INTRODUCTION

    Presentations are
quickly becoming the standard method of communicating
information, not just in the corporate world, but
increasingly in religious services and in club and
organization meetings.  That’s great if the place
where you’re to give a presentation has it’s own
multi-media setup.  If it doesn’t, you end up
packing along your projector, screen, laptop with
power supply, and extension cords.  If you’re
lucky, you can take along a hand-trolley to carry it
all.  What if you could cut down on the mass and
weight you need to schlep to do an on-site
presentation?  What if you could use your Pocket
PC instead of that laptop?

WHAT’S HOT

    Conduit’s Pocket Slides
has the ambitious purpose of bringing PowerPoint-like
presentation capabilities to the Pocket PC.  It
does that in two ways:  First, it adds the
capability of converting PowerPoint presentations to
Pocket Slides presentations and vice-versa.  The
conversion is two-way so you can edit the presentation
with either program and synchronize the results. 
Second, it has the capacity to display presentations
on-screen or through VGA-out hardware add-ons that can
connect to a data projector.  So it looks like
you really could leave the laptop behind, but how do the
presentations compare to "the real thing?"  What
about last-minute changes?  Read on to find out
how Pocket Slides compares.

SETUP

    Pocket Slides uses the
standard ActiveSync "Add Program" functionality to
install.  Along with the Pocket PC program, it
also installs a converter that provides the two-way
translation between PowerPoint on the desktop and
Pocket Slides on the Pocket PC.
    Pocket Slides can install to a storage card or File Store
without loss of performance, but keep in mind that
if you intend to use a VGA-out card, you won’t be able
to install to a card that would normally occupy that
slot.

Setting Conversion Options

   
The converter that Pocket Slides installs on the
desktop has a number of options.  You call up the
conversion setup dialogs by going to the "Conduits
Pocket Slides" submenu of your Start Menu and
selecting "Pocket Slides Export Options":

Pocket Slides Export
Options

   
The initial Export Options screen allows you to select
how your PowerPoint slides will be resized for the
Pocket PC.  You can select Pocket PC Small
(240×180), Pocket PC Normal (320×240), VGA (640×480),
SVGA (800×600), XVGA (1024×768) or a Custom width and
height.  Tapping the [Advanced...] button brings
up the Advanced settings:

Pocket Slides Advance
Export Settings — General tab

   
The initial tab on the Advanced Settings allows you to
select the language.  This won’t translate the text
on the slides.  It just sets the language that
the conversion program user interface displays in. 
It doesn’t affect the conversion process at all.  There is also an option to pop-up the
settings dialog when files are copied to the Pocket PC
(as they would be if you placed them in the desktops
ActiveSync folder and synchronized).  If you
choose not to pop up the dialog, Pocket Slides will
use whichever conversion settings you used last.
    You can
also elect to smooth text and shapes using
"anti-aliasing."  Finally, Advanced Settings has
options which affect when the conversion will "embed"
the original PowerPoint file within the Pocket Slides
file.  You can elect to never bundle the original
file (in which case, unless you keep your original
PowerPoint file on your desktop or backward conversion
will be lost),
always bundle the file, or only bundle the file if it
is less than 100K, 500K, 1MB, 2MB, or 10MB in size. 
You can also always bundle e-mail attached
presentations and decide whether the conversion will
also optimize the presentation as it converts it.
    There is an additional tab that affects how external
presentation files are "packaged" with the Pocket
Slides presentation:

Pocket Slides Advance
Export Settings — Package tab

   
The Package tab allows you to choose whether external
pictures are kept their original size or resized to
their size in the presentation.  You can also
select whether sounds, music, and pictures are bundled
into the Pocket Slides presentation.  On
conversions from Pocket Slides to PowerPoint, you can
select where presentation music is copied to.

   
Back on the main Export Options screen, pressing the
[Convert >] button brings up the Conversion dialog. 
You can select which presentation file to convert
from.  This can be either a PowerPoint
presentation or a Pocket Slides presentation, allowing
you to convert either way.  You can also select
the name and location of the file you want to convert
to.

Pocket Slides Convert
Screen

   
This screen is used for doing conversions directly
to/from storage cards attached to your desktop in a
card reader.  You don’t use the Convert screen if
you’re using ActiveSync to copy presentations to/from
your Pocket PC.

Setting Pocket PC Options

   
You get to the Options dialog by tapping on the
"Tools" menu and selection "Options…"

Pocket Slides General
options

   
Like the desktop conversion program, the Language option
just sets the language used by the conversion process
and doesn’t have any impact on the presentation itself.  The next option
determines whether you use a remote control device and
what type to use.  Your options are "Don’t use,"
"Use Serial/Wireless mouse," "Use Consumer Infrared
remote," "Use VGA Device remote," and "Bluetooth Phone
Remote."  That last option works with Sony T610
and T68i phones that support extended AT menu
commands.  The next option allows you to select
the COM port through which the remote transmits
signals to the Pocket PC.  The final three
options on this tab determine whether Pocket Slides
checks memory while it operates and informs you when
you’re running low, whether presentations will display
a pop-up menu button for additional commands, and
whether VGA status is displayed when you switch to fullscreen mode.

