Can anyone recommend good slideshow software? What I need is:
- ability to click from slide to slide like in PowerPoint
- ability to time transitions from slide to slide
- professional quality
- possible ability to synch music with part of the slideshow, not all
Basically what I want to be able to do is have part of my slideshow automated with music and the other part be traditional, clicking through it like on a slide projector.
This is for professional presentations using a digital projector off of a laptop. Any recommendations? I've already tried Picasa and ProShow neither allow me to click through the presentation they are strictly automated, so they will not work.
My personal favorite, and it's kind of a "sleeper", is MySlideShow. I love it. So simple to use; great quality, tons of features, excellent price, good support.
Proshow is amazing for when you want to output a 'canned' slideshow with movement and music. Wonderful, intuitive interface and very easy to work with.
However, it doesn't let you create on the fly slideshows that I know of. I use its sister product: Compupic Pro. Wonderful transitions, timings set and clickable. It has music capabilities, but I've never used them.
I've used Compupic at events for the past 5 years, and just started using ProShow for output to DVD to play on DVD players.
I have not seen the others mentioned here, so I cannot compare those.
Thanks for all the suggestions so far, everyone. I've downloaded and tried two of the four new suggestions -- Compupic and MySlideShow -- but neither quite does it. Compupic doesn't allow me to put music to part of the slideshow, while MySlideShow doesn't allow me to use any sort of transitions if I click manually through the show as I want to be able to do for part of it.
The other three suggestions won't work either: Powerpoint is too user-unfriendly for quick compilation of slide shows, you have to create each slide one-by-one rather than the drag-and-drop featured in the other programs. Similar problems with openoffice, it's designed more for corporate text-and-image presentations. And Pics-to-exe is just for making executables for dvds, not for actual real presentations.
So I'm back at ground zero...surely there is software out there that does slideshows like they used to be done via a slide projector (clicking one by one) AND lets you do some of the new tricks, too (transitions, automating part of the show, adding music)?!!! Anyone got any other suggestions?
K, after all of my whining, Mark finally came through for me (thanks Mark!)...the solution to what I wanted lies in MySlideShow, but in their older version, v 2.7. I just got emailed by Anix Solutions tech support and they are updating v 3.0 to include the one thing that was missing from the new version that was in the old version (manual clicking through the show with transitions between images). They said I should have the new update by Monday!
So if anyone out there is looking, there IS a solution that lets you do your shows manually AND automatically (the first half of my show is manual, second half automatic with music). Best part? It's only $29.95!!
Mark Sisco wrote:
My personal favorite, and it's kind of a "sleeper", is MySlideShow. I love it. So simple to use; great quality, tons of features, excellent price, good support.
Others like ProShow Gold, but I could never get the images to look sharp. Lots of pros use it, though, as well as Pics To Exe.
I'll 2nd, 3rd, - whatever - My Slide Show is great for my use. I've had it since forever. I also have PTE, Pro Show Gold, and a ton of others, but like Mark said, My Slide Show is GREAT - anyone who hasn't checked it out should.
