alrobin

Ronnie, We may need more information about how you are "pointing" to the pdf file. What, exactly, is shown on the "Program name" line in Project Options / Properties for the object you are using to point to the pdf file? If you are showing a path name, try removing it, leaving only the name of the pdf file. You will also need to put this "pdf" file in the same folder as your PTE "exe" file. Since you will be opening this file from the CD, what happens if you double-click on the pdf file, itself, on the CD? You may have to wait longer for it to open than you do when running the show from your hard drive. Note, too, that your client will need to be able to open pdf files.

Brooks, Glad to hear it worked out OK. The parameters you quoted sound fine, too. Suitable image file-size really depends on the vintage of the computer you plan to use and whether you will be playing directly from a CD or not. I find with my P4 desktop setup that image file size is not as much of an issue as it used to be on my slower systems. For projection, jpegs 1024x768 pixels in size, compressed by 50 to 70%, seem to be the optimum images to use, both for quality and speed of processing. If you have access to a more expensive projector that will handle up to say 1400 pixels in width, then go for even larger images. Mp3's are the preferred way to go with the music, as the file sizes are smaller, and they seem to perform well in PTE shows. Good luck with the show!

And again in English: The AV Supercircuit competition is under way and we hope that several authors from your group will take part. This year several teams of different countries are associated and coordination with our anglophone friends is entrusted to our friend Al Robinson of Canada. Sequences created with any self-executing software are acceptable, particularly those made with PTE. You can obtain further information on our Internet site, www.diaporamacircuit.com, but keep in mind that the last date for submissions is 20 August (obviously, we are ready to receive them even earlier). The registration fees are fixed at 10 euros for the entire entry, regardless of the number of sequences submitted.

Brooks, Welcome to the Forum! 1. Add the first music selection in "Project Options / Music". 2. Open the timeline and make sure "View / Auto Adding of new transition points for new slides" is checked on. 3. Click OK to close the timeline, and select the images in the file list that you want to associate with the first piece of music. Click "Add" to add them to the slide list. 4. Open the timeline again, and the transitions for these images should be present on the timeline. Select "Timed Points / Arrange all points" to spread them evenly over the first music selection. 5. Click OK to close the timeline. 6. Add the second music selection in "Project Options / Music". 7. Add the second batch of slides to the slide list. 8. Open the timeline, and you should see the second batch of transitions equally-spaced over part of the second music selection. (There should be a blue vertical bar at the end of the first music selection). 9. Position the last image at the end of the second piece of music. (if the music is not long enough for the number of slides, you may have to do some manual adjustment to make sure they are all included along the second music selection). Click on the last transition marker and "shift-click" on the transition for the first slide of the second batch that was just added in order to select all images in between. 10. Select "Timed Points / Arrange selected points" to evenly spread the second batch of images across the second music selection. Be sure to click "OK" to close the timeline and preserve your settings. 11. Repeat this operation with the third music selection, and then manually adjust the transitions until you are happy with the way they are synched to the music. Hope this isn't too confusing - be sure to write again if you still have questions or if this procedure is not clear. All the best!

Ron, You're right - they would all be in the same folder (in the template folder).

bd, Yes, the new version 4.4 of PTE provides several new features which make this type of arrangement possible. Before adding any images to a new project, and after adding the music selections, uncheck "Auto adding of new transition points ..." in the "View" menu of the timeline window. This will allow you to add images to the "Slide List" on the main window without adding their transition points to the timeline. Then add the slides you want to manually position on the timeline (i.e. the first batch). Open the timeline again, and manually add the transitions for these slides. Check "Auto adding of new transition points ... " in the View menu and close the timeline using the "OK" button. Select the remaining slides and "Add" them to the slide list. Open the timeline again, and you will notice that these new images have been positioned arbitrarily on the timeline, after the first batch. Delete the last transition from the timeline (without deleting the image itself), position the cursor at the end of the timeline, and click "New transition". The transition to the last image should now appear at the end of the timeline. Highlight this last transition, and "shift-click" on the transition point for the first image of the new batch of images in order to highlight them all. Then in the "Timed Points" menu, select "Arrange selected points". Hope this works!

