34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Only book on VBA devoted to PowerPoint, 29 April 2004
By MargeS - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Powerful Powerpoint for Educators: Using Visual Basic for Applications to Make PowerPoint Interactive (Paperback)
Every computer coordinator and interested computer teacher, anyone who does instructional presentations / training, and college level professors who are accustomed to using PowerPoint and those constructing online programs for medical CEU programs, now using such programs as Agility Presenter or Appraiso would benefit from this book. This method of using VBA with PowerPoint truly allows for authentic, interactive, memorable, meaningful, and fun e-learning with a program many trainers already use. Sure you can do this with Flash, but most instructors in other fields than computer technology really don't have time for that learning curve. Maybe the computer teacher has time, but not the social studies teacher nor the medical professor teaching second year medical students interview techniques, for example. As an instructor it would be great to provide an additional e-learning module on CD that you created with PowerPoint and VBA. It will leave a lasting impression.
I have searched many a thousand paged books for dribs and drabs of VBA on PowerPoint. This book immediately gives you useful, real world problems and gets right to the point in about 180+ pages and contains more information than many thousand page books that cost considerably more. The author also provides a Web site with actual samples of the programs that work in case you run into difficulties.
I went on a newsgroup site to ask a VBA question about PowerPoint before Amazon sent my book. Normally I receive answers that are completely beyond anything I need or want. It just so happens that the book's author answered my question and helped me solve my problem and told me about his book, at which point I realized I had recently ordered it. I often rate books, but I rarely write reviews. This one deserves all 5 stars and then add five more! I can't say enough about it. It is one of a kind.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Power of a Programmer (without being one), 17 July 2006
By Trainer Guy "Bob T." - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Powerful Powerpoint for Educators: Using Visual Basic for Applications to Make PowerPoint Interactive (Paperback)
If you're like me, experienced with PowerPoint, but not a programmer, then taking a trip into the world of vba scripting with David Marcovitz's "Powerful PowerPoint for Educators" makes it easy and enjoyable. This book is like having a conversation with the author who has "been there and done it" in terms of developing script that is practical and useful in so many PowerPoint projects you may need to develop. Among other objectives, I had the need to incorporate an interactive leadership style self-assessment in my cbt of the same name, and thanks to David's book I was able to let the user make his/her selections (as well as change them too), track scores, and then take those scores on to subsequent slides to discern the meaning of each of them (not to mention printing as well as saving those scores based on user preference). And of course, all along the way, I learned a great deal about other scripting options that proved useful in this application as well as for future projects.
If you're at the stage where you need to use vba scripting, this is the book that should be your primer. It will take you where you need to go!
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Improperly Titled, 10 July 2006
By K. Ingle - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Powerful Powerpoint for Educators: Using Visual Basic for Applications to Make PowerPoint Interactive (Paperback)
This book is not really properly titled -- it should be "Using Scripting to Make PowerPoint Interactive." The author makes it clear (part way through the book) that he is not writing this for people with programming knowledge -- all he intends for you to do is copy the scripts he provides and use them as he intends. He even discourages the reader to read what little is written about programming.
In addition, the $45 price tag is ludicrously high. This book is worth $19.95 tops.