Lin Evans

If you mean perform a "zoom" on the slides so that they appear larger or smaller in the timeline display the answer is no. There is no way to scale the timeline slider or make the individual slides view larger or smaller. To perform a "zoom" on a slide itself requires the Objects and Animations screen and use of Keyframes. Zooms either happen over time via the first and subsequent keyframes or happen at the start of the slide via the bounding rectangle or "zoom" value from the "Animations" tab. Best regards, Lin

The absolutely "easiest" way is to use the "Customize Slide" feature to add your audio rather than adding through Project Options. This way each audio clip is assigned to its individual slide. Then after observing the time for the audio clip, click on the "Main" tab and match the time of the slide to the time of the audio. Use seconds if the slide runs for over one minute. That is 1:04 in the audio would equal 64 seconds in the Main Tab for slide display time. Then if you move the slides in their positions, the audio will accompany each slide and not be separated. You "may" have to slightly modify the display times for each slide to account for the transition times, but this is a minor task. Note: Doing it this way, the audio will not appear on the timeline, but this is inconsequential because it is "locked" to its individual slide. The "next easiest" way to approach this is to write down the actual time for each audio clip so that you have a log of the audio timings in the proper sequence. Next determine the amount of transition time you want between slides. Then simply set the time for each individual slide via the "Customize Slide" feature to correspond to the time of the audio for that slide plus the transition time. This should get you "very" close. The other way would be to go to the "timeline" view and visually "drag" each audio clip so that it "fits" within the visual display time for the particular associated slide. The "problem" with these last two methods is that the slide and the audio are not locked together.so that if you position a slide in a different place, you will need to move the audio. Best regards, Lin

Hi John, To add to David's explanation. It's a little unclear what you actually want to accomplish. If you could give a bit more detail it might help. If you simply want to change the size of the image on the screen, that is done in the objects and animations screen. Just click on the slide to highlight it from the opening PTE screen, then click on the Objects and Animations tab and look up at the top of your screen to the left of the "close" button. Click on the little blue box and from the drop down menu change the size of the display so you can see the bounding rectangle. 50% might be a good place to begin. Then you can size the image and position it on the screen from the default as desired. If you do not understand keyframing, I would suggest you go here for some tutorials: Keyframing can be used to zoom, size, position, etc., at any time during the display of a slide. Link to Tutorials Section of Forum Best regards, Lin

Hi Eric, No one can see your video because it's "Private." If you want people to be able to see it from your link but not make it "Public," then change it to "Unlisted." Lin

Hi Kess, Welcome back to the forum - I enjoyed your Audiobook very much. It has been many years since I heard the story of Little Red Riding Hood! Thank you!! Best regards, Lin

Hi Ralph, Welcome to the corps! Best regards, Lin

Hi Joanne, I think David's suggestion would be the way I would proceed. Create a mask in PTE or a PNG mask in Photoshop with a "feathered" top and/or bottom and the text will softly "appear" and disappear at the point of the feather. If you want to do it quickly, just put your text in a mask in PTE. Make the mask with a decent edge radius and drag the right and left side slightly beyond your image borders by holding down the shift key while dragging each side. This will give you a very soft entry and exit of the text and prevent disturbing the frame around your images and by dragging the sides beyond the periphery of the image the softening will not affect the text on the right or left should it be wide enough to be close to the edges of the images.. Best regards, Lin

