PowerPoint Slide Repository and Management

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rick Austin
  • Start date Start date
R

Rick Austin

Like probably so many people, I create a lot of PowerPoint slides. I also
find myself re-using a lot of previous work, but couldn't it be easier. I
create ten slides for a presentation to a team. I then need to present to an
executive group on the same subject but at a different level. I'll take the
original presentation, change some but not all of the slides, and now I've
got a new presentation. But over time, it's hard to remember exactly where
that slide was that was slightly modified for a specific purpose. What if...

1) Slides were stored in a repository? Each slide could have a version, one
or more - effectively the same slide, but modified for the audience.

2) The presentation was really a virtual linkage to slides in the
repository. For example, slide 1, 3, 7, version 3 of slide 12, 25, 29, etc.

3) If you needed to send the presentation to someone, a process would
extract the virtual representation of the slides into a traditional
PowerPoint file and off you go.

This way the user could create slides and modifications to slides to their
hearts content, knowing that if you had say, a systems architecture slide,
you could also have a systems architecture slide at a very high level. Both
representing the same thing, just different variants.

So creating a presentation may be as simple as repurposing and slightly
modifying work done in the past. But at least all the work you've done is in
one place thus minimizing or eliminating the reinvention of the wheel.

Yes this can be done today but it is very manual, requiring a lot of manual
effort. I think a feature like this would be the next major leap for
PowerPoint and make a good tool a lot better.

Thanks for listening.

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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...b-51830a4bd4be&dg=microsoft.public.powerpoint
 
There are third-party tools that do this.

Slide Manager is one: http://www.slidemanager.biz/

Slide Executive is another: http://www.slideexecutive.com/

Microsoft's Sharepoint is a third, but in order for it to be able to flag
the most updated slides and all that by connecting to the PPT interface, you
need to use a volume license version of PPT (Office Pro Plus or Office
Enterprise). Or you can use Office Ultimate, which is a retail version.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PPT 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://tinyurl.com/36grcd
PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit http://tinyurl.com/32a7nx
Enter the Create a Spark Presentation Contest here!
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/FX102395221033.aspx
 
We have created a custom add in that allows you to create a local private library for your slides. We are in beta release so you can sign up for free:
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