Users can insert a table into their presentation, then easily add, select, and resize rows and columns, format and align text across the table, and set background colors for cells and borders. Rows will resize themselves to fit content.  Google provides the following example table:

Collaborators on presentations can make edits to the same table at the same time. When tables are imported from PowerPoint, they’ll show up as editable tables in Google Docs.

To use the Table tool, simply choose "Table" in the presentation editor. Then click "insert table." Select the dimensions. At that point, it will appear and you can start editing it.

To add rows and columns Google provides the following instructions:

1. Point your mouse to the outside borders of the table and a ‘+’ sign and an arrow appear.

2. Click the ‘+’ sign to add a row or column. The signs appear on both ends of a row or column, depending on which side of the cell your mouse is closer to. This determines where the row or column is added.

3. If you click the ‘+’ sign at the top of a column, another column appears. If you click the ‘+’ sign next to a row, another row appears.

To Select Cells:

-   Select an entire row or column: Point your mouse to the outside borders of the table and a ‘+’ sign and an arrow appear. Click the arrow to select a row or column. If you point your mouse to a column, you’ll select the column. If you point your mouse to a row, you’ll select the row.

- Select a range of cells: Drag your mouse from one cell to another to select multiple cells. To select a single cell, drag the mouse out of that cell and back into it.

Once you’ve selected cells, you can apply formatting changes to all of them at once by pressing the delete key. More info on adding and editing tables can be found here.

Marc Miller on the Gmail notes that Gmail has had a "view as slideshow" option for PowerPoint files for a while, but the conversion technology is now integrated into this viewer.

There are more features with this viewer than with the old "view as slideshow" version, including zooming in and out, selecting text to copy/paste, and "printing" the presentation to a PDF document. You also don’t have to have a Flash plugin to run it like in the past.

"I don’t know about you, but the TIFF files I receive are almost always multiple-page faxes — and the default TIFF viewer on my computer only shows me the first page," says Miller. "It’s quite frustrating."

This viewer is powered by Google Docs and shows every page and provides the "print" option to prepare a ready-to-print PDF file. You can also upload documents right to Google Docs for further editing.

The company’s announcement follows yesterday’s unveiling of its cloud-based Web apps operating platform, Windows Azure, and both are “part of a strategic companywide shift toward embracing web-based solutions.”

Office Web will allow access to the lighter versions of the classic Office programs via a Web browser. Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari compatible, no word has been released yet about Google Chrome. Given that Office Web is HTML and AJAX based, one imagines Chrome shouldn’t haven’t issues.

Historically, Microsoft has been slow to embrace Web-based applications. After all, its bread has been buttered with widespread desktop machine adoption. Capossela says times have changed.

“Customers’ requirements have changed, as have their expectations of technology. While Office is synonymous with desktop productivity, the idea of “desktop” has changed from a PC-centric notion to one in which people are empowered on the PC, on the phone, and with a browser. Our customers don’t use one device, but rather several.”

Office Web will be accessible via Office Live, with both ad-supported and subscription options. Business users will get access via hosted subscriptions and existing volume licensing agreements.”
 

You will be able to run PowerPoint slideshows on your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPod Classic and fatty iPod Nano (any iPod with picture support) if you have a Mac with PowerPoint 2008 and iPhoto (2006 or better).

PowerPoint will connect with iPhoto and export your presentation as a series of high resolution photos. Those photos will be saved on your hard drive and synced to your iPhone as photos normally are. Then, you can whip out your iPhone at any time and show slides from your PowerPoint presentation, or you can even plug the iPhone/iPod into a TV or projector to run a version of the presentation, minus the usual animations and transitions.

This via Mary Jo, who mentions that the Exchange sync iPhone users were promised four months has still not arrived, with no word on when or if it is ever coming.

Comments

Google Presents PowerPoint Alternative

You’ll see something different when clicking New in Google Docs. The option to create a presentation with Google’s online suite has been on the radar since Google disclosed it in April 2007, confirming an earlier rumor about it posted to Google Operating System.

People have the option of creating new presentations with the slide editor in Google Docs. The technology comes from a blend of companies Google acquired for their slide-based innovations.

