Allowing Saved Data on PDF Forms

on Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Anyone who has worked with an on-line PDF form has probably been frustrated by the following words in Adobe Reader: "You cannot save data typed into this form. Please print your completed form."


You can allow end-users to save their data on a form, however, even if they only have access to the free Adobe Reader. All you need to do is enable the Adobe Reader to save the data on your form. After you've completed your form, save it, so you have a copy.

Then, go to the File menu, choose Save As> Reader Extended PDF> Enable Additional Features (see screenshot below).

Now, when the end-user opens up that form, they will get the following message: "You can save data typed into this form."

Editing Transcripts of Your YouTube Video

on Thursday, July 19, 2012

CSU Accessibility requirements state that any YouTube video you publish on-line have an accurate transcript of what is being said. If you worked with a script, that's fairly easy to do; just upload the script as a transcript (more on this at the end of the post).

If you don't have a script, it's a bit more difficult. But the job is made much easier by YouTube's own automatic transcription. It will contain many errors (some unintentionally humorous), but the bulk of the transcription will be done, and all you need do is edit the errors.

After you upload your video, go to the Toolbox above the video and choose Captions on the dropdown on the right-hand side (see the figure below).


Click anywhere in the box just below Machine Transcriptions (see figure below).
You'll see a copy of YouTube's transcript. Click the Download button at the bottom (see figure below).
You'll download a file called captions.sbv. It can be opened in Windows Notepad or the free text editing software TextEdit (available here). Make your corrections. Use >> to indicate a change in who is speaking; use brackets to indicate other aural events (e.g. - [applause]). Ignore the numbers; they are timecodes that tell Youtube when to show the text.
Last step: upload the new transcript. Go back to that Captions tab, and this time click the Add New Captions or Transcript (see figure at right).
Make sure you have Caption file chosen (see figure below), then upload your edited transcript. Delete the machine transcription and you're good to go.

One final note: if you already have a script, you can skip to the last step.  Save the transcript as a .txt file and upload it as a Transcript file (see figure above).

Importing PowerPoint Into Prezi

on Monday, June 25, 2012

Prezi--the excellent non-liner alternative to PowerPoint--has always allowed you to import PowerPoints into your Prezi presentation with the Insert tool, but there is now a dedicated PowerPoint Import tool, making the process that much easier.  At left is a screenshot of the "zebra," Prezi's primary formatting tool.  The new PowerPoint Import tool is highlighted in a blue box (or perhaps purple; I'm color-blind).  At any rate, click it, browse to your PowerPoint, and you've turned your PowerPoint into a Prezi.

Prezi can be found at http://prezi.com/index/.  Most versions are free, and if you apply for an educational license you can get some exciting paid options free as well.


Some excellent tips and tricks for "Prezi-fying" your PowerPoint presention by taking advantage of Prezi's zooming and framing capabilities are below.  I highly recommend you spend 3 minutes watching the video if you are interested in learning more about Prezi.

 

Saving PowerPoints as Video

on Friday, May 4, 2012

A weird little feature new to the latest version of PowerPoint is that you can save your PowerPoint as a .wmv (Windows Media) video.  Who knew?

The command is somewhat hidden, but if you go to the File menu, choose Save & Send, then Create a Video (a screenshot is at left).  You be given options to choose a screen resolution, choose existing slide timings and narration, set new timings and narration, or give each slide a predetermined amount of time (e.g. 5 seconds).  Click the Create Video button and you're done.  Be aware that long or complex PowerPoints will take some time to render.

If you have a video embedded within your PowerPoint it will automatically play when the presentation gets to that slide.

Below is a very short PowerPoint on Password Protection rendered into a video, with 5 seconds per slide.  

Linking to Specific Spots on a YouTube Video

on Monday, April 23, 2012

Most of you know how to link to a YouTube video. You go to the YouTube page and copy the link in the address bar (or, alternately, click Share below the video and copy the link).

What you may not know (and I didn't know til last week) is that you can easily change the link so a video will start at a certain point in the middle of the video. Just click Share, then Options on a video page. The screenshot at left shows the YouTube dialogue box.

You can also simply add #t= and the number of minutes and seconds at the end of the URL. For example, if you wanted to start at 4 minutes and 7 seconds, add #t=4m7s to the end of the URL and you're done!

 In the example link below, I added #t=0m13s to the end of the URL, which will start the video 13 seconds into it, or right before the rocket launches.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/m6nTibKZLFA#t=0m13s

Thanks to Darrin Goodman for the tip.

YouTube Video Editing

on Thursday, March 29, 2012

Following on the heels of my last post about image stabilization, here is another cool feature of YouTube: you can easily trim the start and end points of any video you upload to YouTube on the fly.

First step: upload the video to YouTube. After it has processed, bring the video up and click Edit. Click Enhancements.



Click Trim.



You'll then get a preview screen, and an area just below it where you can drag the Start and End bars to trim the beginning and end of your video (see below). Play the preview to see your video with the new edits, and fine-tune them until you are happy with the result. Click Done. And that's it. Because the entire video has been uploaded, you can go back and change these edit points, including adding cut portions back into your video, anytime you like.

YouTube Image Stablization

on Monday, March 19, 2012

YouTube has added several new user-friendly editing features to its user interface lately, from automatic transcription to editing. Today's post deals with image stabilization.

You can have YouTube automatically stabilize a shaky video. First step: upload the video to YouTube. After it has processed, bring the video up and click Edit.



Next, choose Enhancements at the top of the page.



Click Stabilize. That's it! Be aware the stabilization process will take some time; in my test it took about 20 minutes.