   
The VGA Output tab allows you to select and control
how VGA-out add ons are used:

VGA Output options

   
The first option allows you to manually set which VGA
output hardware you’ll be using.  This is useful
if you haven’t yet installed your card or if the
program has some trouble recognizing your card. 
The three buttons below that display information on
VGA-out hardware, test the VGA output, and reset the
VGA card in case of problems.  The "VGA
Resolution/Output" option allows you to select between
manually setting resolution and output, Auto-set
resolution to VGA, Auto-set resolution for NTSC
Composite, and Auto-set resolution for NTSC S-Video. 
The items below that display (and allow you to select
in manual mode) the VGA resolution and output
respectively.

   
The "Advanced" tab has additional settings:

Pocket Slides Advanced
options

   
The first set of options determine whether the
tap-and-hold menu will display, whether animations
show in the slide sorter, whether the slide show is
automatically started when loaded, whether the slide
is displayed full size or shrunk to fit in Normal
view, and whether the rotating clock icon is displayed
when Pocket Slides is working in Normal View. 
The second set of options determines whether the slide
show ends with a black slide, whether the Pocket PC is
prevented from shutting off during a presentation, and
whether animations display on VGA-out (which can slow
down presentations).  The third set of options
determine when anti-aliasing or smoothing is applied. 
The final set of options determine where Pocket Slides
stores its temporary files.

PROGRAM FEATURES

    When
Pocket Slides starts, you’ll get a list of Pocket
Slides presentations which you can load:

Pocket Slides normal
file list

   
There’s also a "Detail View" which displays a
thumbnail of the first slide and more information
about the presentation:

Pocket Slides Detail
View

    The
Detail View is much more helpful for locating a
particular presentation.  Between the thumbnail
and the Title, you should be able to find what you’re
looking for. You can also create a new presentation
and set Options (in the Tools menu).  When you
create a new presentation, you’ll get a screen which
helps you to create the first slide in the
presentation:

Pocket Slides Insert New
Slide dialog

   
You can also click on the "Blank Slide" tab to create
a slide:

Pocket Slides New Blank
Slide tab

    For
creating your slides within Pocket Slides the program
provides a good set of editing tools.  To see the
tools you use the tool bar toggle icon ().

The Editing Toolbar with
Objects menu shown

    The
left-most menu on the toolbar allows you to select
objects for adding to your slide.  The menu
combines an object button and a pop-up.  If you
click on the pop-up arrow, the menu appears and allows
you to select an object.  Once you select an
object type, the object button displays the
appropriate icon.  If you want to add another
object of the same type, you can skip the object type
selection.  The object button toggles object
entry on and off.  If it’s highlighted, clicking
on the screen will enter the object.  When it’s
not highlighted, clicking on the screen allows you to
select an existing object.  When you add a new
Text Frame you get the Text Entry dialog:

New Text Frame entry
dialog

    The
remaining tools on the tool bar allow you to edit
characteristics of the selected object.  The
Paint tool ()
lets you change an objects fill color (you can also
make an object semi-transparent), line color, and line
weight (thickness).  You can also adjust the
objects width, height, and position.  Finally,
you can set the items shadow properties.  This
includes whether there is a shadow, the color of the
shadow, whether it’s semi-transparent, and its
horizontal and vertical offset from the object. 
The Order tool ()
allows you to move an object to the front or to the
back.  Objects in front of cover objects behind
them.  The Shadow tool ()
allows you to quickly set an object’s shadow
characteristics.  The tool pops up the shadow
menu:

Shadow menu

    The
top section of the shadow menu allows you to select
the visual style and placement of the shadow. 
The bottom section allows you to move the shadow
slightly.  With text objects the shadow options
are fewer because the "shadow" duplicates the actual
characters.
    The Timing tool ()
allows you to set various aspects of how the slide
appears on the screen.  You can "animate" the
objects on the slide.  Animation allows you to
display part of the slide right away and have other
objects add themselves, with transition effects,
either after a specified time or when you click on the
slide with the stylus.  You can also add sound
effects and even multi-media when objects animate and
dim or hide the object after the animation or on a
subsequent tap.  With text objects, you can add
text all at once or in paragraph groups.
    The remaining tools ()
allow you to change text characteristics.  The
buttons control font size, call up the text
characteristics box, toggle bold, and toggle italics
respectively.

