Spice Up Your Next Presentation

Remember when public speakers relied--or, rather, were supposed to rely--on charisma, clever jokes and poignant stories? These days, when you attend a presentation, you’re more likely to be treated to elaborate overhead transparencies, color slides or computer-generated animation. The speeches are just as boring, but they’re a lot more colorful.

All this is possible because of a phenomenon called “desktop presentations.” Personal computers are being used to create slides and overhead transparencies and, in some cases, are being brought into auditoriums and conference rooms and on sales calls to be used as electronic slide projectors.

There is a big market for desktop presentations, and it has spurred sales of computers, software, video projection devices, slide makers and other equipment. William Coggshall, president of the market research firm Desktop Presentations, estimates the market for presentation software alone to be about $250 million annually.

About 2.1 million desktop presentation programs have been sold for IBM and IBM-compatible computers while Macintosh users have bought about 500,000 programs, Coggshall said. The market for business presentation graphics software, which is expected to amount to 830,000 programs this year, is growing at a 15% annual rate, Coggshall said.

These programs make it easy to draw boxes, circles, lines and other shapes on a computer, as well as to combine them with text and numbers to create simple or elaborate graphics presentations. All of the IBM packages and a few Mac programs can also automatically create business graphics such as bar charts, pie charts or line charts either from numbers you type into the program or from data files you import from a spreadsheet program such as Lotus 1-2-3 or Microsoft Excel.

Harvard Graphics, from Software Publishing Corp., is the leading presentation package for the IBM compatibles. Next is Freelance Plus from Lotus Development. Some other popular presentation packages are Graph Plus from Micrografx and Graphics Gallery from Hewlett-Packard.

Top presentation programs for the Apple Macintosh include PowerPoint from Microsoft, Persuasion from Aldus, More II from Symantec and Cricket Presents from Computer Associates.

Two leading software firms have just announced new desktop presentation programs. WordPerfect Corp., which claims to have about 60% of the IBM-compatible word processing market, recently announced DrawPerfect, its first entry into the desktop presentations. DrawPerfect, which is supposed to be available by February and possibly as soon as December, can also create images that can be placed into WordPerfect documents. It has all the usual drawing tools associated with presentation programs, but it is also very good at handling text. Text can be superimposed over graphics and can be rotated to any angle to create some interesting special effects.

The program features pull-down menus, making it easy for users to select commands. A mouse is recommended, but not required. To ease the learning curve for the 3 1/2 million WordPerfect users, the program, wherever possible, also uses the same function keys and text-editing commands as the word processor. Because business users’ thirst for illustrations often exceeds their ability to draw, the program comes with a set of disks that contain 500 prepared images.

The program also can be used to turn the PC into an electronic slide viewer. It can display the images right on the computer screen and even add special effects such as fading from one image to another. The program can be used to automate a presentation, or you can use the mouse to move forward or backward, one image at a time. A regular PC monitor is adequate for small groups; it is also possible to connect a PC to a large monitor or a video projector.

DrawPerfect, which will carry a suggested list price of $495, requires an IBM PC with 512K of memory and a graphics monitor. A hard disk is recommended.

Another impressive new program is Applause II from Torrance-based Ashton-Tate. Applause II is an upgrade and amalgamation of Ashton-Tate’s earlier presentation programs, including Draw Applause and the company’s Master Graphic series. The program, scheduled to be released this fall, is designed for executives and managers who generate charts and graphs as well as graphics artists who create more elaborate presentations and marketing materials.

The program can create 37 different types of business charts from numbers you enter or from data imported from Lotus 1-2-3, dBase or other programs. Like DrawPerfect, it uses an optional mouse and features pull-down menus.

Applause II is divided into three modules, or windows. The chart window is designed for business users who need to create numeric, word or organizational charts. The draw window is used to enhance or annotate graphs and charts or by drawing boxes, circles and other shapes. It’s also where you can import graphics from other programs, including photographs that have been scanned into the computer.

The program’s present window lets you create presentations that run by themselves. Like DrawPerfect, you can add special effects including simple but eye-catching animation.

Applause II will also list for $495 and will require a PC with 512K of memory, a hard disk and a graphics display.

A small but rapidly growing number of computer users display their presentations right on their PCs, according to Coggshall. Most people use their PCs simply to create overhead transparencies that are projected on a screen.

It’s easy to create a black-and-white transparency. You can print out your image on paper and copy the image to plastic sheets known as transparency film using almost any plain paper copier. Or, you can load transparency film directly into a laser printer. Some color dot-matrix or thermal printers can be used to create color transparencies.

Creating color slides requires the use of film recorders, which cost from about $2,000 to well over $10,000. However, a number of firms will create slides for you if you bring in a disk or send in your graphic file via modem. Such companies can be found in the Yellow Pages under “Slides and Filmstrips.”

Magicorp, of Elmsford, N.Y., offers slide- and transparency-making services for anyone whose PC or Mac is equipped with a modem. The company provides free software that dials its New York headquarters, via a toll-free 800 number, and transmits the image. That image is then retransmitted to the company’s Wilmington, Ohio, processing plant, which is at an Airborne Express air freight distribution center.

Images transmitted to Magicorp as late as 5 p.m. your local time can be processed overnight and put on a 3 a.m. flight for morning delivery. The company charges $10 aj slide for its 48-hour delivery service, $15 for overnight service if images are transmitted by noon and $22.50 for its 5 p.m. rush service. Magicorp can be reached at (800) 367-6244.