OfficeOne ProTools Zoom

Introduction
Using ProTools Zoom
Pricing and Support
Conclusion

Introduction

Most PowerPoint slides are created for presenting to an audience -- and at some time or the other, every presenter has had a moment when they wanted to zoom into a particular area of the slide just to show something in more detail. That's a feature not available in PowerPoint, and third-party add-ins have stepped in to provide this sort of zooming and panning functionality right within the program. Such zooming and panning however does not work optimally with all slide objects -- notably, photographs may appear pixelated when zoomed. But for most other slide objects, such as shapes, text, tables, graphs/charts, diagrams, clip art, SmartArt graphics, etc. -- this does work great.

ProTools Zoom, the product being reviewed is a PowerPoint add-in which allows you to zoom into slides and pan them across during a slide show. ProTools Zoom is from OfficeOne, a Mumbai, India based entity. You can learn more about the product, and download a trial version of ProTools Zoom from their site.

My contact at OfficeOne for this review was Chirag Dalal - thank you, Chirag.

Using ProTools Zoom

1. Download the installer from the link given above, run the setup routine, and follow the instructions. Open any presentation in PowerPoint and run the presentation in Slide Show mode.
2. The Zoom menu options are available during the slide show -- access the right-click menu as shown in Figure 1. All the extra menu options added by ProTools Zoom are highlighted in red.
3. 
   Figure 1: ProTools Zoom menu options
4. All these options are explained below:
5. Zoom In: Zoom onto the slide -- this magnifies the slide area, and you can also click this button more than once in succession to zoom in further. This also brings up a floating toolbar that can be seen in Figure 2 -- we discuss this toolbar later on this page. Remember that all the options discussed next works only after you zoom in.
6. Zoom Out: Reverses a zoom in.
7. Zoom Fit: Allows you to get back to the non-zoomed state of the slide.
8. Pan Left: Scrolls the zoomed-in slide to the left -- you can click this option consecutively.
9. Pan Right: Scrolls the zoomed-in slide to the right -- you can click this option consecutively.
10. Pan Up: Scrolls the zoomed-in slide upwards -- you can click this option consecutively.
11. Pan Down: Scrolls the zoomed-in slide downwards -- you can click this option consecutively.
Note: The Zoom Out, Zoom Fit, Pan Left, Pan Right, Pan Up, and Pan Down options will only work when the slide is zoomed-in using the Zoom In option.
3. When you click the Zoom In option, the floating Zoom & Pan Controls toolbar comes up, as shown in Figure 2.
4. 
   Figure 2: Zoom & Pan Controls toolbar
4. The Zoom and Pan buttons within this toolbar works exactly like in the menu. You can click and hold down any of the Pan buttons to pan in that direction continuously until you reach the edge of that slide on the screen.
5. To come out of the zoomed-in slide click the Zoom Fit button.

Pricing and Support

ProTools Zoom costs US$19.95. Multiple licenses are available.

Support is through e-mail and online FAQ.

Conclusion

ProTools Zoom is a capable product that works as a one-trick pony, and it excels at that task. The price:performance ratio is great too.