General Information

Kind of files Apimac Slideshow can handle
Apimac Slideshow can handle a wide range of graphic and multimedia formats: QuickTime Movies, QuickTime VR Movies, MP3, MPEG, AutoDesk Animator (FLC), AIFF, AU, WAVE, DV, OpenDML audio files, and all the main graphic formats such as JPEG, TIFF, Pict, Photoshop, PNG, MacPaint, GIF, animated GIF, Windows Bitmap BMP and SGI. Under Windows the MPEG-4 files are not supported (e.g. .m4a, .aac).


How to

Have soundtrack files play in own preferred order
Soundtracks are audio files in such a way that they are played while other files are rendered in the foreground. Apimac Slideshow lets you add as many soundtracks as you like via the Add Soundtrack button.
Just take into account that Apimac Slideshow shows files in a serial order, so it matters where you place soundtracks. Place a soundtrack in the first slot if you want to get audio from the beginning of the show. To move an imported file to another slot, just drag its name in the List of Files field to the desired position (option-drag to move a copy of the file), or cut its name and paste it into the appropriate slot.

Get payed music from iTunes into the slideshow
Songs purchased from the iTunes Store are in AAC Protected format, this mean that you can't get to play them outside of iTunes application or the iPod device. You cannot convert them to other formats, including MP3. You can, however burn them to an audio CD. Then the songs could reimported in iTunes at your desidered format. For more info visit this page at Apple.


Creating a freestanding slideshow presentation

Overview
With Apimac Slideshow you can create slideshow presentations that can be distributed as freestanding applications for either Mac OS X, or Windows which can be freely distributed in any media (zip, CD, DVD, etc.). These freestanding slideshow presentations are so easy to use that can be launched by just a simple double-click. Freestanding slideshow presentations created with registered copies of the program can be freely distributed through any media in unlimited quantities, without paying any royalty fees.

Creating a freestanding presentation
Creating a freestanding slideshow presentation to distribute to Mac and Windows users with Mac OS X is really easy, follow this simple guide:

• Add some files to your slideshow, customize your slideshow with your preferred choices then click on the "Share" label at the top right of Apimac Slideshow's main window and select the platform target.
  
  
• Click at the "Create" button, at the prompt choose a location for freestanding slideshow, then press "Save":

The standalone presentation for Mac is an application that already contains all the file required for the presentation, so just copy on a media (CD-ROM, DVD, USB Card etc) this file.

The standalone presentation for Windows is a folder that contains the .exe application and a resource folder that contains all the files required for the presentation, so just copy on a media (CD-ROM, DVD, USB Card etc) this folder.

Has Slideshow a "self executing" feature?
Apimac Slideshow hasn't such feature. Mac OS X does not support AutoStart, in
consequence, the programs cannot do anything about it. On the Windows side, Apimac Slideshow does not support the Autorun function either. Some experts user could want to edit Autorun.inf (the file that contains commands for Windows to run when the disk is inserted), in this case we would suggest them to check the Microsoft KnowledgeBase to learn more about this question.

Optimization

Best file images to use in presentations
The first thing to realize about Apimac Slideshow is that it is not an imaging program (like Photoshop), prepared to deal with huge files - it was designed to visualize files, as a Web browser.

Thus, the best approach is to use images with the right DPI: a 300 DPI image is good for printing on paper, but a monitor/projector does not take advantage of such quantity of pixels - as far as I know, these devices can only display an image at 72 or 96 DPI. Further, it is safer not to import images bigger than 1600 x 1200 pixels (if it is smaller, then match the maximum resolution of the target monitor) at 72 dpi in a RGB color space (any other color space is a waste of storage space and process time). The size of a file with these properties should be around 5500 KB - if it is smaller, it will be rendered faster and better (which is especially welcome for soundtracks). Probably Apimac Slideshow does its best with images saved as JPG. As you may know, the point in using JPEG is to make use of its built-in capacity to provide smaller files without losing almost details, when this feature is used appropriately - a must for automatic presentations with a tight schedule. And this seems to be the common use for Apimac Slideshow.
These are the safer file specs that Apimac Slideshow requires and, further, files will be rendered faster and better.


