Re: CMS for presentation

> I was wondering if I can use some sort of a CMS and input all these
> things as text and then depending on Client or context, just generate a
> different PPT. Please note that this is different from using a 
> different
> powerpoint template. Its like a dynamic JSP with placeholders for
> different items, just that it will be a PPT and not JSP. Has anyone
> tried this sort of a thing before? Any ideas?

I would look away from Powerpoint and think about PDF.
The Reader has a full screen mode that is great for presentations.
The PDF format makes it easy to distribute the content and print out if 
needed.

The Adobe PDF editing program Acrobat is not that expensive but is only 
available for two of the top three desktop platforms. We have created 
PDF-based presentation modules ( in a page-layout program ) that are 
combined at will ( in Acrobat ) depending on what content is desired 
for a specific meeting. I haven't automated that into a 
point-and-click, auto-generated system, it is manual. The first intro 
screen is created as a one-off from a template for each presentation.

> This will be for my use only and hence buying a system would be
> difficult. So any ideas using an Open source CMS or free solution would
> be much better. And it should run on my laptop :)

PDF is a documented format and there are tools available to 
create/manipulate PDF files and/or PDF objects from C, C++, PHP, Python 
or Java. Choose your language. I suspect it will be more difficult to 
find tools that create *.ppt files as that is a proprietary format.


Charles Dostale
System Admin - Silver Oaks Communications
http://www.silveroaks.com/
824 17th Street, Moline  IL  61265