Multimedia Presentations
with Persuasion
Computers in Communication
Boston University College of Communication
Copyright © 1996 by Professor Jim Lengel
This set of brief instructions will get you started building multimedia
presentations with Aldus Persuasion. Persuasion helps you to construct slide
shows that include text, pictures, sound, and video on a graphic background.
For further instruction on this complex and powerful program, consult the
Aldus Persuasion User Manual. You might also wish to go through the Persuasion
Tutorial, which is in the Aldus Persuasion folder on the hard disk of each
computer station.
1. Gather your resources.
Gather the items you want to include in your presentation onto a folder
on the hard disk of the computer at your station. Copy them from your floppy
disks, or from the file server as necessary. These might include pictures,
graphs, sounds, or QuickTime movies that you created earlier. Make sure
all your images are in PICT format, and all your sounds and music in QuickTime
format.
2. Give Persuasion some room.
Find the Aldus Persuasion program icon on your hard disk. Select it (but
don't launch it) by clicking once on it. Under the File menu, do Get Info.
Set the Memory Requirement Preferred Size to 8000 K, if it's not set there
already. That's 8 megabytes, which is what Persuasion should have to handle
the kinds of information that you will be putting into it.
Your computer should be running with Virtual Memory turned off in the Memory
control panel.
3. Choose an AutoTemplate.
For your first presentation, I suggest you choose one of several pre-designed
backgrounds for your slides. Launch Persuasion. From the title screen choose
"Open Presentation" From the folder "AutoTemplates"
in the Aldus Persuasion folder, choose one of the "On-screen/video"
templates. You can preview them in the little window to see the style that's
most appropriate to your presentation. Open the template of your choice.
4. Build the text of your presentation.
You will see the first (and only) slide of your slide show on the screen,
along with some of the tools for working with it. To add text to a slide,
just click into the title and body text placeholders that you see on the
slide, then type in what you want. If you leave these placeholders alone,
they will remain empty when you view the slide show. Add a second slide
with the "New Slide" button on the bottom left of the screen (in
the gray area). Add slides and enter text as necessary until you have a
rough draft of your presentations. Use the arrows down in the gray area
to move back and forth among your slides.
5. Add graphics, sounds, and movies.
Go back through your slides and add multimedia elements where you want them.
Use the Import command under the File menu. You can import pictures (graphics)
from PICT files, sounds from AIFF or QuickTime files, and movies from QuickTime
files. A folder of Clip Art specially designed for Persuasion resides on
your hard disk. You may also draw items on the slides, using Persuasion's
built-in drawing tools. The items you import or draw will appear on the
slide, from where you can move or resize them as necessary.
6. Rearrange your slides.
Use the slide sorter, available under the View menu, to see thumbnail images
of all your slides, where you can rearrange them as necessary by dragging
them with the mouse.