Avoiding audio glitches on soundtracks
Soundtracks are audio files in such a way that they are played in the foreground while other files are opened and then rendered, this can result in a processor time consuming task that, with some systems, can provocate some glitches on soundtracks. This can mostly affect portables. In this situation can be important to take into consideration the notes stated in the "Best file images to use in presentations" of this manual.

Also, some audio file are very large and playing them can result in an important processor time consuming task, what's more, take into account that some audio file formats are not supported, as .M4A, .AAC, and in general MPEG-4, in Windows PC (as stated on the documentation of the program), so we recommend to use just .MP3 formatted files (you can convert between the said format files with iTunes).

Another approach to avoid audio glitches on soundtracks is to deselect the Fade between files option. The Fade between files feature is a processor time consuming task that with some systems can provocate some glitches on soundtracks. Note that under Windows the fade effect works only with some kind of graphic hardware and relative driver installed and it fades the screen of only about 50% on Windows XP (as stated on the documentation of the program).

Also for some particular presentations using the 'Half size' option rather than 'Fill screen' can make the difference.

Troubleshooting

Apimac Slideshow don't show IPTC Caption for some images
We discovered a bug in Apimac Slideshow 7 that prevents it to show the IPTC Caption when this is the only IPTC filled of the image. We are working to fix it as soon as possible. Currently the only know workaround is to add something in the Headline field of the image with a third party application.

I get the following error message when run a stand alone show: 'The file or folder named "PartOfName#36B3" was not found'. The show runs ok if I locate the folder, but the path is not saved.
The problem occurs with a stand alone slideshow, not when a slideshow is run from within Apimac Slideshow. The work around is to avoid long names for the data folder.

Some of my images don't keep the vertical or orizontal orientation when displayed in Slideshow.
Some applications (for example Apple Preview) doesn't really rotate images but, instead they use a virtual rotation to preserve image quality. This mean, that when they apply a rotation, that image is not really modified and Slideshow simply show it as it is. Virtual rotation is an EXIF parameter and you can see it in Slideshow looking at the EXIF info. Please be sure that the images are really rotate using an image editor (for example Photoshop) before to use it in Slideshow.

I have had Apimac Slideshow program on my Mac for several years. Now I am having trouble making a standalone presentation because it won't produce a data folder.
Current version of Slideshow don't produce Data folder for Mac presentations because includes the needed files directly on the freestanding slideshow presentation. The data folder is necessary only for Windows presentations.

Including the Resources folder along the freestanding slideshow
Problems pop up if the Windows standalone cannot locate the Resources folder (which contains all the files needed to run the presentation in a computer different than the one you are using and it has to be located at the same location of the freestanding slideshow presentation), in these situations could appear a "An Unknown Runtime Exception Has Occurred" message, so be sure to always distribute the freestanding slideshow presentation for Windows along the Resources folder. Hence, it is neither recommended to move files off the Resources folder, since Apimac Slideshow will fail to locate them. Besides, do not rename the files located in the Resources folder nor the folder itself.


Usage Tips

Hide the presenter palettes
To temporary hide the presenter palettes while a manual presentation is running, just hit the Tab key in the keyboard, then, to continue navigate between the files, use the arrow keys on the keyboard. To show the palettes, just press again the Tab key. When used in automatic presentation, the tab key also hides the notes palette.

Accessing quickly to item list features
On the slide list you can use Control-click to open a contextual menu that give you quick acced to some features.

Take control of slideshow volume
Up and down arrow keys let you control the slideshow volume.

Using your Apple Remote during the slideshow presentation
Many recent Apple computers such as the MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and recent iMacs come with an Apple Remote that allows you to remotely control certain features. You can use the Apple Remote to control the slideshow presentation: