From
http://www.presentations.com/presentations/creation/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000797491
Photo Album creates a multiple-image slideshow in minutes instead of hours
Creative Techniques
By Geetesh Bajaj
Software and system used:
Microsoft PowerPoint 2003; Windows XP.
At least one PowerPoint expert I know started making presentations with vacation pictures and then mastered the program for more conventional business uses. When I returned from my vacation to Goa, India, I decided to emulate her efforts by creating my own photo slideshow. Inserting images in Microsoft PowerPoint is a fairly simple task. All you need to do is choose INSERT » PICTURE » FROM FILE. Then repeat the process for each photo.
While this is easy if you have only a few photos, it's a time-consuming, tedious job with the dozens of photos you'll likely want to work with. Fortunately there's an easier way. (Actually, there are four easy ways.)
In this column, we'll explore the Photo Album feature found in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003, and additionally look at three third-party photo-management utilities developed for the program.
Using Photo Album
PowerPoint's Photo Album feature allows you to insert several photos quickly and edit your "album" once the images have been placed.
Tip: For PowerPoint 2000, you can download the free Photo Album feature at
www.microsoft.com/downloads. On that page, in the "Search for a Download" area, select PowerPoint from the Product/Technology pull-down and type "2000, Photo Album" in the Keywords text box.
The Photo Album feature is not found in PowerPoint 2004 for Mac, but the InsertPicturePPTX application is a similar Macintosh-compatible utility (see below).
Before using the Photo Album feature, gather your digital images in one place. Create a folder and place in it 16 to 20 pictures. Next, open PowerPoint.
1. From the INSERT menu choose PICTURE » NEW PHOTO ALBUM. Notice that the dialog box offers the option to choose images from a local file, disk, scanner or digital camera. It also offers choices for customizing your albums.
2. In the Album Content section, under "Insert picture from," click the File/Disk button to access the images you've stored in the new folder. From the subsequent menu, navigate to the folder, then select all the images. Click the Insert button to add them to the new Photo Album.
Tip: Use the mouse to select the first image in a folder, hold down the Shift key, then move the mouse to the last image in the folder and click on it. All the images will now be selected.
Photo Album features
Back in the Photo Album dialog box, before you click the Create button, you have several options for the display of the pictures. You can reorder the sequence of images using the up and down arrow buttons below the "Pictures in album" area. You can remove an image in this list by using the Remove button to the right of the arrangement arrows.
The Photo Album dialog box also has a Preview window that displays each image as you select it. When an image is in Preview mode, you can rotate it in 90-degree increments, change its contrast and adjust its brightness, all with the button tools found directly below the Preview window.
The Album Layout area completes the Photo Album dialog box. The "Picture layout" drop-down gives you the option of a one-, two- or four-picture slide layout. You can choose how the images will be framed using the "Frame shape" drop-down, which includes rectangle, rounded rectangle, beveled, oval, corner tabs and square tabs.
Once you have arranged your images and chosen the layout options, press Photo Album's Create button and watch your slideshow assemble itself.
Other handy features
If you wish to make adjustments to your photo album after you have placed the images in your slideshow, it can be done from PowerPoint's FORMAT menu. Choose FORMAT » PHOTO ALBUM to return to the Photo Album dialog box.
Let's say you want to add a caption under each image. You can do so in Photo Album in the Picture Options section. Check the box next to "Captions below ALL pictures." This feature inserts text – the photo's file name – below the image. If you are content using a file name as a picture caption, it's a time-saver. But if you want something a bit more descriptive, you will have to edit the text on each slide individually. Another option is to add a text box to each slide by clicking New Text Box under the "Insert text" section of the Photo Album window.
Large images and compression
If you load high-resolution images into PowerPoint, the resulting presentation file will be large, possibly several megabytes if the photos are big. This can be impractical if you want to e-mail this presentation. Here are a few steps to get around this problem:
1. Right-click any image within the PowerPoint presentation and choose Format Autoshape from the subsequent menu.
2. From the Format Autoshape menu, select the Picture tab.
3. Click on the Compress button (lower left-hand corner) to reach the Compress Pictures menu.
4. From the "Apply to" submenu, choose "All pictures in document." Then, from the "Change resolution" submenu, select the Web/Screen option. Click OK. From the Compress Pictures box that appears, choose Apply. Finally, click OK to exit the Format Autoshape menu.
5. Resave the presentation and you will notice the file size has dropped significantly.
Tip: There are a few caveats to shrinking photos using this method. For more information, check out "PowerPoint's crop tool, for better or worse" (in the Random Access section of the October 2004 issue of Presentations magazine.
Other utilities
While the Photo Album feature makes it easier than ever to add multiple images all at once, there are third-party plug-in options as well.
Image Importer Wizard –
If you need a more powerful alternative to Photo Album, look at Image Importer Wizard (IIW) from Shyam Pillai (
http://snipurl.com/iiwizard). Now in version 3, IIW is a PowerPoint add-in that offers tons of features, including custom template and layout creation. The full version of IIW costs $35, but a free trial version is available. It's a Windows-only application.
pptXTREME Import/Export –
Keith Tromer has created another PowerPoint add-in called pptXTREME Import/Export (
www.pptxtreme.com). This $50 utility includes such niceties as the ability to update images and some export functions. However, it can't save custom layouts and templates and it, too, only works on the Windows OS. A trial version of the product is available.
InsertPicturePPTX –
A Macintosh-compatible PowerPoint add-in that works with PowerPoint 2001 and PowerPoint X, InsertPicturePPTX is also available in a new version for PowerPoint 2004 for Mac (
www.agentjim.com/MVP/PowerPoint/ppt.html). The $25 add-in is quite capable and includes options to import full-screen images.
Although I began playing with multiple insertion to show my vacation photos, keep in mind that this feature has several business uses. If you have all of your presentation images ready to go in one folder, this is a quick way to begin building a presentation by instantly creating a number of slides quickly, which can then be individually edited.
Because the images you choose say as much about your presentation as the text, I encourage you to explore this feature and its time-saving benefits.
