9 Must-Have OpenOffice Extensions

Like Firefox, OpenOffice also comes with extensions that you can use to improve its functionality. Here, we have tested all the extensions and sorted out those that are useful for everyday use. Some of them are for general use while some are only meant for Writer, Calc or Impress. (For those who haven’t heard about OpenOffice before, it’s a popular free alternative to Microsoft Office)

Before you carry on reading, here are some things that you need to do/know:

 




Give Your Presentations A Boost With ZoomIt (Windows Only)

Sometimes the words ‘Microsoft software’ conjures up an image of a gigabyte sized bloated package. But Microsoft too sometimes goes against the grain and some of the tools available from the “Sysinternals Lab” prove that size doesn’t really matter. One example is ZoomIt.

What would a bundled app of 145KB have to offer? Some nifty help if you look at it closely. Imagine you are giving a PowerPoint presentation to a roomful of people. Perhaps you need to get your point across with a chart but the guy on the fourth row can’t make it out. With a click of a mouse you can now zoom in and focus on that part of the screen with the important information and then zoom back out. You save your audience the pain of squinting.

 




MUO Podcast #20: Seinfeld is History & Chrome is Hacked

This week on the show, we’ll see which OS Microsoft used to create stills for its latest ads (see video below), we’ll hack Google Chrome in a number of ways and make beautiful presentations online.

I’d love to hear from you. Send me your MP3 files containing comments about the show, reviews of your favourite websites or just general chitchat. I’ll choose a few to play on the show each week. Send them to podcast [at] makeuseof [dot] com.

 




Make Beautiful Online Presentations With Sliderocket

logo SlideRocket is a web app that allows you to do pretty much everything you can hope to do with a presentation and much more. With SlideRocket you can create, manage, securely share and publish your presentations. The service had been in private beta for nearly an year - however recently they opened its doors to the public.

create presentations online

SlideRocket is packed with features. Depending on personal preferences, it may or may not replace Powerpoint or Keynote on your desktop. However it’s surely going to amaze you with what it has to offer.

 




Liven Up Your PowerPoint Presentations With LiveWeb

Escape from PowerPoint Hell!If you use Microsoft PowerPoint then I’ll bet that you occasionally need to visit a website from within PowerPoint. What this has meant in the past is that you insert a weblink into the slide, then during the presentation when you get to that slide you click on the link and a browser will open giving you access to the page you requested.

The problem with that is when you are through with the page you have to close or minimze the browser and go back to your presentation. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to open a browser right in the slide and you didn’t have to leave your presentation?

 




Omnisio: Great Way To Edit And Mix Videos And Presentations

omnisioEver wondered if you could edit and mix different YouTube videos together? Or mix YouTube and Blip.tv videos ? Or play a Powerpoint presentation alongside a video ? Well…no doubt there are tools to do it but Omnisio is different.

Omnisio is an excellent online tool which allows you to assemble clips from different video sites like YouTube, Blip.tv etc and mix them and edit them, without downloading any of them. Yes, its simple, fast and very easy. It has a cool interface and allows you to easily search and add videos and then use a slider to clip them and add them together. Using the screenshot below as an example, I was making a video out of different clips from Bryan Adams’ concerts.

 




3 Excellent Sites to Get Free Document Templates

Free Document Templates Once in a while we all need some kind of document, it may be a business plan presentation, rental contract, non-disclosure agreement, or even a name change request form. In most cases, Googling the document may ultimately get you what you need, but it’s both time consuming and frustrating. Below, I want to go through 3 excellent resources that can provide you with any professional document or form template for free.

 




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