The following points answer commonly asked questions about the Presentations module of Live Documents. For any other questions on Live Documents, please drop us a line at info@instacoll.com

What is Live Documents Presentations?

Live Documents Presentations is a browser-based application that gives you the capabilities of presentation tools like Microsoft PowerPoint and Open Office Impress within a browser.

I already have Microsoft PowerPoint. Why should I use Live Documents Presentations?

With Live Documents, you can:

• Access your presentations on the web using any common browser
• View and edit your presentations from anywhere at any time in your browser in a rich user interface that provides the functionality and responsiveness that you expect in your familiar desktop applications.
• Easily share your presentations with your colleagues and contacts
• Make presentations from anywhere without having to worry about PowerPoint version compatibility
• Track changes made to your presentation at a slide level - no need to upload or download entire presentations each time anyone makes a change.

How does Live Documents Presentations work?

Live Documents Presentations is a browser-based application built using Flash that looks and feels like Microsoft PowerPoint but lives within a browser. Using any common browser that supports Flash, you can view and edit your presentations from anywhere.

Does Live Documents have all the features of Microsoft Powerpoint?

Live Documents has most, if not, all of the capabilities of Microsoft PowerPoint. Our goal is to provide all the features of PowerPoint 2007 - we already support several PowerPoint 2007 capabilities such as live preview.

Does Live Documents compete with Microsoft PowerPoint?

Live Documents extends and embraces Microsoft PowerPoint - it extends the power of these productivity applications to the browser and if you choose to, embeds collaborative capabilities into your existing desktop applications. But unlike Microsoft PowerPoint, Live Documents gives you the choice and flexibility of working with and sharing your presentations without having to worry about operating systems, document formats or version compatibility.

Can I upload my existing presentations to Live Documents? What file formats do you support?

Yes, you can upload your existing presentations into Live Documents. Live Documents supports a variety of file formats - ppt, pps, odp & sxi. Support for pptx will be available shortly. Please note that unsupported shapes and objects such as charts and tables are converted into images. You might also observe some fidelity loss if your presentation graphics/objects contain gradient or transparency effects.

Are there any upload limits?

Each presentation you upload (import) into Live Documents should be less than 3 MB. This limit will be raised further in future. There is no limit in the number of presentations that you can import but the total storage for your documents is 50 MB for the technology preview.

Can I create a presentation from scratch in Live Documents?

Yes, you can create a new presentation from scratch. Click on the "Create New Document" button on the dashboard or from the documents list at any point of time and get started.

Can an existing presentation be edited? Can slides be inserted, duplicated or deleted in an existing presentation?

Live Documents offers the full range of editing capabilities. All of your presentations can be edited. New slides can be inserted, existing slides can be edited and duplicated. Text boxes can be moved around, shapes & symbols can be resized and rotated.

Can everyone access my Live Documents presentations?

The presentations you create (or import into) Live Documents are all by default private. They will be accessible only to you and are protected by your Live Documents ID / password authentication. You can optionally share your presentation to other users by entering their e-mail addresses in the "Share" tab in the document listing at any point of time. You can specify what each person can do with the presentation.

Can I save or export a presentation made in Live Documents as a PowerPoint presentation?

Sure - only thing is that you do not have to explicitly export a document. By default, all documents have a desktop version automatically created - you can download this document version by clicking on the "Download" tab in the document listing screen or from the download button on the toolbar seen on top of the presentation application.

Do I have to download a document version each time the presentation is updated?

Nope, your desktop version of the document is always up-to-date. Just open any copy of a document in PowerPoint and the Live Documents plugin will merge all intermittent changes into the presentation.

Do I have to upload a document version each time the presentation is updated on the desktop?

Nope, all changes made to your presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint are automatically propagated to the browser version.

Do I need to be online to access my presentations?

You can access the document on your desktop at any point of time without requiring to be online - all changes that you make to your presentations are recorded locally and automatically sent to the server the next time you go online.

I'm going to present at a meeting hall where there is no or limited net connectivity. Can I use Live Documents there?

Yes, you can.You can access the desktop version of your document even when there is no internet connectivity.

Can I delete my presentations?

Yes, you can. You can delete a presentation from the document list by enabling the delete checkbox and clicking on delete. Please note that once you delete your presentation, the desktop versions of the document are rendered inaccessible as well.

Can I embed a Live Documents presentation in my blog or website?

Yes, you can. Live Documents provides you with a HTML code snippet which while embedded in your website or blog will display the presentation.

Can I share a presentation with my friends/colleagues? Can they edit my presentation?

Yes, you can share your presentation with others. And they can edit presentation as well (provide you have given them edit permission).

Can I print my Live Documents presentation?

Sorry, not possible at present. Print functionality is in the immediate list of to-dos for Live Documents and will be available soon.

Can I add notes to my presentation?

Yes, you can. Each slide can have notes added to it.

What formatting text options does Live Documents offer?

Live Documents offers many text formatting options. You can bold, italize, change font type, increase/decrease letter size, indent etc. Text boxes can be moved around by easy drag-and-drop too.

Can I embed images from my desktop into a Live Documents presentation?

Yes, you can. Click on the "Insert Image" icon from the Live Documents toolbar to select an image from your desktop. Once the image is uploaded, you can move and resize it as per your requirements.

Can I include bulleted/numbered lists?

Yes. Live Documents supports bulleted lists. Support for numbering is currently in development and will be available shortly.

Can shapes/flowcharts be inserted/created?

Yes. Live Documents has a wide variety of shapes & symbols from which you can choose from.

Does Live Documents offer readymade themes from which I can choose from?

The themes feature is currently in development and will be available shortly.

Can I have transitional effects between slides?

Live Documents offers a number of transitional effects between slides.

Does Live Documents support animation, video and sound?

Live Documents supports animations. Support for embedding video and sound is in our short-term roadmap and will be available shortly.

Can I embed URLs, YouTube clips in my Live Documents presentation? Can I embed charts (from Live Documents Sheet)?

This feature is currently in development and will be available shortly.

Can Live Documents support gradient and transparency effects?

Live Documents currently supports some effects like shadow and 3-D - other effects such as gradient and transparency are being developed.

Can I embed charts and tables in my Live Documents presentations?

Not currently - support for this feature is in development and will be available shortly. In the interim, charts and tables within uploaded documents are converted into images in the browser.

Is Live Documents available in other languages?

Currently, it's available in English only. We plan to add more languages in the future.

What is a 'technology preview'?

The term ‘technology preview' means this is the first version of the service that we release to invited members of the public. If you would like to be invited to the technology preview, please sign up using the "Get Invited" link at the top. We know that we still have a lot of work to do and we are working hard to refine and improve the service to ensure it meets your real-world needs. We expect to have a production-strength release before the first quarter of 2008.

What are the limitations of the technology preview?

Apart from the size restrictions, the technology preview round-trips only content between PowerPoint and Live Documents Presentations - features/aspects such as animations are not presevered/propagated. Also, shapes and objects that are grouped and/or unsupported are converted to images.