Hi Joanne, There are more than two ways to do this. I'll cover two of them. One is easy and the other more difficult. Because PTE is a "slide" show program, actions are keyed to a single slide. So "text" can't really be shared among numerous slides in the slide list. In order to do this the first way, you must put the slides which you wish to appear behind the text in separate layers as "objects" and keyframe them in using opacity. The way you would proceed is to set the opacity for all except the first slide to zero then your "second" keyframe would "hold" the 100% opacity of the first slide until you wanted it to fade out. The third keyframe would set opacity on the main slide to zero and the next slide in the objects list's "second" keyframe (remember the first is set to zero) would hold the zero opacity while the third keyframe would determine the timing for fade in of the second slide. This sequencing would continue for as many slides as necessary to complete the scrolling of the text. The "slide" time would have to be sufficient for the fade-in, fade-out, fade-in, fade-out sequence of all slides. As you might assume, this is a bit complex. It's not "difficult," just will take some time to do. Now let's look at the "easy" way to accomplish the first goal. First determine how long you need for the text to scroll. Then determine how many slides you want to display and divide the time equally among them. For the time being, forget the text. Next create a simple show with the number of slides you want sequencing and the transitions you want to use between slides and create an HD "video" with PTE and export this brief "sllideshow" as an MP4 h.264 video. Next insert the video as the "slide" in your slideshow (let PTE convert it and insert the converted video). Next scroll the text while the video plays. This is the easiest and most efficient way to do what you have described. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, Two masks for the dream bubbles - just pasted the "solid" dream bubbles to a transparency, selected them with color select in Photoshop and painted them white then cropped individually for the two masks which perfectly fit the bubbles with transparency around. Saved as PNG's. The fire in the fireplace was also created inside another mask and the rest of the image including the fireplace was a photo. So for the exe, there are three videos and one still. Just a fun little project for the girl who owns the two kitty cats - LOL Best regards, Lin

Lin

Hi Bert, If I understand you correctly, you will initially show 50 thumbnail sized images and after some time, one of these will appear full size on screen or did you want the full sized image to "enlarge" from the thumbnail. Then that image will fade away and another will enlarge and so on until all 50 have been displayed? I assume you want to return to the 50 image grid between each full sized slide? Did you want this to be an auto-running show, or did you want the images to pop up when selected (mouse click) by the observer? The "random" part is not something which can be programmed "if" you want the thumbnail to enlarge to the full sized image. PTE has a "random" slide display, but there is no way to "link" this back to a "grid" of 50 images. If you could detail exactly what you want to happen, maybe some of us can help you with suggestions.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Jim, Superb collection and outstanding photography! Best regards, Lin

Hi Brian, Unless someone just happens to also have this template, there is little we can do to help. The only suggestion I would have is that "probably" Dom has an "ending" slide or two which completes the set and finishes off the animation. My suggestion would be to put at least one slide you want at the beginning and one at the end then just routinely add additional slides to get the animation to work, leave the last one or two then delete those you don't want. Generally, these type animations are done on a slide-by-slide basis so that there is no real "penalty" for having fewer or more slides. The only caveat would be that at the end and the beginning of the total animation sequence things are generally slightly different. So removing slides from the middle of the animation will probably have no effect. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jim, It's been a while since I looked at a 6.0 show, but the way it works now is that you simply go to Objects and Animations and remove the "Text Object" object from the slides you don't want the file name to appear on. I assume it probably worked the same way in 6.0. Best regards, Lin

Thanks!! Great information! Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, I suppose the down side would be if one wanted to take the show to a friend or relative and play it on their TV and couldn't be sure that it was compatible with a USB device. I think some of the earlier TV's had HDMI capability, but not USB and with the player I suppose one could connect it even though the TV had no internal video player. But as long as it was a question of spend the money for a player or spend it on a TV it would depend on their relative costs. If I could afford it, I would love to have one of the new Samsung 3D TV's with Active 3D. Here they start at about $800 for plasma and about $1000 for LED. Best regards, Lin

Hi David, Actually, any USB drive should work regardless of capacity as long as there is sufficient power from the TV's USB connect to drive it. I use a 750 Gigabyte Western Digital drive with my Samsung 40" LED TV and it works fine. It's "easier," however, if the drive doesn't have lots of folders which have to be navigated to get to the videos so an inexpensive and very small and light USB drive is ideal. Amazon has some for under $28 USD. Best regards, Lin

