Keynote Objects is a package of 100 attractive icon-like objects that can be used not only with Keynote, but also with Microsoft PowerPoint and Word. All of the objects have a transparent background, and are easily resized, rotated, made more or less transparent, or shadowed.
I'm actually going to use several of the objects as icons for a new web site that I'm designing, simply because they offer an attractive and cohesive set of art objects. What will you use your free Keynote Objects for?
If you've been cursing the big price tag and lack of VBA support in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, OpenOffice.org is coming to your rescue. Last September, the OpenOffice.org dev team announced that they would be porting the suite to run natively on the Mac. Previous versions ran under the X11 environment, which not only hogged resources, but didn't have the Aqua look and feel we all love.
OpenOffice.org 3.0 is still beta, but a quick test-drive of the application showed that it is almost ready for prime time. OOo is a full-featured office suite, complete with word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), presentation package (Impress), drawing app (Draw), as well as database tools (Base) that are sadly lacking in other office suites.
The feature set of OpenOffice.org 3 is impressive:
Imports Microsoft Office binary (.doc, .ppt, .xls) and Office 2007/Office 2008 for Mac (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) files
A solver component for solving optimization problems, something lacking in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
Spreadsheet workbook sharing
Display of multiple Writer pages while editing
MS Office-like comments in Writer
Limited VBA macro support -- which is still better than no support
Extensibility with Mozilla Thunderbird and Lightning, Sun Wiki Publisher and Report Builder
The price of OpenOffice.org 3 is, as always, free! If you're up to test-driving beta ware that may not necessarily be as stable or fast as your other office suite(s), click here to be transported to the beta site.
Welcome to the 3rd Microsoft Office 2008 automation post. Previously we covered automating Excel 2008 and Word 2008, now we shine the spotlight on PowerPoint 2008. In this how-to, I will show you how to create an Automator workflow to automate the daunting task of applying animations to the slides and converting a presentation into a QuickTime movie file.
For this workflow, you'll need the following Automator actions (in the same order):
Apply Animation to PowerPoint Slide Parts
Convert PowerPoint Presentations to Movies
Play Movies
Continue reading to learn how to create this workflow.
When Microsoft released Office 2008 for Mac, they did something that I must applaud -- they joined the ranks of Mac developers creating Automator-able applications. When you do a search in Automator for "Microsoft," it will reveal all of the Automator actions that ship with Microsoft Office 2008. There is lots of great stuff included, so we'll be covering some of it in this four part Mac Automation series. I will take you through how to automate each of the Microsoft Office applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage.
First off, let's take a look at what you can automate in Word 2008. Doing a search for "Word" in Automator will display the available actions for Microsoft Word. As you can see, there are plenty of actions that you can automate. For this how-to, we'll focus on a workflow that does the following:
Creates a new document
Sets document properties
Gathers text from the clipboard
Places a watermark in the document
Saves the document
Prints the document
Continue reading to learn how to create this workflow.
Happy Friday everyone! From Down Under it emerges (via APC, the Aussie computer magazine): a preview article on Office 2008, including the tempting tidbit that the suite is now in private beta, with the 'Escher' graphics engine and plenty of shiny bits. MBU managers also admit that the initial attempts at a new, more Windows-ish interface for the Mac productivity suite met with blank stares and frustration:
"[T]he Mac developers had already had one radical redesign tested and rejected after user feedback, said MacBU group product manager Mary Starman. 'We had what we thought was going to be this perfect UI solution, and the first time we put it in the labs, no-one understood it! It was so different they were completely confused!'"
I don't know whether to be happy that they listened to the test groups, or discouraged that they were surprised when a radical UI change caused user confusion. *sigh* Check out the full APC article for screenshots and more.
If, for one reason or another, you don't have or don't want Microsoft Office installed, but you still need to view a doc, spreadsheet or presentation, the ThinkFree Online office crew have created a couple widgets (and even a Google module) to help ease your pain. I haven't been following ThinkFree's products very closely, but one of their services called the ThinkFree Viewer lets anyone publish a document online by linking to their web-based viewer - this removes a visitor's need to have one compatible app or another installed just to be able to view the file.
