Acrobat 9 includes a snazzy new tool integrated into PowerPoint called Adobe Presenter. You don’t have to be a Flash wizard to use Presenter to produce multimedia presentations, learning materials, and even surveys and standards-compliant quizzes. Once you’re done, the same project can be used as a PDF file, on a Web page, or as a stand-alone in SWF format, or it can be published to your Acrobat Connect Pro server.
Presenter offers its own program icon and menu item in your program listings, but it isn’t a stand-alone program. Instead, it is installed as a menu in PowerPoint, just like the PDFMaker installed in Office (Windows) programs.
A Presenter workflow requires several components, including these:
Constructing the base PowerPoint presentation used for the Presenter project
Specifying how the presentation functions, through options such as playback and quiz interactions
Defining the viewer interface for the presentation through its theme and text
Adding Presenter features, such as audio narration and video, to the slides
Testing and publishing the project as PDF, as SWF, or for use in Acrobat Connect Pro
Presenter isn’t installed or activated with other Acrobat 9 Pro Extended components, such as LiveCycle Designer or Acrobat Distiller. Instead, it has its own installation option on the Acrobat 9 Pro Extended installation screen. Click Install Adobe Presenter and follow the prompts. The first time you open it, you have to register the product. If you don’t register it, Presenter runs in trial mode for 30 days.
You can build the Presenter publication over your underlying PowerPoint publication at any stage of development—whether you start a new publication from scratch or open an existing slide show.
Tip
To save time when configuring Presenter settings, it’s quickest to have the set of slides created and the basic titling finished. That way, when you select some of the configuration options, you won’t have to guess at settings.
To get under way, open your presentation in PowerPoint and then choose Adobe Presenter > Presentation Settings to open the four-tab dialog (Figure 63).
Use the settings in the dialog to configure the presentation features:
In the Appearance tab, change the publication appearance:
Type an alternate title for your presentation if you don’t want to use the default title, which is the PowerPoint file’s name.
Type a summary for the presentation to describe its purpose and contents. If you use your presentation on Adobe Connect Pro, the summary is shown with other presentation data; in a PDF or local presentation, the summary isn’t used.
To configure the appearance and function of the SWF interface, select and edit a theme. Read about using themes in #64, “Specifying a Theme.”
In the Playback tab, choose settings for playing the presentation:
Select “Auto play on start” to have the presentation begin immediately after loading. Otherwise the user has to click the Play button on the presentation’s interface to start the presentation.
Presenter runs the presentation once and then stops by default; if you want it to loop—like presentations used in a kiosk or public display—select Loop presentation.
Select “Include slide numbers in outline” if you want to include slide numbers in the Outline pane of the presentation (a handy option for different presenters with varying levels of familiarity with the content).
If you want the presentation to stop after a slide’s animation is complete, choose “Pause after each animation.” That way, a viewer has time to make notes or check out the finished slide before continuing.
Slides display according to the length of their audio or video; for slides without media, specify a display time in seconds. The default is 5 seconds.
In the Quality tab, choose image and audio qualities based on how you intend to use the presentation.
Click the Publish For drop-down arrow and choose from My Computer, Adobe Connect Pro, or Adobe PDF to automatically optimize the levels, or select the options manually.
Select the Control Preloading check box, and choose either “Download slides completely before playback” or “Disable preloading of embedded Flash content,” based on your presentation’s characteristics. Read about the differences in the sidebar “To Preload or Not to Preload: That Is the Question.”
Save some time configuring future projects by selecting the “Use these settings for new presentations” check box.
In the Attachments tab, select and add files to attach to the presentation. Click Add to open the Add Attachment dialog, where you can locate content such as spreadsheets or charts that you want to provide with the presentation. An attachment can be either a file or a link—to discover how to use links and attachments, check out #66, “Including Attachments.”
Once you’ve finished modifying the settings, click OK to close the dialog.
Create slide titles to give users easy access to any slide. Check that titles appear in the PowerPoint outline for all slides, including graphic-only slides, before publishing your presentation.
Presenter publications show a presentation running inside a customizable interface called a theme. You can customize features such as color, tab display, graphics, fonts, and interface functionality. Once you have chosen, customized, or created a theme, save it for reuse.
Adobe Presenter uses a default green-colored presentation theme named Sage, but you can alter it. Open your presentation in PowerPoint and then follow these steps:
Choose Adobe Presenter > Presentation Settings. Click Theme Editor to open the dialog shown in Figure 64a.
Choose a theme to start customizing from the Theme pop-up menu. The new theme appears in the preview window.
Change Appearance options as desired:
Click the color swatch for different interface elements to open color pickers and choose custom or branding colors.