Hi Colin, It would be exceedingly difficult to "guess" about this. Perhaps the "best" way to compare times would be for several of us to use the identical file and each compile the same way. That "seems" exceedingly long to me, but rather than "guesstimate" why don't we pick a file which is a bit shorter and perhaps post the PTE file and several of us can perform the same operation then we can compare notes. I do know that the "speed" of the DVD and type of media play into the overall compile/burn time so we would need to all agree on a "type" for comparison. What you might do meanwhile is twofold, first check the write speed of your DVD (so many "X") and then compare to the speed of the media you are using. I suspect that the answer will be perhaps a combination of the actual media speed and the DVD writer speed, but we may not know until we can test with several operators. I know that I have widely different write times depending on whether I'm using one of my internal DVD drives or an external USB drive and also whether it's a "portable" combination burner such as my combo BluRay, DVD, CD writer (very, very slow) or one of my conventional CD/DVD internal writers. If there is a bottleneck, it's more likely to be there than with either your video card or your PC. Both appear more than adequate for optimal speed. What is the differential between "write time" to the MP4 and "burn time" for the DVD? If you have a PTE file which is somewhat smaller that you could post, perhaps several of us could burn a DVD and then post both the total time, and differentiate the MP4 write time from the actual burn time. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dawn, You don't need any further license to use Xara Web Designer, once you purchase it you can use it to make zillions of dollars and I hope you are so lucky! Like any normal software license, what you create "with" it is your intellectual property. Not to answer for Robert, but in case he doesn't get back quickly, I think his idea is very good. What he is suggesting is that you buy a small quantity or "rewritable" DVD's. There are essentially three types of DVD the DVD+ and DVD- types which are WORM (Write Once, Read Many) and the RW type which are rewritable. That is they act somewhat like a hard disk in that they can be erased and rewritten multiple times. So if your first attempt fails, the software will simply "erase" the DVD and you start over as if you were using a new blank but without making "coasters" (DVD's which have failed and are only good to set your coffee cup on).... When you go to the store to buy some more DVD's just tell the clerk you want "Re-writable" DVD's. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dawn, Just a couple things to consider. There are multiple ways to display your shows for others to see. The first way is to create an executable file in either Windows format or MacIntosh format and then zip the show and use either your own website or perhaps use Beechbrook (http://www.beechbrook.com) where Bill Hines has been so kind as to host shows from hundreds of users of PTE. At Beechbrook, you upload your zipped exe or native MacIntosh zipped files and links are provided which you can then give to friends who can download your shows and watch them on their computers. It's also very easy, if you have your own website, to use freeware FTP (File Transfer Protocol) software to upload your zipped files to your own server and provide your friends with a link to download and extract to watch on their own computer. The above are ways to display your executable slideshows. Now let's consider video either embedded on your own website or uploaded to Youtube, Facebook, or other social media site. Uploading to Youtube or Facebook is exceedingly simple. You establish an account with Youtube, output your slideshow in MP4 h.264 (just use the HD output feature in PTE) and upload to either Youtube or Facebook. Then provide your friends with the link and they can watch your slideshows by just clicking the link. Embedding your shows on a web page is not difficult, but there are several considerations which you will want to ponder. First, in general, when you embed your slideshow on your own website, it will "usually" need to be in less than HD format. That is most web hosts do not have the bandwidth to easily support HD formats without lots of "start, stop, etc." This means that to watch your show in real time in High Definition such as 1080p or 720p format, the viewer will have to wait extended periods for the show to download because of bandwidth bottlenecks. So generally, for embedding shows on your own website, it's best to use 800x600 or smaller format so that the show can be watched without undue delay. Because Youtube and Facebook have greater bandwidth and faster servers, this is not always a problem. Sometimes, depending on the time of day and server loading, even Youtube can be sluggish. The "easiest" way to embed your videos on your own server is to buy a reasonably inexpensive web software which supports direct embedding. Personally, I use Xara Web Designer which in the MX version can be purchased for about $50. USD here: Web Designer Xara Web Designer allows you to simply drop in your outputted PTE video as an MP4 h.264 in whatever output you decide (I use 800x600) and then in about 2 minutes it creates all the code which you simply upload to your website. When it's all done and you have uploaded to your website, the video is available to anyone you send the link to. It's really easy to simply put a "hyperllink" into your webpage which calls the "index.html" file created by Xara Web Designer. You can even create the page to do this with in Xara. Obviously, other web creation software can also do this, but I've found none "easier" and quicker than Xara Web Designer. After uploading a video to Youtube, you can click on "Share" then "Embed" and then choose the size you wish to be defaulted. The code to place in the body of your web page will then be displayed and you can copy it and paste it to embed the Youtube show on your own webpage. The problem is that you also need to create a rectangle and placeholder of appropriate size and in the proper place on your page. There are also freeware programs which can output the necessary code to allow you to embed your video to a web page, but believe me, it's "much easier" to simply spend the $50 and get "good" software like Xara which does all the "thinking" for you. I can do it either way, but I still choose Xara because it saves me time and patience. Again - the least expensive ways are to upload your zipped exe or zipped Mac files to Beechbrook or upload your videos to Youtube or Facebook, etc. But if you want your videos on your own website, consider using a product designed to help you such as Xara Web Designer MX. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dawn, First to be on the safe side and this is probably "not" the issue, be absolutely certain you have a DVD and not a CD blank. It really matters not whether DVD + or DVD - I'm thinking Eric was probably on the right track. There are two "standards" which are relevant. One is called NTSC and it's designed for the U.S. among a few other places. The other is called PAL/SECAM and I "think" it's the "default" for PTE so in order to burn DVD's which will play on "some" but not all US made or "sold in US" type equipment, you "should" make these DVD's in NTSC format. The procedure is this. First open you PTE file then click on "Publish" then choose "DVD Video Disc". Next click on the Project Options tab at the bottom left and from the Project Tab change the default of PAL/SCEAM to NTSC. Next just take all defaults and go ahead with the burn and let's see what happens. Best regards, Llin

