SWiSH Presenter

Introduction

SWiSHzone creates a well known range of Flash output programs, and when they released their PowerPoint add-in that could create Flash output from a presentation, I really wanted to take a look at the product.

Their PowerPoint add-in product is called SWiSH Presenter.

About SWiSH Presenter

SWiSH Presenter is from SWiSHzone.com, a company based in New South Wales, Australia. You can learn more about their products from their site (link no longer exists).

SWiSH Presenter converts Microsoft PowerPoint presentations to Flash (SWF) files, the application can be used within as PowerPoint add-in, or as a separate application for batch conversion.

Following are the key features of the application:

My contact at SWiSHzone.com for this review was Hugh Boyd - thank you, Hugh.

Download and Installation

Download the installer from the their site, run the setup routine and follow the instructions.

When installed, the add-in creates an SWiSH Presenter toolbar within PowerPoint as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: SWiSH Presenter toolbar

Using SWiSH Presenter

Follow these steps to convert a PowerPoint file to SWF, using SWiSH Presenter.

1. Open any existing PowerPoint presentation.
2. With the presentation open, click on the SWiSHpresenter icon, as shown in Figure 1 above.
3. When clicked, this opens the SWiSH Presenter interface (see Figure 2 ).
4. 
   Figure 2: SWiSH Presenter interface

The interface has three tabs.

Movie: under this tab you can set the dimensions of the movie, set the playback frame rate and other options.

Properties: has options for slide playing time, transitions, and options to record a narration.

Publish: is were you can select the output folder to save the file, output file name, choose additional publish options, and choose from different navigation themes.

4. When done with the options, click on the Publish button (refer to Figure 2) above.
5. This will create a Flash SWF file out of PowerPoint presentation, with a navigation bar (see Figure 3).
6. 
   Figure 3: Output

Pricing and Support

SWiSH Presenter costs $99.95.

Support options include e-mail, tutorials, and an online FAQ.

Conclusion

SWiSH Presenter is an easy-to-use and capable product that does not stop at Flash conversion of a PowerPoint presentation. Since the project is saved as an SWI file, SWiSH Max users can further edit the presentation.

The pricing is reasonable, and the product can make a nice addition to your software collection.