I’m thrilled to announce today that Adobe is offering owners of Adobe Presenter 7 and Adobe eLearning Suite a completely free update to Adobe Presenter. Adobe Presenter 7.07 is a fairly significant change in the overall Presenter delivery so users will need to uninstall 7 and then install the fresh copy of 7.07.

If you haven’t used it before, Adobe Presenter is probably the easiest eLearning Tool in the world. It installs as a plugin to Microsoft PowerPoint, and kapow – you’ve got instant conversion of your PPT deck into Flash. Want more, Presenter makes synching your animations to your voice insanely simple. Just push the button and talk – you get to watch the slides and animations while you record and can synch up right then, or even afterward. To top it all off it lets you add quizzes effortlessly, and adds a Table of Contents and play-bar for you. If you need fast, simple, PPT based eLearning Adobe Presenter is the ideal solution.

Here’s a short list of the highlights in today’s update.

State of the Art Flash Output
More than half a decade ago Adobe updated the scripting engine inside of Flash. That work made it possible for Flash to run many, many times faster than the older version. The eLearning community has been extremely slow to update applications to the new, state of the art version of Flash – generally called AS3 (for Action Script 3). Adobe Captivate was updated to allow publishing in the faster version with version four. Now Adobe Presenter and Adobe Captivate both fully and exclusively support the faster, modern output. Because people use these applications interchangeably, I strongly encourage eLearning developers to always ask if their tools output AS3 versions of Flash.

Effortlessly convert PowerPoint slides into rich online content
With Adobe Presenter you can easily convert your PowerPoint slides into self-running, rich media presentations. Add voice narrations to your presentations, or import an external audio track for sound effects. You can Directly capture video from a capture device (like a webcam) or import it and embed as FLV. You’ll be able to ensure your training materials can be viewed anytime, anywhere, by delivering them online. Presenter let’s you import rich animations created with Adobe Flash, and simulations created with Adobe Captivate®, into your presentations, thanks to new ActionScript® 3 support provided by Adobe Presenter software.

Deliver your content anywhere, anytime
Finally, Adobe Presenter will eliminate barriers to attendance and course completion, and widen your learning community by delivering your content online. Let learners access your courses by simply clicking on a URL – no need to download anything. Put your courses onto social media channels and encourage sharing, to widen reach still further.

You get additional functionality with Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro if you are using both applications. Presenter files easily integrate with Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro [Shameer] Adobe Connect software. Because Adobe Presenter, Adobe Captivate and Adobe Connect all work seamlessly together, you can leverage Adobe Connect to deploy, manage, deliver, and track all courses and content. Analyze slide-level and question-level feedback, generate meaningful training reports, and enable learners to track their own progress. You can use the Connect & Presenter combination to get detailed information on viewing behavior, right down to which slides were viewed and in what order. Analyze this to identify the sections of your presentations that don’t seem to be effective (slides with low stickiness or maximum dropout).

Adobe Presenter is really ideal for a couple of audiences. Trainers and Educators can convert their PowerPoint training and courses to interactive Flash based training courses and online course ware. Interactive quizzes can reinforce learning while providing valuable information about course effectiveness and individual Learners progress. Host it online so that their learners can access it anytime, anywhere.

Marketing and sales teams can dramatically increase the success of e-mail and online ad campaigns by driving prospects to engaging, narrated Adobe Presenter presentations instead of simply linking to static landing pages. Respondents simply click an embedded URL to view a multimedia presentation, fully branded with your corporate logo and colors.

Quizzes are included in Adobe Presenter out of the box. Using Presenter you can quickly enhance your Microsoft PowerPoint projects by adding quizzes or surveys. Create interactive quizzes within PowerPoint, with question pooling and randomization, in your courses. Easily add quiz questions to presentations, to test understanding and retention. Specify pass/fail grades and the number of times a quiz may be taken. You can even use question branching to tailor a learning path through a quiz based on answers. To top it all off, you can publish to leading SCORM- and AICC-compliant Learning Management Systems.

Still hungry for more, check out RJ Jacquez’ post today.