The SlideRocket Monthly Newsletter
  July, 2008

 

 

What's Your Text?

 

One of the elements we know makes a huge difference in creating great slides is the ability to manipulate text. As you'd expect, we have a variety of type faces to choose from but we also have a whole host of controls to let you adjust tracking and leading, paragraph spacing, case and anti-aliasing.

 

Margins 

We just added the ability to add top, bottom and left and right margins and indent to your text blocks so you can further define how your text shapes up.

 

Bullets

While we debated the various merits of leaving bullets out of SlideRocket altogether, we ended up with some great bullet options. Now you can create custom bullets and easily define your bullet styles presentation wide. 

 

Check out this new demo to see what you can do with your text, effects and bullet points.

 

Pricing - Have Your Say

 

SlideRocket is getting close to the end of it's private beta and while we have a pretty good idea what the market will bear in terms of pricing, we'd also like to hear from you. Now's your chance to take our very quick, one question survey and tell us what your expectations are.

 

Here's a few things you might check out first:

 

1. Review the How It Works Page to dive into all the features and functions. 

 

2. Take a look at the demos so you can see SlideRocket in action.

 

3. Read our blog so you can find out what else has been happening. 

 

Once you're satisfied you can make an educated decision, you can take the survey here.

 

EXPORT

Some of our beta users have asked us about exporting their slides out of SlideRocket back to PPT, PDF or FLV. There are probably a number of reasons they want this. We gave it some consideration.

 

#1 SlideRocket is a startup and they want insurance that their work wont be lost in the event we go "belly up."

Yes we are indeed a startup. Passionate people working long hours, series A funding from Hummer Winblad, and a huge (that should really be HUGE) market opportunity to create an evolutionary technology and change presentations for good (pun intended). If only 1% of the PowerPoint dissatisfied uses SlideRocket, we'll have a very healthy business. And if you're really worried about our longevity then sign up for an account today :-D

 

#2 They want to be able to send their slides to a non-SlideRocket user for editing or reuse.
Want someone else to edit your slides? Have them sign up online for a SlideRocket account and they'll be able to share and edit your slides in minutes. Compare that to sending your PC PowerPoint 2007 to your graphic designer who has Mac PowerPoint 2004 and you'll quickly see the difference.

#3 They don't want to be locked into one platform, solution, file format etc.

Want to send your slides to a Mac user running Safari or Linux user running Opera? Send them a SlideRocket presentation URL and they will be able to see your slides anywhere. SlideRocket is the ultimate file format agnostic. 

 

#4 They want a physical file to present with in the event they can't get an internet connection to log in to SlideRocket.

Need to present when you don't have an Internet connection? Download the SlideRocket Satellite offline player and sync your presentations to present offline.

#5 In the case of FLV they want to put presentations on their web site or blog.

SlideRocket lets you easily publish your presentations as embedded objects on any web page or blog. You can set viewer permissions to determine if users can view full screen, print or email your presentation and you can even set a password and track statistics

 

#6 They're being brain washed by an evil corporation to think that they must always return their slides to PPT format. 
All we can suggest here is tin foil. Wrap it over your head and see if the voices stop. It works for us.... sometimes.

Today you can export from SlideRocket using File-Print and selecting the PDF print driver but we're working on other export options because we recognize it's a feature you want. Do you need it? That remains to be seen. We're hoping you don't.

 

If you managed to get to the end of this long post and you don't have a beta account yet, the first 100 users to go to this special Orbit signup page can register themselves!

 

Thanks!

Orbit.

Offline Player Becomes Self-Aware

 

The latest version of the offline player can tell you when new updates are available and will prompt you to download them. The catch? You have to download the new version. The good news is that now you'll always have the latest and greatest . Nice!