As noted on the official Google blog, presentations and collaboration go hand in hand with this new product:

When it’s time to present, participants can simply click a link to follow along as the presenter takes the audience through the slideshow. Participants are connected through Google Talk and can chat about the presentation as they’re watching.

The debut of presentations gives Google another point on which they and Capgemini can compete with Microsoft for certain segments of enterprise workers. Google’s deal with Capgemini gives it access to a lot of people working for units managed by the IT outsourcer.

Matt Cutts pointed out a discovery he and others discovered while chatting about Nathan Weinberg’s experiments with the new presentation software.

“We figured out that you can embed a presentation on a web page using an iframe,” said Matt. “I have no idea what the security implications are, so don

Still, where there’s smoke there’s fire and the Inquirer has plenty of smoke…

Google is presently touring publishing houses to show Presently, so even if they make hacks sign an infuriatingly Web 1.0 non-disclosure agreement, an announcement can?t be far off.

As a Google Apps user, I’m excited that one day I can finally uninstall Microsoft Office.

Comments

There’s not point heading over to the Zenter site for information on the product, as you’ll be greated with a simple message explaining the company has been acquired by Google. Interestingly, you can’t even check the cache for the old site, as Google has learnt this is the first place us marketers check, and have therefore updated the cache too.

Here’s what we’ve pieced together from the web.

Via an old TechCrunch review…

Zenter is an web based presentation app that promises to really take advantage of being online. Users will have the regular functionality of PowerPoint, but with the ability to directly add content from the web (Google Images). Each public slide show will also be put into a public library, for other users to remix or just drop into their show.

And in March Business 2.0 had this to say…

“We want to be the Gmail of PowerPoint,” says co-founder Wayne Crosby. Well, so does everyone else. So  what sets this online presentation tool apart?

 

Zenter’s coolest features are support for live broadcasts, use of fonts without plug-ins, and the ability to drag and drop images, charts and content directly from any site. Zenter also imports PowerPoint files and allows users to  control who they share files with.

Referring to yourself as the “Gmail of PowerPoint” was a surefire way to get yourself acquired by Google! Now, just remember, Google is not looking to compete with Microsoft Office, despite the fact that they now have all of the components to do so!

Comments

Presumably, this takes advantage of features developed for Google Docs’ upcoming Google Presentations software, which is supposed to release sometime this summer, or even uses some of the tech acquired from Tonic Systems earlier this year.

Perhaps someone at Google could explain why they don’t support Microsoft Office 2007 formats yet, either for previewing or sending to Google Docs, when the beta was released over a year ago, and the software has been sold since November? This screenshot should have links to View As HTML and Open as a Google Document, as shown in Ionut Alex’s screenshot of what Gmail does with .DOC files, but Gmail doesn’t support .DOCX yet. Why not? There’s been plenty of time.

Comments

 What happens is that whenever someone sends you a PowerPoint attachment, you can instantly open it in a new browser window by clicking “view as slideshow” to then go through the pages via the arrow buttons on top. (You can also right-click the slideshow, which is Flash-based, to open a context-menu which allows you to automatically play the presentation, among other features.)

Google already supports web previews for Word documents and Excel sheets as part of their Google Docs & Spreadsheets program. You can see the pattern here – with every new instant preview, users have less reason to actually buy Microsoft Office. (Naturally, Google’s tools are far from a full replacement so far, but there may still be users out there who don’t need all MS Office features, but just got MS Office because they want to open all those files they’re receiving.) And while at this time, Google doesn’t allow you to actually edit & create slideshows, they did announce that such a presentation tool would come by this summer.

At the moment, there are no ads to be seen in the new slideshow window (neither are there ads next to the Google Docs or Spreadsheets file you’re editing). But perhaps in some years, we’ll see context-sensitive ads being rolled out for Google’s office suite. The privacy implications – or rather non-implications, for most part – would be similar to what happened when Gmail released context-aware ads: some people will be worried that Google now “reads your presentations,” even though they already do the moment you’re sending something through or storing it at their server.

Ongoing comments

[Thanks Orli Yakuel, Raghu and David Hetfield!]

Tag: