We’ve searched long and hard for a comprehensive tool that
would run Powerpoint presentations on iPad devices. In particular we were looking for something
that could run non-linear presentations – presentations where you could jump
between slides that weren’t necessarily in sequential order. We thought we had something when we came
across SlideShark but while this was a sleek and handy product, without the ability to run
non-sequential presentations it isn’t everything we hoped it would be.
Using SlideShark
Using SlideShark is very easy. You sign up for a free account at www.slideshark.com and download the free
app on your iPad. Then you can upload
Powerpoint presentations to your online account from your PC or you can import
them straight into the SlideShark app on your iPad if you have the presentation
file attached to an email. Files are
converted to an iPad-optimized format almost immediately.
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| SlideShark.com User Account Interface |
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| iPad SlideShark App Interface |
When you start the app on your iPad it connects with your
online account, letting you choose which presentations you want to synchronize
between your online account and your iPad.
Once you’ve downloaded a presentation it is stored on your iPad and you
can use it even when you’re offline.
The SharkSlide website promises that the product preserves
animations, fonts, graphics and colours although there is some fine print that
“Some PowerPoint features not supported.”
Here is a comparison of what we put together in PowerPoint and how it
rendered in the SlideShark app on an iPad2:
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| PowerPoint 2003 Slideshow |
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| iPad2 SlideShark Slideshow |
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| PowerPoint 2003 Slideshow |
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| iPad2 SlideShark Slideshow |
The graphics converted beautifully and most of the fonts
did, too, however you can see from the fonts screenshots that the ‘Adobe
Fangsong’ font didn’t convert perfectly and the ‘Blackoak Std’ and ‘Rosewood
Std Regular’ fonts didn’t convert at all.
The animations rendered equally well on the SlideShark
app. Our testing included animating
textboxes with the fade, wipe and fly in animations and all converted
perfectly. The app also provides some
interesting features, including starting at any slide in the presentation,
hiding slides and using an on-screen pointer.
The app features a helpful tutorial that is shown as, fittingly enough,
a presentation.
There are several account options mostly based on the amount
of storage space you need in your account. The free account provides 100MB of storage but
you can upgrade to an additional 500MB for $49 per year or an additional 1GB
for $98 per year. There is also a team
account which allows team collaboration, usage analytics and up to 5GB of
storage among other things.
The Verdict
We liked the SharkSlide application and will happily add it
our repertoire of tools. However, the
biggest feature that we were looking for, the ability to jump to slides that
weren’t the next in order, wasn’t supported.
We’ll definately keep an eye on this app and hopefully one day the good
folks at Brainshark, Inc. will add that Holy Grail feature that will complete
this package.
Got something to say?
Leave a comment below, we’d love to hear from you! Got a question that we can address on our
blog? Contact us through our website or
email me directly and we’ll put our crack team to work and let you know when we
post a reply.
Steve Hartley, Managing Partner
Fering Communications, Inc.
Website: www.feringcommunications.com
Email: steve.hartley@feringcommunications.com
