No reader question today, just a pointer to a very cool Applescript-based application from the folks at Nyhthawk Productions. It’s called Self-Presenting Presentation and if the name isn’t clear enough, the Read Me tells us:
The Self-Presenting Presentation is an application that will automatically present and narrate each slide of a Keynote slideshows adapted for its use.
Still not clear? Here’s the gist:
After installing the Install Test Script script, you launch the Self-Presenting Presentation application. Doing so launches Keynote 3 (this application is not compatible with earlier versions of Keynote) and runs an eight-minute tutorial that outlines how the application works. Essentially, Self-Presenting Presentation starts playback of the presentation, initiates the transitions between slides and the build-ins and -outs within slides, as well as uses one of the Speech preference’s voices to speak the contents each slide’s notes field. (You can use the selected voice or choose the voice you’ve configured as the default system voice. The Cepstral David voice works nicely, though it mispronounces “slideshow.” Leopard’s Alex voice should be great in this regard.)
To create your own self-presenting slideshow, you add a few tags to your notes to signal to the application where you’d like build-ins and -outs to take place and where you’d like to insert periods of silence between words or phrases. Once you’ve done that, simply make a copy of the Self-Presenting Presentation application and drag the Keynote presentation you’ve created on top of it.
You can find another example here. Check it out.