azjbb, Welcome to the Forum! If you copy each object on your first image by "Ctrl - Clicking" on each one in turn, and then using "Ctrl - C", you can then "Paste" them onto each image in your show by opening each in turn in "Object Editor", and hitting "Ctrl - V". They will be placed on each image in the same locations as on the original. Or, as Ken indicated, you can use your first image, complete with objects, as a template, and then copy it as many times as you need. Each image will contain the same objects. You would then need to change the path and name for each image to match the one you really want. If you plan to use this format for several shows, save the single-image version of the show, along with objects, as a separate "template" file, which you can then open when you need it for your next show. Igor, it would be nice if we could copy an arrangement of objects, highlight a number of images at once, and then copy this arrangement to each one in a single operation, in much the same way as we can adjust the parameters of several images by using highlighting several, and then selecting "Customize Slide".

bd, If you put your PTE project file in the same folder as the images, it won't matter that the pathnames are different from those indicated in the project, itself. Or, if that still bothers you, and you are fairly proficient with MS Office, another way to change pathnames is to open the .pte file in a text editor, or in MS Excel, do a "find / replace" operation, and save as a ".prn" file. Then change the filename back to ".pte". My "PTE-Adjustor" model, and as you heard from Jean-Claude, his Sy(P) model, will both do this for you automatically.

Steve, When synching to music, if you want your objects to work, you need to check "Permit the control of show" in Project Options.

Thanks, Igor! One of the things I really like about PTE is that no matter how much you think you know about the program, there is always something more to learn! At one time we couldn't even open the timeline to set parameters such as this before adding images, etc. And this option really has nothing to do with "View". Maybe it should be included in "Project Options", mainly for the benefit of newcomers to the program and those of us who forget easily where to look for things??

Harold, You tell them that when you add a slide in the midst of the others on the slide list, all the transitions to the right of it get pushed to the right on the timeline, as not even Igor knows what time you want to drop the new slide at. You then need to open the timeline, drag the new slide to the left, somewhere in between where the one to the left resides and the position the slide to the right used to occupy. Then you shift-click all transitions to the right of the new one, and drag them back so that the slide to the right again occupies it's former position. Not a very difficult procedure, once you have tried it a few times. Because the timeline is contained in a different window than the slide list, it was not possible to have the transition for the new slide fall half-way between the two slides on either side, as we had suggested to Igor. So, the present operation is the best compromise. I think Bussty will agree that we wish too that you had been around to lend your support to our suggestions (do a search on the forum for Gordian Knot to see what Igor was up against in trying to satisfy everyone's requests ).

Harold, Join the club! And, if you are confused, then we are all in trouble! When Igor came out with the changes in version 4.4 in response to the requests of several members to have transitions added at the same time as the slides, and also to allow a deletion of a transition to delete the associated slide, many of us had to change our modus operandi. The drill now seems to be to add a bunch of slides (along with the transitions), and then if you, like me, don't want any transitions on the timeline at the start, to delete them. This is not so bad as it can be done in one fell swoop by clicking on "Timed points" and "delete all transition points", or by clicking on the first transtition, shift-clicking on the last one, and pressing "delete". The latter is particularly useful if you are only deleting several but not all points. Once you have your transition points set up, you can elect to delete only a transition, or both the transition and the image with which is is associated. You can also spread the images evenly over the timeline if you don't want to delete them. One advantage of the new system is that if you want to add a brand new slide to the show, you can do so from the light-table without leaving the timeline, provided you have the right folder open in the file list. Hope you manage to adapt soon to the new model. It requires a slight change in operation, but there are some good features in the way the new version is set up, too.

