Don’t Just Talk the Talk: Walk the Walk!

XML-based Presentation Tools

There’s nothing wrong with a proprietary, application-oriented presentation format, if what you want is a one-time presentation – as a tutorial, conference talk, or (egad!) marketing pitch. But what if you want to do more? We happen to know of a data format that is ideal for:

• rendering the same information in multiple media (such as slides and print)
• repurposing content (such as using some of the same material in several presentations, or reworking an old talk years later)
• building and maintaining hierarchical structures (such as most presentations)

As it happens, presentation (“slideshow”) applications are one of the most popular uses of XML. This must be partly because they are relatively easy to build; partly because slideshows make such interesting experiments in markup, transformation, presentation, functionality ... and partly because, when done right, they make such good demos (there is nothing like a good presentation to make you shine). Whatever the reason, whether because (like us) you reuse the data, or because you want broader options and better control of the media, it makes sense to set up a presentation in an XML-based system of some kind.

Collected here is a sampling of XML-based presentation applications we’ve heard of or noticed. Try one of these, or develop your own (and let us know about it at info@mulberrytech.com)!

Tools Sampler