slide library/catalog

[somedumbguy]

Here's the deal... I'm a professor, and I create a substantial number
of PowerPoint slides each week for my lectures. I'm looking for a
program that will allow me to keep a library of PowerPoint slides that
would be keyword searchable (based on text in each slide), and would
also allow me to view/export fully formatted slides so I can create
new lectures on similar topics without reinventing the wheel, and also
without hunting through lecture after lecture for the right slide.
Ideally, I'd be able to put slides into categories based on, for
example, lecture topic. However, I also want to be able to view the
entire library at once. It would also be great if slides could be
resized 'on the fly' ala iPhoto's slider. Basically, I'm looking for
an iPhoto for PowerPoint application.

Although Keynote may do this, or at least something close (never used
it, so I'm not sure), I need to keep using PowerPoint for a variety of
reasons. I also need this to be as seamless as possible... If I have
to jump through hoops to go back and forth between whatever solution I
come up with and PowerPoint, or if I have to worry about losing
formatting, then I'm better off just hunting through the separate
lectures as I do now.

One possible solution would be to create a huge PowerPoint file into
which I dump all of my slides. However, this won't allow
categorization, and the find feature leaves all of the slides visible,
whether or not they match. It does highlight the matching slides but,
by leaving the others visible, picking through them is like looking
for a needle in a haystack. When searching, I'd like it to just
display the 'hits' while hiding the non-matches.

I know this is a lot to ask for, but this seems like it would be a
killer app. Unfortunately, I'm skeptical as to whether it exists...
Any ideas???

 

[Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP]

Have a look here:
http://www.accent-technologies.com/presentationlibrarian/

I don't know whether they do a Mac version, but their Win app seems popular
for this kind of thing and is fairly inexpensive.

It does seem that it'd be a killer app; problem is, in my experience
everybody's got very specific needs that they want met. There doesn't seem
to be anything close to a universally desirable feature set. Or if there
is, Presentation Librarian's already doing it at a reasonable price. ;-)

--

Steve Rindsberg PPT MVP
PPTLive ( http://www.pptlive.com ) Featured Speaker
PPTools: http://www.pptools.com
PPT FAQ: http://www.pptfaq.com

 

[somedumbguy]

That sounds like a nice piece of software. Unfortunately, I can't find
any information on a Mac version.... Bummer.

Assuming, at least until I'm proven wrong, that the sort of software
that I'm looking for does not exist for the Mac, then my next question
is how are all of you managing your PowerPoint creations? Is there a
better way than just hunting through file after file to find what I'm
looking for? It seems like there must be, but I haven't come up with
anything. Thanks for the reply!