Which OS? Works fine in my XP - Be certain you click O.K. after making change. Best regards, Lin

Works fine in XP - must be OS specific... Lin

Click on the "Tools" button then put a check beside "Ignore Objects Not Selected." Best regards. Lin

Hi Eric, Why is it that you can't simply download the latest version of PTE like everyone else and try it for yourself? Seriously, it's unrealistic to expect others do your homework for you simply because you are being rather hard headed about this. The desktop flash "bug" is not with PTE, it's a Windows issue which has been adequately explained to you on several occasions. All shows need to be made with the same version of PTE and as Barry has explained, even thought PTE can be used to create menus, there are products made specifically for that purpose which may better serve your needs. Scrolling text is essentially no different right now that it has been in the past since the introduction of vector type text and has absolutely nothing to do with mipmapping. There will be improvements in the area of text handling as PTE matures, but I'm unclear on what you mean about "video editing" being on your "wish list for ages?" You've only been using video a very short while with PTE and the amount of video editing capabilities in this program right now are better than the vast majority of other similar software which are available. After all, PTE is not a video editor nor is it an audio editor. It's a presentation tool with some video and audio editing features. Both video and audio features have continually been improved since their introduction in the product. There are reasons why things are done in the manner they are, and many times these reasons are beyond your or my ability to understand because we are not privy to the developers code, issues and problems. No one is being "defensive;" you are assuming such because your questions can not always be easily addressed. Nobody is trying to avoid your questions and issues, but often your questions could easily be answered by "you" if you would simply download the latest versions and learn how they work. We all have other things to do in our lives and understand that you have other interests too. On the other hand we must all make choices about what is important to us. If understanding how to use the software is important enough to you, you will download the latest versions and keep up with development changes. Instead, your methodology as I perceive it, is to ask for help before you've even tried to find the answers for yourself. Most people on the forum have bent over backward to help you and often while shaking their heads and wondering why you ask questions that almost everyone who has actually "used" the latest version already knows the answer to. Wouldn't it be nice to see the answers to your questions revealed by your own experimentation? Try it, you may be completely and pleasantly surprised! Best regards, Lin