Installing the add-in will allow you to search, browse your local presentations for slides from within PowerPoint. It will also provide image search and add, both from your computer and from the internet.
To start using the Slide Executive Desktop Add-in follow these steps:
- You need to have PowerPoint 2007 or 2010 (32-bit versions) for Microsoft® Windows® installed on your computer. 64-bit PowerPoint versions, earlier versions of PowerPoint, and PowerPoint for Mac, are not supported.
- You will need to have a machine with Microsoft® Windows 7®, Vista® or Windows XP® with Service Pack 2 or greater.
- Make sure PowerPoint is not running.
- Open this link from Internet Explorer and follow the installation instructions:
http://tools.slideexecutive.com/xpoint/setup.exe NOTE: In this step the install wizard may ask you to upgrade your windows components to .NET Framework 4. This is a prerequisite that is needed for the add-in to work.
- After the installation is done you may need to restart PowerPoint to make the Slide Executive-tab appear in PowerPoint 2007/2010.
- Once installed look for the "Slide Executive" tab and click on it.
- The first run of the add in:
- If this is the first time you run the Slide Executive add-in you will see a "Get me started"-button in the "Desktop" section. Click "Get me started" to start the wizard and follow the instructions. This will allow you to browse and search your Slide Executive slide library.
- If you upgraded from a previous version of the add-in you should be set to go right away. Be sure to use the left "Desktop" section of the ribbon for browsing and searching your local library. The "Professional /On Demand" section in the middle is a separate product to search a central online library for slides and other media. If your company has an On Demand account, with an online slide library, the middle section could be used too.
- Getting started video:
Afterwords be sure to enter the Options->Desktop(tab)->General view and choose the Image tab to ensure that all the image types will be included in your local xPoint search.
See a general overview of the Slide Executive xPoint ribbon here:
Find more movies about Slide Executive xPoint on our YouTube-channel:
http://www.youtube.com/slideexecutive
Sometimes after an export, bold text turns normal, centered text is aligned to the left, a text box moves around etc. This can happen for a number of reasons like:
- The slides are imported as PPT and you are exporting to PPTX or the other way round.
- You are applying one template to all your slides even though they come from different presentations with different templates.
- Your slides are built without using the designated template settings. For example the title field is not used at all and a text box is created to replace it because "someone" thought it looked better. Applying the intended template to this slide will probably cause your slide to behave in an unexpected manner.
- Your export slide type is different from the original slide type (Letter, A4, 16:9 ratio etc). A slide built in 16:9 ratio will obviously not look the same when squeezed into Letter format.
So, some thumb rules that can save you some headache are:
- Export to the same format as the original one. Export PPT slide to PPT and PPTX slides to PPTX.
- Under the Template setting, use "Keep slide design". This will export all templates so that each slide can keep their exact settings.
- Use the template as it was intended to. In the title field fill in the title, in an intended text box, fill in your text etc.
- Don't change the slide type. Choosing "Custom" under Slide type will conserve the original format.
In some cases this will not be possible, your original slides come in different formats, sizes and templates, your goal is to apply the new company template to all slides and so on. Well, then it doesn't matter how you do it, manually through PowerPoint or automatically through Slide Executive, you will have to make a manual inspection to assure that your new presentation looks good.