Make sure you are always using the latest StarCast Recording tool. Below is a list of PowerPoint animations currently supported by the StarCast.

• Appear effects
• Fly effects
• Peek effects
• Split effects
• Stretch
• Wipe
• Blinds
• Checkerboard
• Box
• Dissolve
• Random Bars
• Strips

NOTE: "Animate Text:" must be set to "All at once". "Smooth Start" and "Smooth End" are ignored, and the entire "Timing" tab is ignored (use SyncPoints to control timing and speed). On the "Text Animation" tab, each bullet points will animate separately regardless of the "Group Text:" property (in other words, trying to group different indentation levels will not work). Finally, "In reverse order" is not supported.

NOTE: The speed setting is used if no syncpoint was created for the slide transition. Otherwise, the syncpoint overrides the speed setting. The Sound Effect option works, although "loop until next sound" does not. The "on mouse click" and "automatically after" properties that specify when to advance the slide are ignored.

StarCast Recorder version 2.6 also supports sound effects and dim effects on animated objects from PowerPoint.

Tips and Tricks Landscape Orientation Your presentation should be formatted in the default Landscape orientation in PowerPoint (See File/Page Setup). Do not use Portrait.

Positioning Text Horizontally. Avoid using the space bar to position text horizontally. Instead, use the Format/Alignment menu options to align Left, Right, Centered or Justified.

Character Spacing StarCast generally assigns more spacing between letters than will display in PowerPoint. If you find that your text seems to "grow" slightly and you need to correct this, use one size smaller font in your PowerPoint.

Placing Images Avoid dragging and dropping or pasting images onto your PowerPoint slides. Instead, use the Insert Image and/or File functionality included with PowerPoint.

Make sure all images lie within the borders of your slide and don't hang over the edges.

Maintaining small image sizes makes your presentation play more smoothly. Avoid using images that exceed 300 kilobytes (kb) in size. Image editing software such as Photoshop, Photoworks, MS Paint are designed to help you reduce large file sizes of images. When using digital photo images, remember that with most digital cameras, you can control the size of the resulting images.

Slide Sizing Avoid resizing your slide size using File/Page Setup. StarCast is designed to work with the default slide size in PowerPoint.

File Size In publishing very large files, the speed of your connection to the internet may become an issue. The larger the file, the longer it takes to transmit. While transmitting, screen savers, internet interruptions and other factors may prevent you from completing your upload.

To avoid these problems when publishing large files, make sure you have screen savers and sleep modes turned off. Allow your computer to complete the upload before using it for other tasks. If you still have problems, check your internet connection speed and your file size.

Image Types The following image type will not display correctly after publishing.

1. Clip art images with shadows will lose their shadows.
2. Curved Word Art text will appear straight.
3. 3-D images selected from the "AutoShapes" drawing tool bar are fine if you don't add shadow.
4. Do not use a pattern fill with images created from the drawing tool bar.

A Quick note about WebCasting In StarCast, WebCasts do not use your audio recorded in the Recorder, as a WebCast is a live event. Only the Embedded Video and Publishing sections are relevant for WebCasts. However, when you Publish your presentation, WebCast and WebCourse versions are always prepared, even if you only intend to use one of them. If you do not record any audio for a given slide, 10 seconds of silence will be added (or enough time for the animations to play, whichever is greater) to the WebCourse version.

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