Ron, Buy yourself another huge HD and copy all your images and important documents to it - it's fast, inexpensive, and reliable. And also easy to find an image should you inadvertently delete it from your main drive. When that drive is full, you could even take it out and put in a new one - nowdays you can even purchase external drives which only have to be plugged into a USB slot. Or, when you get time, go through the images on the backup drive, weed them out, and transfer the rest onto DVD's to make room for more backup images. However, if you archive your images in RAW format, the DVD's get filled up pretty quickly, and you will soon find yourself in the same mess as when you backed everything up onto CD's - so many disks that it is difficult to locate the images you want, unless you are a very good librarian.

Harold, Good to have you back! Go back a few messages in this thread and you will see that it was never the intent that someone would give one's registration code to someone else - someone else could order up PTE and run it for free in that case, so I don't think Igor would sanction that either. Referring back to my post of 8 May, the proposal is to allow the maker to add a pin number if and only if he or she wants to have the ability to allow someone else open the file. The maker would always have the option not to include the pin number, in which case he or she would be the only one who would ever be able to recover the images.

Dimmy, You're right - if the viewer's monitor is not set at the resolution for which the show was created, the only suitable position for the "copyright" label in PTE is dead-centre. Maybe Igor could change this in the next version so that it is always scaled in size and position to the screen, or else acts like an object so one can group it with other objects, and maintain some control on how it will look for different monitor resolutions. Another way to add a logo at a position other than dead-centre, and have it remain there under most screen resolutions, is to add a transparent GIF of your logo as a "picture object", add tiny transparent "text objects" to opposite corners of the image, and then "group" all objects together in "object editor", including the logo. They should all remain fixed relative to the image under most screen resolutions. Once you have a group set up for one image, you simply need to highlight and copy it, and paste it to each of the other images. This is not a perfect solution but a simple work-around until Igor modifies PTE so that objects are scaled with the images. You have to experiment a bit to determine what works best for the particular image sizes you want to use. Another way to ensure all objects remain fixed relative to the image is to use "windowed mode" in "Project Options / Screen".

Anne, How about synching the show to the music so you have total control over the timing? Will your system play the second music selection in that case? Also, did you try different music selections, in different PTE shows, and does your system refuse to play the second selection in all cases? If you wish, send me your "pte" project file (no images - just the pte file and MIDI music selection) and I will have a look to see if I can spot some sort of conflict in the timing. (alrobin@alrobinson.com) .

Gary, Various people have requested something like this of the PTE designers, and Igor has indicated that he is working on a new navigation bar, so maybe he will soon be providing what you are looking for.

Hi, Anne, Does the same thing happen when playing an mp3 as background, with the option "repeat music after playing" set?

Hi, Gary, Yes, there is a way, but you would have to set it up first when you make your show by assigning slide numbers to objects in "Object Editor", one for each slide you want your viewers to be able to jump to. (see my "PTE-101" show on Beachbrook for an example of this feature in use). If the show is synched to music, you would also have to check "Permit the control of show" in "Project Options / Main".

Alexva, Welcome to the Forum! Can you not back-date your pc to some time prior to the expiry date, and then use Boxig's utility to extract the images?

Hi, John, Hopefully you still have your "key" file from the old computer, or else the email to which it was originally attached. If you do, just copy it into the new pc's PTE directory and double-click on it in order to record the encrypted key in the register. If you don't have the key file, you can retrieve it from the old pc's register if you still have it intact. If not, then send an email to WnSoft and plead with them to send you another key file.

Thanks, Daniel and Patrick, for such a thorough explanation. I have tried some pans of telephoto images stitched together, too, and agree that the results can be very startling. I still haven't watched your show, but I am sure it is very good.

Hi, Par, Welcome to the Forum! What would such a page flip sound like? A "click"? A "swoosh"? A "boing"? Maybe a library of sounds could be provided, along with a selection box. Myself, I would probably not use this, as with a synched show it is possible to add all that on the music timeline through a sound editor, and that way have more control over the type of sound, the volume, exactly where it comes in, the duration, etc., etc. However, some might find it useful.

Lisa, If you already have your registration key, you don't need to register again. Just double-click on the "key" file name in "My Computer" or "Windows Explorer". This will add the appropriate code to the register of your pc.

With PTE, you learn something new every time you use it!