    Once
you’ve created your first slide or when you open an
existing slide show, you’ll get Pocket Slides’ Normal
View:

Pocket Slides Normal
View

    The
Normal View shows a single slide with arrows that
allow you to move back and forth through the slide
show.  Below the slide image is a pop-up that
will allow you to select a specific slide by its title
and move to it.  Below that, you’ll see the
slide’s notes.  Clicking on a text box on the
slide will open an editing window, allowing you to
edit the text:

Editing slide text

   
Clicking on the double arrow ()
on the slide title pop-up will switch to a text-only
view:

slide’s text

   
Clicking on the double arrow next to the note will
open the note for editing:

Editing a slide’s notes

   
Some further editing functions are available through
the Edit menu:

Pocket Slides Edit menu

   
Along with the standard cut, copy, paste, and such,
you can also create a new slide, duplicate the current
slide, delete the slide, rename the presentation or
move it to a new location, and display the
presentation’s properties, including Title, number of
slides, slide dimensions, and file name, location,
type, and time/date stamp.

   
Pocket Slides also has "context" menus associated with
each type of object.  If you tap-and-hold on any
object, you’ll get a menu of appropriate editing
actions for that type of object.

   
The View menu allows you to choose how the slides are
displayed as you work with them and as you display
them in a slide show:

Pocket Slides View menu

    The
first set of options chooses between the three basic
display modes.  We’ve seen Normal mode so far. 
The Slide Sorter mode displays several slides at a
time, allowing you to change whether a slide displays
in a show, the order they display, and the transition
and timing effects between slides.  The Sorter
Display switch ()
changes to the next size of slides in the Sorter
display each time you tap it:

Pocket Slides Slide
Sorter — smallest

Pocket Slides Slide
Sorter — small with descriptions

Pocket Slides Slide
Sorter — small without descriptions

Pocket Slides Slide
Sorter — medium

Pocket Slides Slide
Sorter — larger

Pocket Slides Slide
Sorter — largest

   
The first three sets of options for a hyperlinked
picture are the same as the previous menu.  The
final set of options allows you to save the picture,
set the picture as your Today Screen Wallpaper, or
view the text that’s associated with the image. 
(Many images have text associated with them for
display on non-graphic web browsers.)

   
Within the Slide Sorter, the Show/Hide tool ()
toggles whether the selected slide is displayed in a
slide show.  The Preview Animation tool ()
allows you to see how the slide objects animate using
the thumbnail.  The Animation Settings tool ()
sets the slide’s objects’ "timing" characteristics
as we discussed in the slide
creation section of this review.  The
Transition tool ()
allows you to set transition and timing effects that
occur as you move from the previous slide to the
current slide.

   
The Tools menu provides the ability to work with slide
show documents:

Pocket Slides Tools menu

   
From the Tools menu, you can undo or redo slide
sorting, send the current show via IR or e-mail,
change the program options, revert to the last saved
version of the show, save the current version, or
delete it entirely.  You can also call up the
Slide Show setup dialog:

Pocket Slides Slide Show
setup dialog — General tab

   
The General tab of the Slide Show setup dialog allows
you to choose between displaying the show in
Fullscreen mode on the Pocket PC display or showing a
smaller version of the slide along with slide notes. 
You can also select whether the slideshow will output
to a VGA device and how the slides will rotate when
displayed.  You can eliminate animations and
slide annotations.  You can also choose between
advancing the slide according to preset timings or
manually with screen taps.  The Slides tab
controls how and which slides are shown:

Pocket Slides Slide Show
setup dialog — Slides tab

   
With the Slides tab, you can choose to display all
slides, a specific range of slides, or a custom show. 
You can also have the slide show repeat for an
unattended show.

   
The last option in the Tools menu allows you to set up
the custom shows just mentioned:

Pocket Slides Custom
Slide Show setup

   
Each custom show can have its own set of included
slides and its own distinct slide order.  This
allows you to use the same set of slides with several
distinct shows, without having to duplicate the slide
set for each one.

   
Now that we’ve gone through the creation and editing
functions, lets get on with the show:

Pocket Slides Slide Show
with slide notes showing

   
This is how Pocket Slides looks on the Pocket PC
screen with the option to display speaker’s notes
turned on.  This mode is quite useful when you
have your Pocket PC connected to a projector which is
displaying the presentation slides for your audience. 
The audience doesn’t see the notes, but you can still
read them.  For very small groups, you can also
show the presentation right on your Pocket PC:

Pocket Slides Slide Show
without slide notes showing (Fullscreen and Rotated)

   
Note the small icon in the top-right corner. 
This icon pulls down a menu that allows you further
control over the show.  You can go to the next,
previous, first, last, or previously viewed slide. 
You can also pull up a "Slide Navigator" menu to
choose a specific slide to go to.  The menu also
allows you to display the current slide’s speaker’s
notes on the Pocket PC screen.  You can also
select how the stylus or auxiliary pointer is
displayed.  You can choose from completely hiding
it, to displaying an arrow, a red dot, or a pen with
your choice of color and width.  You can also
choose for the stylus to be a "trigger."  In that
mode, tapping the stylus will bring up a context menu
with the same options as the pull-down menu.
    The pull-down menu also has options to pause a timed
presentation or to display a black screen for pen
annotations.  You can also end the slide show
from the pull-down menu.

