The following comments are based on PowerPoint version 2007.
Suggested improvements:
- To be able to rotate the image in very fine detail i.e. 0.01 of a degree increments. This is something that would be useful for positioning images in the study of Art History e.g. comparing a drawing with a painting, and trying to match relevant areas of both on one slide, lining things up precisely.
- To have greater control and options regarding brightness and contrast e.g. like image editors have ‘curves’, and mid-tones. I realise it is possible to make these changes in an image editor prior to importing the images, however feedback from the survey suggested that people would like to use PowerPoint to edit their images.
- To be able to apply formats to groups of slides, i.e. not just to groups of images on one slide. If you select a slide the ‘Format’ tab disappears. It takes ages if you have to format the images on each slide individually.
- To be able to pan and zoom slides and content without having to first create a complex animation, and by being able to have more control than a projector which can only zoom into the centre of a slide i.e. no panning.
- To be able to customise your palettes and right-click menu options (without needing to know how to code) e.g. if there are certain features you use all the time and want to have close-to-hand or grouped together to improve efficiency.
- To be able to apply a ‘Theme’ to individual slides rather than the whole presentation. This seems to be a bit buggy in version 2007, sometimes it seems to let you select a slide and do this, and other times it doesn’t work.
I would be delighted to hear if any of these features have been made available in PowerPoint 2010, or if a work-around is available in version 2007.
