Get Started with Adobe Presenter 7 when using PowerPoint
Adobe Presenter 7 is an add-in product for Microsoft PowerPoint. It allows you to convert your PowerPoint presentations into web ready Flash format movies for inclusion on your website, or as stand-alone, CD-based presentations.
Adobe Presenter can be purchased through the PSU Computer Store.
You can also listen and view a published presenation on Adobe Presenter: What is and Why would I use it?
Before you begin working with Presenter, you need to have a completed PowerPoint presentation with a script written and added to the notes section of each slide. If your PowerPoint has animations, they should carry over and be present in your published presentation. If you included audio, the audio may not carry over. We recommend that you re-record any audio in Presenter to be sure that you will not have audio problems.
To get a better understanding of Adobe Presenter, we will look at and discuss the features and functions available from the Adobe Presenter Ribbon.
Below is the Adobe Presenter ribbon that you will see once you have Adobe Presenter installed. It will either appear as a seperate tab or it maybe listed under the Add-Ins tab. If you do not see this tab, you should reinstall Adobe Presenter.
You should begin by setting your Presenter preferences. These preferences will control all of your Adobe Presenter presentations. In PowerPoint, from the Adobe Presenter tab, click the Preferences button in the Application group.
The first tab is where you provide information about the presenters. You can choose to display the presenter's photo and information on the sidebar of the published presentation. Multiple presenters can exist in Adobe Presenter, as long as each has a unique presenter name. John Smith and John T. Smith, even though they may be the same person are considered two different presenters in Adobe Presenter.
To add a new presenter, click the “Add” button. The presenter information dialog box will appear. If you have multiple presenters, you can edit their information by clicking the “Edit” button and updating or changing the information. To delete a presenter, select them and click the “Delete” button.
You can supply as much or as little information as you choose. Even if you enter information here, you can elect to not make it public in different presentations (discussed in the theme editor section of this guide). If you choose to use a photo or department/college logo, you can browse to the file locations and include them. When the presentation is published the images will be embedded.
The Servers tab provides an area where you can define Adobe Connect servers that are available to store Adobe Presenter published presentations. At this time, Penn State does not allow for publishing Presenter movies to the Adobe Connect server. We are recommending that your presentations be published to your local computer and then stored on your personal or departmental web space. For this reason, you will not need to enter any information in the fields on Servers Tab.
The Audio Source tab is for selecting your audio source. If you are recording audio for a presentation, you can either use a microphone or the line-in option. The line-in option is used when you are recording audio from an external audio device such as a cassette tape deck or stereo amplifier.
The default selection is a microphone (which is what we will use to add audio to our presentation).
We recommend that you leave the check box checked for setting your microphone level. Further, we recommend that if you will be doing your own recording, you have a good-quality headset to allow you to get good audio capture.
Adobe Presenter allows you to customize the look of your presentation. The options within the Settings button allow you to do that easily and quickly. The Settings button can be found within the Presentation group on the Adobe Presenter tab.
Appearance Tab
The Appearance tab is where you enter the Title for this particular presentation. It can be the same as the title on the opening slide, or it can be any other descriptive name that you choose. The Summary text box allows you to describe what the content of the presentation is, and how it may be used.
For more information on Themes and Using the Theme Editor, see our How To.
Playback Tab
The series of checkboxes on the Playback Tab allow you to set presentation options. You can:
- Have the presentation auto play upon opening
- Have the presentation loop (best used for kiosk presentations or other unattended shows)
- Have the presentation include slide numbers in the outline view
- Have the presentation pause after each animation
The last option in this tab allows you to select the amount of time that a slide that does not contain audio will display before moving to the next side. The default is 5 seconds. Slides with audio will display as long as the audio plays.
Quality Tab
The Quality tab allows you to select the audio and image quality that you want to use for the presentation. Remember that the higher the quality you select, the larger the file size and the longer the download time. If you are not sure what settings to select, the default settings will generally work fine. By default, Adobe Presenter will stream your presentation. This means that the presentation will begin to download, but will not begin to play until approximately 60% has been downloaded. If you know that your intended audience will be connecting via modem or other slow connection, you can use the Control Preloading options to force Adobe Presenter to wait until the entire file is downloaded before starting to play.
Attachments Tab
On the Attachments tab, you can attach files you want to include with the presentation. An attachment may be detailed speaker notes or other supplemental material. Another example would be an Excel spreadsheet that was used in the presentation so that participants have a copy from which to work. Attachments appear on the playbar in the lower right corner of a published presentation.
The Slide Manager allows you to adjust slide properties at any time. When you open the Slide Manager, a thumbnail of each slide in the presentation appears. 
The slide properties shown with each thumbnail include the Slide Title, Presenter info, Navigation Name, Navigation Options (Go To), Lock Slide info, and Multimedia info.
For more information on the Slide Manager, see our How To.