   
One last thing to mention:  Conduits has made
version 2 of Pocket Slides fully Windows Mobile 2002,
Second Edition compatible.  Not just that, it not
only runs in WM2003SE in landscape orientation and on
HiDPI displays, but the screens are well organized in
both orientations.  Take a look at the Normal
view in landscape orientation:

Pocket Slides in
landscape orientation

   
Instead of keeping everything where it was in
portrait, Conduits moves the title and notes over to
the side, taking much better advantage of the
landscape configuration.  I wish more developers
would take the time to do this sort of thing.

HELP SUPPORT

    Pocket Slides provides a
complete help file that you can refer to using the
built-in Help application on your Pocket PC. 
Conduits also has

a support page with a small set of Frequently
Asked Questions (FAQs) on its web site as well as a
more extensive "Knowledge
Base."  In addition, there is

a very complete on-line documentation including a
"printer-friendly" version which allows you to
essentially print your own manual.  Finally, you
can contact Conduits directly
via e-mail
with questions, bug reports, and feature requests.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

   

Pocket Slides runs on the original Pocket PC
(2000), Pocket PC 2002, Windows Mobile 2003, and Windows Mobile 2003, Second
Edition (including landscape orientation and HiDPI
displays).  It also runs on the Handheld PC.
    Pocket Slides takes 3MB of main memory to install and 5.7MB of
program memory to run.  As Pocket PC programs go,
that’s quite large on both counts.

BUGS AND WISHES

In my testing I only ran into a problem once when the
program appeared to hang.  I was unable to repeat
the problem, no matter what I did, so this may have
been a fluke.  In all other respects the program
ran extremely well and did exactly what it was
supposed to do.
    Pocket Slides does so much that I had a hard time thinking of
something to put in the "wish" category, but I did
think of one:  In order to maintain two-way
conversions with PowerPoint, you either have to have Pocket Slides bundle
the original PowerPoint presentation into the Pocket
Slides file or you have to keep the original file on
your desktop system.  I don’t know if this is necessary
due to limitations in the PowerPoint format or some
other reason, but it uses up a lot of space just to
allow backward conversion.  If there were some
way to eliminate this, it would be a major step
forward.
    My other wish is not directed toward Conduits or the Pocket
Slides program, but toward Pocket PC OEMs and
accessory manufacturers.  If Pocket PCs are ever
going to truly replace laptops for presentation
purposes, we’re going to need a quick, responsive
VGA-out capability.  Current PPCs are coming with
graphics accelerators to keep the displays responsive. 
None of the current VGA-out solutions do.  That
means a presentation that agile on the PPC display can
easily bog down when you switch to VGA-out for a
projector.  Adding a graphics accelerator to a
VGA-out card would certainly add to the cost, but it
would add so much value for presentations and
entertainment, it would be worth it.

PURCHASING

   
Pocket Slides is available for purchase
from the pocketnow Store for $39.95.  There
is also
a free
30-day trial version.  The trial version is
actually the purchase version.  It just "times
out" after 30 days unless you enter a purchase code. 
30 days is quite generous; ample time to decide if you
want to purchase the program.

PROS

• Allows
  truly portable presentations
• Allows
  editing presentations on the Pocket PC
• Fully supports
  landscape orientation and HiDPI (VGA) displays
• Supports
  VGA-out add-ons for projector display
• 
  Fully-functional 30-day trial version

CONS

• Requires
  additional hardware for projector display
• Uses quite
  a bit of storage space and program memory

OVERALL
IMPRESSION

    It’s been a while since
I’ve taken a look at Pocket PC-based presentation
software and at Pocket Slides in particular. 
While the product has had the ability to edit
presentations, use transitions, and support VGA-out
hardware since its creation, all of these capabilities
have greatly improved with the latest version.  
I’m very pleased with the capabilities, ease of use,
and overall speed of the program.
    If presentations play anywhere near a major role in your job
or organizational tasks and especially if you do those
presentations "on-site," you should consider adding
Pocket Slides and a VGA-out card to your "bag of
tricks" and taking the laptop and associated power
cables out of it.

All
screenshots in this review are taken using

SOTI’s Pocket Controller Pro.