on the e-ink side is probably easily repairable too; the e-ink side's software must have color information (otherwise it wouldn't be able to send a color snapshot of a PDF to the LCD side). It's just a matter of getting it to send the color information to the projector app.

You can actually project both sides and switch between them. It has been quite useful in classes with instructors using ppt on the LCD side and the text on the e-ink side. The only issue has been that both are projected sideways as a default. This is easily handled on the LCd with the rotation. The e-ink will rotate using the landscape setting but the lower third of the page rotates off screen. This will hopefully be fixed when full landscape is available. For now, it is certainly cool half the time to be able to annotate directly on the text that the students have in front of them. it will ultimately eliminate much of the need for "instructor" versions of texts. As to the size of the LCD projection, we have not heard any complaints but I will inquire about what instructors are doing to compensate for the space around the active projection in a ppt..

Originally Posted by Chubulor

Power Point is for dogs and Communists.

Wow. That is beautiful. It's going directly to Twitter and my Facebook status, crediting you of course.

Originally Posted by 10tklz

Wow. That is beautiful. It's going directly to Twitter and my Facebook status, crediting you of course.

I have to give it to Chubulor. My dog has embraced PowerPoint with embarrassing effectiveness as a means of selling her need for snacks.

TC

Maybe it's a settings issue. I usually rotate my pdfs 90 degrees so I can angle the screen and easily stand and see the slides. I do have the grey bars on the screen but they are not on the projection, or at least they're not obvious. I just swipe my finger across to change slides. I've never had any problem with it zooming by accident. If you have transitions and stuff like that, you need to use an external keyboard and the arrow keys will allow most of those things to work but they don't all work on DocsToGo.

I have to say that most of the time I convert everything to pdf. There are so many conversion issues between mac and pc versions of Office and different versions within each of those and even some problems with OpenOffice on occassion. The pdf is just the safe way to go. If I have something that I think the animation is really important, I'll turn the powerpoint into a movie.