Microsoft Producer 2

A while ago, I was asked if I knew of any tools that could be used for doing screen captures and such, for producing training. Since we’re developing a new internal website, it would be great if we could provide some training on it. (Which might include videos of someone using the site, for illustrative purposes.)

Last night I found out about Microsoft Producer, which is an add-on for PowerPoint 2003. It’s a pretty cool little program - you can combine PowerPoint slides, video, and audio, to create your presentations, and have the slides automatically advance through the presentation. There are some examples of the types of things you can do here. I believe you can also create a transcript to include with the presentation, which automatically moves along as the speaker speaks. However, I wasn’t able to figure out how to do it.

As it turns out, though, my team doesn’t actually need to create the training materials. Which is good news, because we don’t have time to do it. But it’s also bad news - because I thought the tool was really cool, and it would have been fun to play with.

Now I need to think of a reason why I might be able to waste some time using it. Hmm...