Click Modify Text Labels to change the text in different areas of the theme, such as the field names in the Search tab or the label assigned to a quiz score. You can’t change the column headings “Slide Title” and “Duration” on the Outline pane.
Click Background Image > Change to open a dialog where you can locate and select a JPEG image to use as the background behind the slides, playbar, and toolbar.
Choose a font and size from the Notes Pane Font pop-up menus.
To select Customize options, do one of the following:
Click the Enable Mode Switching check box, and select either Default or Fullscreen from the Display pop-up menu to offer users optional presentation sizes.
Customize the Loading Text
By default, Presenter displays a loading screen that reads “Adobe Presenter” while your presentation is loading.
Personalize the presentation with your business name or other text on the loading screen instead. Open a presentation in PowerPoint, and save and publish the presentation to your computer to copy the files locally.
To change the text for a presentation, follow these steps:
In Windows Explorer, locate this folder: c:Documents and Settings [user name]My DocumentsMy Adobe Presentations[PresentationName]data.
Open the vconfig.xml file in an XML editor or Notepad.
Scroll down about one-half page to the
<language id="en">section, and type this code on a blank line, inserting your custom text as the value:<uitext name="ADOBE_PRESENTER" value= "Insert Your Custom Text"/>
Save and close the vconfig.xml file.
Open the index.htm Web page holding the presentation, located at c:Documents and Settings [user name]My DocumentsMy Adobe Presentations [PresentationName]. When the page opens, view your custom text as the presentation loads.
Specify a location for the sidebar. Click the Location pop-up menu and choose Right or Left.
To customize the content shown at the upper right of the sidebar, select and deselect the Presenter Info check boxes.
Select and deselect the panes you want to show in the presentation; choose a pane to display as the default from the Default pop-up menu.
When you’ve finished, click Save as, and type a name for your custom theme in the dialog that displays. Click OK to save the theme and include it in the Theme list for future use (Figure 64b).
Click OK to close the Theme Editor and return to the Presentation Settings dialog. Notice how the theme you’ve customized is now shown in the Themes area of the dialog, and the label displays as “My Current Theme.” Click OK to dismiss the dialog and return to your project.
In order to see the changes you’ve made to the theme live, you have to publish the presentation. See how in #69, “Previewing and Publishing.”
In addition to adding existing audio files, you can record your own audio files to use in Presenter presentations. Recorded files are saved in MP3 format.
To record audio, choose Adobe Presenter > Record Audio and read the test message. When the Input Level shows OK, click OK to open the Record Audio dialog (Figure 65a). Using the controls on the dialog, add and review audio to use for your presentation.
Consider these tips to ensure that you are recording the best audio possible:
Specify the audio recording quality. Choose Adobe Presenter > Preferences > Quality. Select from CD Quality (highest) to Low Bandwidth (lowest). Balance the required quality against the file size; the higher the quality, the greater the file size.
Preview the audio as you record it in the Audio Editor. You can also preview later from the PowerPoint window. Choose Adobe Presenter > Edit Audio > View > Slide Show to display the Edit Audio window overlaying the presentation slides.
Use video you import from other locations, or record and customize it directly through Adobe Presenter—perfect for adding those talking head features to your presentation:
Choose Adobe Presenter > Capture Video to open the Capture Video dialog. Choose the slide to link to, select your device and quality, and click Record. Click Stop to stop, and review by clicking Play. When finished, click Save to open a dialog where you name the file and choose a storage location.
Select the slide where you want to add the video, and choose Adobe Presenter > Import Video to open a dialog. Select the video to import, click Open, and wait while the file is processed. You’ll see a white box overlaying the slide on which the video is placed.
Regardless of the method you use for bringing video into a presentation, you can edit it via Adobe Presenter. Here’s how:
Select Adobe Presenter > Edit Video to open the dialog (Figure 65b).
To preview the clip, click Play
; click Stop/Pause 
to stop the preview.Adjust the length of the clip by dragging the start and end markers in from the edges of the playbar if desired.
Specify other features for the video:
Choose how to play video by selecting the slide or sidebar option.
Choose a Fade or Speed option from the Effects pull-down menu.
Choose when to play the video by selecting an option from the Start After pop-up menu. You can indicate a time delay, or specify that the movie start after the slide’s animation or audio.
To edit another slide’s video, choose the slide’s name from the Edit on pop-up list (Figure 65c).
Continue until you’ve finished your edits, and then click OK to close the dialog.
Save the file. To view the video, you can either render the project or choose View > Slideshow from the PowerPoint menu.
Last—but certainly not least—add Flash SWF and FLV (Flash video) to your presentation for some extra interest and excitement, following these steps:
Select Adobe Presenter > Insert Flash. Locate and select the SWF file.
