Dynamic TIME: The Indezine Review

Introduction
Using Dynamic TIME
Pricing and Support
Conclusion

Introduction

Let's imagine that you want to show a clock on your slides -- or, do you want to show a countdown or even counters of seconds, minutes, hours, or even days? Or if your countdown gets to zero, you may want something to happen after that, such as moving to another slide? Of course, this is possible to achieve in PowerPoint. All you need is a thorough knowledge of programming, and even better -- a programmer sitting next to you all the time so that you don't have to worry about setting it all up!

We found a better solution, and it does not need a full time programmer -- it only needs a one-time investment of a few dollars. And it's an add-in called Dynamic TIME that plugs right within PowerPoint. The add-in is from PresentationPoint, a company based in Belgium.

Now this Belgium company has partnered with PresentationLoad of Germany to create Dynamic TIME -- my contact at PresentationPoint was Kurt Dupont -- thank you Kurt.

You can learn more about Dynamic TIME and also download it from their site.

Dynamic TIME

Installation is easy -- once you run the set-up routine, you will find a new Dynamic ELEMENTS tab in your PowerPoint Ribbon, as shown in Figure 1, below.

Figure 1: Dynamic ELEMENTS tab of the Ribbon

Let's do a small walkthrough of Dynamic TIME now:

1. Open any existing presentation and navigate to the slide where you want to add a clock or a counter. Then insert or select an existing text container (text placeholder, text box, or any shape) in your slide, as shown in Figure 2, below.
2. 
   Figure 2: Text box added on the slide
2. Type in something within this text container - we just typed “Dummy text”. Format its attributes such as the font size, font type, font color, etc. (see Figure 3, below).
3. 
   Figure 3: Dummy text typed within a text container
3. With the text box placeholder or box selected, access the Dynamic ELEMENTS tab of the Ribbon and click the Time button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4.
4. 
   Figure 4: Time button
4. This brings up the Time Task Pane, as shown in Figure 5.
5. 
   Figure 5: Time Task Pane
6. There are five modes available within the Time Task Pane, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 5, above. These modes are explained below:

7. i. Nothing

8. This mode is selected by default. Click this mode to remove any other mode applied.

9. ii. Clock

10. This mode will add a clock to your selected placeholder or text box, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 6. As soon as you choose the Clock mode, the text box reflects the clock, as shown highlighted in green within Figure 6. Note that the formatting of the text matches what we set earlier (refer to Figure 3).
11. 
    Figure 6: Clock mode selected
12. When you choose a mode, you also get to configure properties associated with that particular mode. For Clock mode, these are the properties you can choose from:
13. Format: Brings up a drop-down list, as shown in Figure 7. Here you can choose from two time formats. Additionally, you can choose the Custom format option to set a user-defined display.
14. 
    Figure 7: Clock mode selected
15. Custom: Initially this option is greyed out, but as soon as you select the Custom format option within the Format drop-down list as explained in the preceding section, you will be able to format your own user-defined display, as shown in Figure 8. There are various formats that you can use -- these are documented in the PDF manual included.
16. 
    Figure 8: Custom mode selected
17. Time zone: Click to bring up the time zone list, as shown in Figure 9. Choose the time zone you want.
18. 
    Figure 9: Time zone list

19. iii. Date

20. This mode will add date to your selected placeholder or text box. This works similar to the clock mode.

21. iv. Counter

22. This mode will add a counter to your selected placeholder or text box. Here you have to enter the starting date and the starting time into the respective boxes. And then you have to choose how you want the output to be displayed. For example if you select Total hours the output will display the whole period from the starting time. Again this is documented in the PDF manual provided.

23. v. Count down

24. This mode will add a count down to your selected placeholder or text box. Here you have to define a starting time by adding an end date and end time in the respective boxes. Then choose how you want the count down to be displayed such as: Days, Total seconds, etc. Additionally you can set the trigger to immediately jump to a selected slide in the presentation.
5. In Figure 10, below you can see that we have added both time and date.
6. 
   Figure 10: Slide with dynamic time and date added
7. We also uploaded another slide we created to YouTube, as shown below.
6. Run the presentation in Slide Show view to see the dynamic elements.
7. Save your presentation often.

For a quick start, use any of the ready to use 40 slides. Each slide and its elements can be edited in size, shape, font and color according to your requirements. The fonts that have been used for the design slides are already included with the download. Note that, the country specific settings will only be applied after saving a new presentation (based on the templates) at least once.

Pricing and Support

Dynamic TIME costs US$149.

Support is through e-mail and a knowledge base. There is also an excellent PDF manual included.

Conclusion

Dynamic TIME is an amazing add-in that's so easy to understand and use -- you can literally be using this add-in in minutes! You must have this add-in installed on any machine where the time and date has to be shown dynamically. If you need time to be shown, or if you need countdowns, then this could be the best PowerPoint based solution.

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