To make things even easier for those attachments you receive or the occasional document you simply have lying around, they have now released a new Dashboard widget and a Google module (for their Personalized Homepage), in addition to the Yahoo! Widget we blogged way back in May. These all work essentially the same way: drag and drop a compatible ThinkFree or Microsoft Office doc onto the widget, and it will upload the file to ThinkFree's temporary online viewer so you can crack it open with the least amount of hassle. Of course, there might be limitations to what their viewer can render, but this should make things a little easier for non-Office Office users out there.
When you think Apple applications you think iLife, Final Cut, Motion, iChat, OS X. Those are the biggies, right? But what about poor little iWork? Well, it looks like iWork, Keynote in particular, is getting some love from the blogosphere. Tim Bray, XML geek and all around cool computer guy, penned a love letter to Keynote the other day. He declared that is it Apple's best app. Daring Fireball agrees that it is good, but probably not the best app Apple offers, while Theocacao lists some of the things that makes Keynote so gosh darned fun to use (anyone ever say that about PowerPoint?).
I must admit that I haven't used Keynote all that much, since I don't find myself giving many presentations (if you would like me to give a presentation just contact me. I'm lonely, and I have a MacBook!). The few times I have found myself whipping something together in Keynote I have been impressed with how such little effort by me resulted in such a great looking presentation.
So, dear TUAWers, any Keynote lovers out there? Let us know in the comments what you like about Keynote, and what Apple should fix in the next version (which I bet will be announced at Macworld '07).
Steve Rubel has a nice post about using your iPod as a way to transport your presentations to and fro. The crux of the post is that you should get iPresent It, an $18 cross platform app that converts your presentation files into iPod friendly formats. It even autosyncs that that your presentation will remain up to date no matter how many times you change it.
Anyone out there using their iPods for this kind of thing? Sound off in the comments.
Discovering Automator is a new book from Hanaan Rosenthal that delves into the many facets of making your Mac
do more work in less time for you with the power of Mac OS X Tiger's Automator. From Automator World's
description, Discovering Automator details "the ins-and-outs of Automator: basic workflow construction,
deployment, debugging and advanced topics such as creating shell scripts, Applescripts and plug-ins." The
book also comes with over 70 Automator actions, including many requested actions for Microsoft Word, Excel and
PowerPoint.
Discovering Automator sells for $14.99 at Amazon.com,
but if you'd like a taste, you can download both a sample chapter and the table of contents at Hanaan's site.
MacTech has
published what I am fairly certain are the comprehensive Office 2004 on Rosetta test
results for Intel Macs. Honestly, there is so much literature and testing in this article that I simply skimmed
most of it and skipped ahead to the conclusion: "in general, Office 2004 under Rosetta works "well
enough" to "very well," and in some cases, it's even faster than on the PowerPC baseline
machine." Having recently acquired a MacBook Pro, I have to agree. However, I think Word has a slightly
longer startup time than on my previous PowerBook, but I would attribute that to Rosetta having to work some magic in
the background.
Don't take my word though: check out MacTech's article for more than
you'd ever want to know about how well Office 2004 will perform on Intel Macs.
iPresentee, a small company providing themes and objects for Apple's iLife and iWeb software suites, is offering a free download of Keynote Objects. 
If you've been cursing the big price tag and lack of VBA support in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, 
Welcome to the 3rd Microsoft Office 2008 automation post. Previously we covered automating 
Happy Friday everyone! From Down Under it emerges (via 
If, for one reason or another, you don't have or don't want Microsoft Office installed, but you still need to view a doc, spreadsheet or presentation, the 
Steve Rubel has a 
Discovering Automator is a new book from Hanaan Rosenthal that delves into the many facets of making your Mac
do more work in less time for you with the power of Mac OS X Tiger's Automator. From 
MacTech has
published what I am fairly certain are the comprehensive 
