Microsoft PowerPoint tops the list of presentation softwares in terms of popularity, owing to its simplicity, ease of use and the ability to present visual aids in attractive designs. The slide presentation software has become an integral part of information exchange in corporates and educational institutions, and the usage trends are expected to rise steadily in future. The Power Point Viewer application, developed by ThinkPalm, realizes the visualization of PowerPoint presentations on Android devices, encompassing smart phones and tablets. The software supports wide-ranging PowerPoint elements including animations and videos. With the Key event control feature offered by the viewer, slides can be shared with Android devices within an internal network and controlled from a remote location.
Business Need
PowerPoint Viewers help in viewing PowerPoint files in systems that do not have Microsoft PowerPoint installed. Support for extensive PowerPoint features such as text, images, animations, slide transitions, charts, tables, video and audio coupled with the capability of remote sharing, make it a desirable solution in the market. ThinkPalm stays one step ahead by offering a PowerPoint player, rather than a simple slide viewer.
Challenges
Deciphering the PowerPoint structure and MS PowerPoint data presentation engine along with porting animations and transitions proved to be challenging tasks for the development team. From a process standpoint, comprehending and parsing individual variables and their attributes to get the data was time consuming. The solution’s demand for expertise in XML data presentation and parsing, MS PowerPoint data manipulation and presentation techniques further harnessed the skills of our team members.
ThinkPalm Powerpoint Viewer
The approach followed was to display a PPT by parsing the contents of XML files obtained by unzipping .PPTX file of a presentation. The system consists of three main modules. The first module extracts the input PPTX file to XML format and places the XML files and data in a defined folder structure. The second module is responsible for parsing these XML files and collecting information from them. This module stores the information collected in a well-defined data structure. Collection of information from the data structure and display of slides in an Android device as a presentation is carried out by the third module.
Benefits
ThinkPalm PowerPoint Viewer enables users to view audios, videos, slide animations, transitions and more in PowerPoint presentations from a list of PPTX files saved on Android Devices. Key event control feature enabling PPTX files to be sent to a device and slides to be viewed and controlled remotely, is a key value-add to the solution.
