The Showroom Setup Guide

A PresenterNet Publication © 2008 © 2004 PresenterNet

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On-Demand Showroom Setup Guide Table of Contents Basic Setup

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Advanced Setup

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Login Screen and Notification Email

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Auto-Play and Slide Delay Settings

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Background Music

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

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Optional Web Site Embedding for Showrooms

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Voice Narration for PowerPoint Slides

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Basic Showroom Setup Instructions To set up your On-Demand Showroom for basic operations, log into PresenterNet, and click ROOM SETUP to enter settings in the SHOWROOM CONFIGURATION area.

1. Enter a name for the Showroom. This name will be part of the Web address for visitors. For example, the Showroom named "testdemo" above will be accessed at http://testdemo.presenternet.com. 2. Entries in the TITLE box are optional. The title shown above "Always Easy PresenterNet" would be constantly displayed immediately above the Showroom screen. 3. Open the dropdown box for PRESENTATION, to see a list of all library presentations, and select the one to be posted. 4. Click UPDATE ROOM DATA

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Advanced Setup Click the plus ( + ) sign under ADVANCED to further define your Showroom operation. The Advanced Setup area of the Showroom defines several different functions, including: •

Creating an optional login screen to require visitors to enter information before entering.

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Requesting a notification email for every visitor login.

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Setting up auto-play, and the timing delays between slides

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Choosing background music and setting its controls

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

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Optional Web site embedding for Showrooms

Creating an Optional Login Screen: On-Demand Showrooms may be open to the public like a traditional Web site, or login may be require visitors to enter specific information as shown below.

To control login with settings within the Advanced Showroom Parameters area, click the checkbox for each required item.

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If a password is required, enter the specific characters in the PASSWORD space. If a custom field is required (e.g. student #, invite #, etc.) enter the name in the CUSTOM FIELD LABEL space. If the first slide is to be displayed behind the login screen as pictured above, click SHOW FIRST SLIDE DURING LOGIN. If this is not checked, the login screen will appear on a white background. To receive an email with each guest login, check EMAIL ME WHEN A GUEST LOGS IN and enter the email address to receive the notifications. Click UPDATE ROOM DATA.

Auto-Play and Slide Delay Settings: Showroom setup offers a choice between automatic advance of slides or having slides advanced by a visitor clicking the advance arrow.

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If DELAY BETWEEN SLIDES is set at 0 as shown (at red arrow) slides will require the visitor to click to advance to the next slide.

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If DELAY BETWEEN SLIDES is set at any number of seconds other than 0, the Showroom slide advance will wait until all animations, audio files, and videos have been executed, and then delay for the number of seconds set before automatically switching to the next slide.

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For a slide show that changes rapidly to create a video-like effect, the delay can be set as short as .01 seconds.

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If any slide requires a delay shorter or longer than the setting, it can have an individual custom setting. To create a custom setting for any slide, click POWERSLIDES, locate the individual slide, and click the YELLOW PENCIL ICON to enter the PowerSlides editor.

In the space indicated (red arrow) on the following page, enter the required delay for this individual slide. Note: If some slides contain InterActors requiring time for a user response, the master delay under Showroom Configuration may be set at 0, and each slide can have a custom delay set under the PowerSlides editor. This enables a setup in which interactive slides require a visitor to provide an onscreen response, and then click the forward arrow to resume automatic advance for slides that follow.

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Background Music: Any Showroom can be set up to play music as a background to a slide show. The music becomes part of the Showroom, and is not embedded in any presentations. This permits users to change presentations while using the same background music until the music needs to be changed or muted. Users can select MP3 music files to be played in a Showroom immediately after uploading. As illustrated on the following page, Showroom setup also provides control settings to optimize background music usage.

