This file contains information on using the Persuasion PowerPlayer (beta) for the Macintosh with PowerPC. For your convenience, print a hard copy and keep the pages with your Persuasion documentation.
The PowerPlayer offers enhanced performance over the standard Persuasion 3.0 Player. The improved performance will be most noticeable in Autojumps (described below) and how quickly layers display. (At the time of this writing, no specific benchmarks were available). Try the Persuasion PowerPlayer with your own favorite Persuasion presentations, or the example we've provided.
Included with the Persuasion PowerPlayer (beta) for the PowerPC is a demo file called “Alice to Ocean Player file”. There are two ways to view the demo file:
•Double-click on the “Player demo” file. (To view the various slideshow options, press the spacebar to pause the presentation and then type command+m to reveal the menu bar. Under the File menu, select Show settings.)
•Double-click on the PowerPlayer (beta) and open the demo file using the File, Open menu. (To view the various slideshow options, check the Show Settings checkbox in the Open dialog box.)
The demo file includes excerpts of a Persuasion 3.0 presentation being used by Rick Smolan, the world-famous photojournalist and producer of the popular “Day in the Life Series” of books, to attract sponsors for his newest project, “Natasha’s Story: An American Homecoming”. Rick used a Persuasion 2.1 presentation to raise over $1 million from sponsors to produce the recent best-seller “From Alice to Ocean” through his Against All Odds production company (Apple was among the sponsors).
The new Persuasion 3.0 Player (and PowerPlayer) supports all of Persuasion 3.0’s new on-screen and multimedia capabilities, including:
•Autoanimation of text, graphics and charts
•Autojumps (interactively branching to other slides, Player files or programs during a presentation)
•Automatic highlighted builds of text, charts, organization charts and tables
•QuickTime support (note: QuickTime is supported in Persuasion 2.1 and 3.0, but was not supported in the previous version of the Persuasion Player)
In addition, the Persuasion Player 3.0 supports on-screen annotations that can be saved with the Player file (more info on this below).
To create a Persuasion Player file in either Persuasion 2.1 or 3.0, do the following:
•From the File menu, choose Export and then select “Slide show” from the export file options. To preserve layering and backgrounds, select the appropriate checkboxes.
To reveal the Annotation tools, pause the presentation by pressing the spacebar (note: the spacebar acts a toggle for starting/stopping a self-running presentation that has been saved in Automatic mode). Type command+m to show the menu bar and under the Annotations menu select Show Annotation Tools. An Annotation palette will appear with the following tools:
•Text tool (3 fixed point sizes) for creating text annotations
•Pen tool (3 fixed line weights) for creating freehand drawing annotations
•Eraser tool (3 eraser sizes) for erasing any annotations
•Color palette (9 colors) for selecting a color that will display given the slide background
After experimenting with the annotation tools, select Show annotations from the Annotations menu (to hide annotations), and then press the spacebar again to resume the slideshow (to remove the menu bar, type command+m).
Note that annotations can be saved with the Player file (File, Save As menu). With the new annotation capability you can use the Persuasion Player in a number of interesting ways:
•As a read-and-review tool for obtaining client input on work-in-progress
•To emphasize a point during a presentation
•To record comments during a meeting/presentation
Autojumps
Autojumps are branches that can be setup in the original Persuasion 3.0 file. In the demo file, an Autojump is included on Slide 6, “International Coverage”, at the bottom of the screen (click on the yellow arrow to invoke the jump). The Autojump will take you directly to Slide 8, “Sponsor Clip”, which shows a QuickTime movie. After the movie plays, the Autojump will return you to Slide 6 (Jump and Return) and then finish playing the remaining slides.
Autojumps to any external document (eg., specific Word file, PageMaker file or other Persuasion Player file) do not work. However, you should be able to jump to another application (eg., Excel) and then open the appropriate file.
