SlideMight Review

  • SlideMight does everything that it claims to do; it makes it possible to automatically generate a variety of PowerPoint presentations.
  • SlideMight is reasonably priced: it is only $59, with a 50% discount for hobby, education, or charity use.
  • SlideMight is available for Windows or Mac.
  • A trial version of SlideMight is available at no charge; this is fully functional, except that a watermark is placed on each slide in the resulting presentation.
  • The developer was responsive to questions and enhancement requests.
  • Customizing the PowerPoint Pattern file makes it possible to easily generate different (custom) presentations using the same data. For example, use different PowerPoint templates, or use different techniques to highlight the correct answer (animations, multiple slides).
  • Customizing the PowerPoint Pattern file makes it possible to easily generate multiple presentations using the same pattern with different data, and even do limited adaptation (e.g. use a smaller font size when the data contains more verbose text). The example demonstrates this capability.
  • SlideMight makes it possible to automatically generate HyperLinks and Navigation Buttons to facilitate working with long presentations. The HyperLinks and Navigation Buttons in the example presentation make it possible to navigate to any one of over 500 slides using a maximum of four clicks: Click the Home Button to navigate to the list of Subelements. Click one of the Subelements to get to a list of Groups. Click one of the Groups to get to a list of Questions. Then, click one of the Queestions to get to a specific slide.
  • SlideMight makes it possible to do limited validity checking of the input data file; for example to detect when the expected number of elements does not match the actual number of elements.
  • Generating a custom PowerPoint pattern file requires some PowerPoint expertise; beginners may have difficulty with customization. Some customizations require a deeper understanding of the subtleties of SlideMight.
  • Some SlideMight commands must be entered as alt-text. These are not always obvious when looking at a PowerPoint pattern file and trying to figure out how it works.
  • The SlideMight manual is missing information on some of the subtleties of SlideMight.
  • SlideMight could be improved by including a variety of PowerPoint pattern files to demonstrate alternative techniques for using the same data. For example, SlideMight could include multiple PowerPoint patterns showing different ways to present multiple choice questions.