To setup background music: 1. Browse and select an MP3 file with background music. 2. Enter a percentage number for the desired music volume. Select and test a level appropriate to any voice narration levels embedded in the presentation. A typical music level to be compatible with narrated voice is approximately 50 percent. 3. Enter a number of times that the uploaded music is to be repeated in BACKGROUND SOUND LOOPS. This is typically the number of repetitions required to ensure that music is present for the duration of an auto-play presentation. However, interactive presentations that may require an indeterminate time span may set music to repeat indefinitely. In this situation, set BACKGROUND LOOPS to 999 so that music will continue as long as Showroom remains open. 4. Click UPDATE ROOM DATA

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Users can set the Showroom to be scanned and indexed by search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. As illustrated on the following page, ROOM SETUP/ADVANCED provides for entry of information to be picked up by these search engines, including keywords, descriptions and descriptions.

Users can enter keywords—either individual words, or multi-word phrases—that are likely to be searched and uniquely associated with the Short Description and Long Description that follow. The Short Description of up to 250 characters may comprise the opening words listed by search engines. The Long Description can state the substance of the presentation and helps search engine software to calculate a score that determines the listing level to be assigned.

Web site Embedding for Showrooms: Showrooms may be embedded on company Web sites, as well as public sites like MySpace, Facebook, etc. In this kind of operation, the Showroom player becomes an element of the site, while the actual slides are linked transparently from the user's PresenterNet online library.

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Following is the two-step process for embedding the Showroom player on any Web site. 1. From ROOM SETUP/SHOWROOM CONFIGURATION/ADVANCED, select a size that will fit appropriately on the target Web page. PresenterNet provides buttons to select one of four standard sizes. It's also possible to create a custom size, though it must maintain the standard aspect ratio (height-width proportion). 2. Click SELECT ALL TEXT, copy and paste as required by the target Web page. The text provided in this area will point back to link to the PresenterNet library.

Voice Narration for PowerPoint Slides Users add voice narration to their slides in PowerPoint, before uploading. To ensure effective results, voice narrated slides must meet two important criteria. •

Voice files must be EMBEDDED not linked from an external file location. PowerPoint may place audio files to be linked externally unless users uncheck the setting that links them.

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Voice narration must be recorded so that each segment is fully contained in an individual slide. This means that the speaker must press the ESC (escape) key after completing the speech portion of each slide.

PowerPoint varies slightly according to the version used. The following instructions are for the most commonly used version.

1. In PowerPoint, go to SLIDE SHOW and select RECORD NARRATION.

2. Set the audio quality to RADIO QUALITY or ADVANCED. (Note RADIO QUALITY will produce smaller, more efficient slides.)

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3. Leave the LINK NARRATIONS box unchecked. (Note unchecked box with red underline in the preceding graphic.) 4. Click OK and speak into the microphone to record narration for the first slide. 5. Press Esc (escape) after you finish the narration for the selected slide. 6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for each slide. 7. PowerPoint slides with embedded voice will be very large. PresenterNet will compress them for efficient playback. However, we recommend that you limit the voice narration to 1-2 minutes per slide to ensure that you do not violate limits of PowerPoint files before we compress them. 8. After the slide is converted and uploaded into your online PresenterNet library, select it as your Showroom presentation. Go to the ROOM SETUP tab, and change the presentation in the dropdown box under SHOWROOM CONFIGURATION. 9. Save the room changes.

Additional tips:

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You have the option in your Showroom of having slides advanced by the viewer clicking the advance arrow, or automatic advance after a preset delay. If you do not set the delay, it’s a good practice to tell the viewer to click the advance arrow.

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To set a Showroom for auto advance, go to ROOM SETUP, click the plus ( + ) sign for ADVANCED settings and set the delay to any number of seconds greater than zero, as indicated in the first attached picture. If there are no embedded narrations, a consistent delay time (e.g. 10 seconds) may leave enough time for the viewer to read and understand the slide. This varies depending on the expected audience and the amount of information on the longest slides.






For additional help on using PresenterNet, please send email to [email protected] or call us at 949.309.2408 Ext 1.

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