In the Import Options, choose a slide from the Import On pop-up menu, and specify whether to add the content as a slide or sidebar animation.
Click Open to dismiss the Insert Flash dialog, and add your SWF to the slide, positioned at the center. Click and drag to reposition the file if you like.
Repeat the process to insert other content on other slides.
Just as you can attach all sorts of files to a PDF document (check out #24, “Attaching Source Files to a PDF” for details) you can attach PDF files, documents, spreadsheets, other presentations, Flash files, and so on to your presentation.
Follow these steps to add attachments to your presentation:
Choose Adobe Presenter > Publish Settings > Attachments and click Add to open the Add Attachment dialog (Figure 66a).
Add a description for the attachment.
In the Type pop-up menu, select File or Link—click Browse to locate and select a file to attach, or type the URL in the text box to attach a link.
Click OK to close the dialog and list the attachment in the dialog.
Click Add again, and attach other files as required.
When the presentation is rendered, click Attachments 
in the Add Attachment dialog to see the list of content attached or linked to the presentation (Figure 66b).
Rather than attaching files, you can add links to online resources or Connect Pro Server storage locations. Adobe Presenter treats hyperlinks attached to text on slides as a type of attachment. For example, you could create a link from text on a slide to a spreadsheet, following these steps:
Display the slide where you want to add the link, and select the link text.
Right-click and choose Hyperlink from the shortcut menu to open the Insert Hyperlink dialog.
Specify the settings for the hyperlink, including the file location, a tooltip, and so on. Click OK to close the dialog and return to the slide.
The text now shows a hyperlink, as well as a tooltip, if you specified one in the dialog (Figure 66c). Clicking the link opens the hyperlinked document in another window.
In case of link issues, be sure to read the sidebar “Testing, Testing, 1-2-3.”
Use the Quiz Manager to—you guessed it—manage quizzes added to a Presenter publication. You can add one or more quizzes, each having numerous questions, all without writing a single line of JavaScript.
The structure of a quiz is complex, and it’s based on a hierarchy of relationships and values that make up a learning management system (LMS). Whether you are writing content for a formal e-learning experience or gathering opinions from fellow garden club members, the Quiz Manager takes care of the relationships for you invisibly. All you have to do is select the question types, their content, and their outcomes.
Before you dive into quiz construction, take a few minutes to process some terms and concepts key to using the Quiz Manager effectively:
Quiz boundary. The Quiz Manager encases all the slides in a quiz within an invisible boundary. For example, the quiz shown in Figure 67 includes five slides in the quiz, although there are only three questions—the quiz boundaries include the instruction slide and the thank-you slide.
Quiz. One presentation can have one or more quizzes. Each is a named container that holds the individual questions. The Quiz Manager can assign an Objective ID to a quiz to coordinate with an objective in your learning management system.
Questions. The actual interactions your viewers perform. Each question is given an Interaction ID.
Responses. The selection of possible answers for a question. Each may be assigned a value, and the correct responses can vary.
Other features not identified in Figure 67, but important in many types of quizzes, include the following:
Question group. Often, a quiz displays different questions in different orders to different users. In Presenter, all your questions make up a question group; you decide how many questions are used in the quiz presented to your user. For example, you may have a question group containing 30 questions, and specify a subset of 20 questions for the actual quiz.
Report and feedback. Tracking responses, called reporting, lets you track the number of attempts, whether or not the responses were correct, and if the results are a pass/fail. You can specify the feedback given to quiz-takers based on their responses. If you are involved in a formal education system, reporting data can be sent to Connect Pro Server or other LMS.
To customize the content further and make your e-learning more specific, branching lets you specify what happens when a user answers a question. For example, if a user answers a question incorrectly, you can have the presentation return to a review slide followed by a review quiz, and return to the main quiz; a right answer moves the user to the next question in the main quiz.
You don’t have to organize the presentation to include slides for the quiz. A new slide is added automatically for each new question you build in the Quiz Manager using the PowerPoint master slide template to configure its appearance. Writing your quiz has two parts: configuring the way the quiz functions, and adding the actual quiz questions.
The Question Is ...
Adobe Presenter offers six types of questions you can use in your quiz design. Here are their program buttons and short descriptions:
Multiple choice: Users choose one or more correct answers from a list.
True/False: Users choose from two options.
Fill-in-the-blanks: Users complete a statement by typing a response or choosing one from a list.
Short answer: Users write a response to an open-ended question like “What’s your favorite aspect of the Zoom5000 hybrid scooter?”
Matching: Users match content among items in two lists.
Likert: Users agree or disagree with statements on a sliding scale, the type of question you often see in consumer surveys.
To get a quiz set up using the default quiz included in Presenter, follow these steps:
Open the presentation (or create and save a new one) in PowerPoint.
