Free Useful Software for Websites
Free. The word that we all look forward to seeing when we find a software application that we like. But is anything really for free? I have found some applications that I personally like that I wanted to share with you that are free to use and they will make your website just that much better.
Website: http://www.ispringsolutions.com/
Product: ISpring Free
Main Purpose: PowerPoint to Flash in One Click.
If you create PowerPoint (PP) presentations and want to share your PowerPoint presentations on the web, than putting the large, often clunky PowerPoint file online can be a bit frustrating. PP files can be quite large, especially if there are many pictures. You have to download either a free player or have PowerPoint to play the presentation. In comes ISpring Solutions. They have a great FREE application called ISpring Free that will convert your PowerPoint presentation to Flash (.flv or .swf) in a few moments. I tried both PP 2003 & PP 2007 files and they both worked out great with their transitions and even sound files. Oh yes, you can place into your PP slides another Flash file or a YouTube file… ridiculously easy. Then select the various options for output and push a button and a few moments later you have a fully functional flash file that is quite compressed. I took a 122 MB PP file and it squeezed it down to 3.5 MB… yes, 3.5 MB.
I then place that file on the website with ease. It was really that simple. ISpring Solutions of course sells a Pro version ($299) but if you are simply wanting to do conversions, you can not go wrong with the free version.
Another company that makes a similar product is called:
Website: http://www.authorgen.com/
Product: AuthorGEN Technologies
Main Purpose: PowerPoint to Flash Converter.
I tried this software as well and it has some features that ISpring did not have, but for whatever reason, the converted presentation into Flash file did not show the PP slide transitions. I liked many of its features, but the free version does not have a built in YouTube/Flash insert feature. Otherwise, the software worked quite well.
Each of these two applications have the plug-ins in PowerPoint, so when you opened PowerPoint, you could convert to Flash right from inside of PowerPoint. I suggest you try both (their free, so why not).
