AV News Magazine | Page 47

AV News 194 - November 2013 Slide Styles are the final major new feature we have room to cover in this issue. You can Create your own styles or Import/Export Styles from/to other users. A set of ‘Basic’ Styles are included in PTE8 along with some ‘Complex’, ‘Image’ and ‘Text’ Styles. So what exactly is a Slide Style? It allows you to quickly perform a set ‘animation’ or ‘effect’ without needing to fully understand the process behind it, extremely useful for beginners or new users of PTE. Simply highlight an image(s) in the slide list and click on the ‘Slide Style’ button, then select the ‘Style’ you wish to apply. The button can be placed wherever you choose on the Toolbars in Setting/Preferences/Toolbars. You can set the ‘duration’ of the style using the speed slider or by typing in a time. Click ‘Apply’ and the selected style is applied to your images. Simple Styles only require a single image. Complex styles may require several images to make up the animation. An example is the ‘Cube Style’ which requires you to select 6 images. This then produces a rotating cube with your images on each face of the cube. Creating your own Styles can speed up a workflow, if there is a particular ‘animation’ or effect you use often. Something as simple as adding a Title that fades in on one slide and out on the next. By creating a Style to do this, you can simply apply it to future sequences and just amend the text, duration or position, without having to set it up from scratch each time. This new version of PicturesToExe has many improvements that help to speed up workflow and improve creativity within your sequences. Although still in Beta Testing, it is a stable version which is almost complete. Log onto the PTE Forum http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/ and download the latest beta so you can familiarise yourself with all the new features before the final version is released. Any small bugs that are still to be ironed out can then be reported and quickly fixed by the WnSoft team. Page 45