Choose Adobe Presenter > Quiz Manager to open the dialog, which lists a default quiz named “Quiz.” Click Edit to open the Quiz Settings dialog (Figure 68a).
Change the name of the quiz if you like, and select an option from the Required pop-up menu to define the level of user interaction (see the sidebar “What’s the Rule?” for information on the options).
Select the functional characteristics for the quiz, such as whether users can go backward in the quiz, if they can review the quiz, if they can see their score, and so on. Choose options to shuffle content in the questions and answers, and to display the name of the question slide in the Presenter outline or in a simple Quiz label.
Click the Pass or Fail Options tab and choose options for two criteria:
Choose how to show the passing score, such as a percentage or number correct, in the Pass/Fail scoring area.
Choose actions for the presentation that occur in response to both passing and failing grades. For example, when users pass the quiz, give them the option of moving to the next slide to continue the presentation. Specify criteria for failing a quiz (such as the number of attempts) and how the presentation is to continue. For example, choose an action to go to a slide that allows users to branch out into remedial lessons.
Click OK to close the Quiz dialog, and return to the main Quiz Manager dialog. Now you’re ready to add some questions!
In the Quiz Manager, follow these steps to add your quiz questions:
Click Add Question to open the Question Types dialog and choose a question type to display the New [question type] dialog. (Read about the different questions in the sidebar “The Question Is ...”)
In the Question pane of the dialog, type a name and the content of the question in the appropriate fields at the top of the dialog.
Click Add to activate a response field, and type an answer to include the response in the Answers section of the dialog. Depending on the question type, continue typing responses and adding them to the Answers list (Figure 68b).
Select the Options tab, and specify whether or not the answers are graded, as well as actions for right or wrong answers (such as moving to another slide, opening a URL, or playing an audio clip).
Select the Reporting tab and specify whether to report the answer. In this tab, you’ll see the ID numbers assigned to the quiz and the question by Presenter.
Continue adding questions to your quiz as required. When you’ve finished, you’ll see them listed in the Quiz Manager (Figure 68c).
Click OK to close the dialog and return to the presentation. The quiz questions are configured and added automatically. Save the presentation to store your quiz.
You’ve assembled, configured, colored, quizzed, organized, recorded, animated, and, yes, spell checked. Before you publish your masterpiece, take a few minutes and check out the flow of your presentation. Choose Adobe Presenter > Slide Manager to open the Slide Manager dialog (Figure 69a).
In the Slide Manager, review features you’ve set in individual slides in PowerPoint, as well as settings chosen in the Presenter Settings dialog (described in the sidebar “Check Your Info”). You can make individual modifications, or select multiple slides to quickly change properties on a group of slides. When you’ve finished checking, click OK to close the Slide Manager.
Tip
Rather than opening the Slide Manager from the Adobe Presenter menu, you can click the Slide Manager button in the Publish Presentation dialog, shown in Figure 69b.
Decide how you want to distribute your work. Presenter offers several publishing options, including the following:
My Computer, to render the project and store it in a location you specify on your hard drive. Choose from either a zip package or a CD package:
Use the zip package to compress all the presentation files into a zip file that you can send to a colleague for review. You have to manually locate the files on your hard drive to preview the presentation.
Make a Quick Preview
You don’t have to wait until you’ve finished your presentation to check out how it looks. Click View Show
in the View buttons at the bottom of the PowerPoint program window to run your slide show. To evaluate your presentation within its SWF interface, choose one of the My Computer or Adobe PDF options in the Publish Presentation dialog. Click View output after publishing to automatically open the project in a Web browser (if you choose the My Computer CD package choice) or in Acrobat 9 or Adobe Reader 9 (if you choose the Adobe PDF choice).Use the CD package to produce files you can burn to a CD. The files include an autorun feature, which starts the presentation automatically.
Adobe Connect Pro, to render the project and store it in a specified server location. You can also select whether to upload the source presentation and its components, such as audio, video, and attachments.
Adobe PDF, to render the project as a SWF file embedded in a PDF document.
Here’s how to publish your presentation as a PDF document:
Open your presentation in PowerPoint, and choose Adobe Presenter > Publish to display the Publish Presentation dialog (Figure 69b).
Click Adobe PDF at the left of the dialog to display the settings.
Click Choose to open a browse dialog to select the location where you want to store the publication. Type a name for the file, and click Save to close the dialog and return to the Publish Presentation dialog.
Select “View output after publishing” to open the PDF file after it is processed.
Click Publish. The content is processed, rendered as a SWF, and embedded in a PDF file.
View and interact with the finished presentation. The PDF publication requires Adobe Reader 9 or Acrobat 9 to view.