This topic provides comparison of key features and processes in Creator compared to Microsoft’s PowerPoint so that users of that product can upgrade smoothly.
The key thing to remember is that to reflect the wider range of projects Creator is usually used for, it refers to your document as a Publication instead of a Presentation, and its Slides are referred to as Pages.
In both programs the main area on the right of your screen is filled with an editable view of your current slide/page. The bulk of the left hand side is covered by an additional overview of your presentation or its content.
This is where PowerPoint provides its slide sorter, outline and slide details view. You select between them using the buttons at the bottom of that panel. Creator has a tabbed Organiser instead. You select between the different views by clicking the tabs at the left edge.
The other obvious difference with Creator is that it provides a quick-pick colour palette on the far right of the workspace. This is used for selecting Fill and Outline and Text colours for which PowerPoint provides tools at the bottom of the screen.
Creating a new presentation/publication is similar in both programs, allowing you to choose various aspects in advance. In PowerPoint the various aspects of the presentation are provided in a set of tabs on a single dialog, whilst in Creator they are presented as a set of dialogs in a Wizard.
Creator does not provide an Auto-content Wizard.
The first two dialogs of the New Publication Wizard in Creator allow you to choose from a range of publication categories and then a colour scheme or design. This is equivalent to choosing a Design template in PowerPoint.
The two programs then differ slightly in how new pages are added.
To add a new slide (or page) in Creator simply select the Pages tab of the Organiser and double-click on the layout you require. The Page Template palette is equivalent to PowerPoint’s New Slide Auto Layout dialog.
Adding Pages to Your Publication
In PowerPoint, you add additional content via the Insert menu or from the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. In Creator the content object tools are in a toolbar between the Organiser and the Page View.
To add ready-made content in Creator you can simply drag it onto your slide/page from the Component Gallery provided in the Organiser.
In Creator, you can sort and reorder your pages in the Pages tab of the Organiser.
In Creator, the preset shapes are provided as part of the Draw tool. Click the Draw tool and a floating Draw Tools toolbar will appear providing a range of drawing styles. At the end of this is a drop down box containing a series of preset shapes that you can then draw onto your page.
In PowerPoint you display the elements of your slides and move between pages using repetition of basic keys or mouse clicks. In Creator the templates we have provided largely mirror this functionality for your convenience.
However, Creator has much more power and versatility when it comes to interactivity. Those mouse clicks or key presses which make things happen are called triggers and in Creator you have full control of those triggers and what actions those triggers perform.
Note:
Creator uses Show in Turn and Hide in Turn actions to mimic the interactivity of PowerPoint’s basic presentations. For a step-by-step introduction as to how this works view How Bullet Points Display in Creator.
In Creator, animation is used differently to PowerPoint. Animation in PowerPoint is used more in the context of what Creator calls Transitions (see below). In Creator, animations are most easily applied to objects using the Animation Wizard.
In Creator you can apply a transition to any object not just to the slide or page. Indeed you can set a transition for when it is shown and one for when it hides. Remember that showing and hiding of all objects on a page also occurs when the page itself is shown or hidden.
The transition for an object is one of its Properties so you can edit it by simply double-clicking on the object and going to the Transition tab.
Creating and Editing Properties
Not to be confused with either of the foregoing, Creator includes a set of Effects functions that allow you to alter the appearance of an object in stylish and interesting ways more akin to a graphics package. These are provided as Properties of an object.
The most popular of these are transparency, drop shadow and flare. Quick access to these functions is also provided on the Object Properties toolbar.
As with PowerPoint you can preview your publication in Creator at any time. However, in Creator you can preview both a single page and the whole publication.
In PowerPoint you preview your slideshow by pressing F5 or selecting Slideshow from the View menu.
In Creator you preview a single page of your publication by pressing F5. To preview the whole thing press F4. Or select Preview Page or Preview Publication from the Publication menu.
When you have finalised your presentation you may wish to create a standalone version for viewing on your own computer or on another. This process is called Publishing and creates either: a Standalone publication (i.e. an EXE file which will run on any supported Windows system without the need for Creator); a Web publication (i.e. an HTML file which will run on a browser); a Flash publication (i.e. a SWF file, which will run in the Adobe Flash player or in an Internet browser); a Screensaver publication (i.e. an SCR file, which will run when the screen has been inactive for a specified amount of time).
In place of PowerPoint’s Pack and Go, Creator has Publishing. Creator also has a sophisticated distribution option that allows you to specify an icon for the setup program and so forth, via a Distribution Wizard.
Creator is actually designed as a visual program creation tool and therefore has many features and functions that are different to those in PowerPoint. Rather than list all of the differences here and the amazing opportunities they provide, the most important and useful features include:
(i) Text input
(ii) Variables
(iii) Scoring
(iv) Reading and writing disk files
For more ideas and inspiration take a look at the samples provided with this program or on our website.
With the basic principles you learn from doing your presentations in Creator, you will quickly be able to become more creative than you’d believe and soon it will only be your imagination that limits how far you go beyond extraordinary.