Preface
Prezi is an innovative, web-based presentation tool based on an infinite canvas. This canvas and its zooming features are the powers of Prezi. Zooming out provides an overview and, zooming in provides details. You can look at a Prezi presentation as a large mind map. Put text, images, and videos on the canvas and structure your content by frames. Make the important points big and make the details smaller in size. A path in the prezi sets the storyline of the presentation.
Adam Somlai-Fischer invented Prezi in 2007. Adam is originally a media artist and architect, and he felt that the traditional form of slides limited him when he was shaping and drawing up his ideas. He made his first zooming interface in 2001. Together with Peter Halacsy, he started working on an application in 2007 in Budapest, Hungary. They called this tool ZuiPrezi. “Zui” for the Zooming User Interface (ZUI) and Prezi as it is the Hungarian diminutive for presentation. However, very soon they called it Prezi. Peter Arvai joined the team as CEO, and the new presentation tool Prezi was officially launched on April 5, 2009.
This book presents a series of fully realized Prezi projects. It will teach you how to build great prezis. The book builds up on complexity and difficulty. You will not only learn tips and tricks, but also the techniques and workflow used. The ten projects in this book are completely different from each other, and they will give you inspiration and ideas for your own projects. Take a look at www.prezihotshot.com for a sneak preview of the projects.
We hope that you enjoy working on your Prezi projects and may this book inspire you to get the most out of it!
What this book covers
Project 1, The Fastest Way to Go from an Idea to a Prezi, teaches you how to create a prezi by using brainstorming techniques. You will learn how to brainstorm in Prezi, how to go from a brainstorm to a mind map, and how to structure your content.
Project 2, Present Yourself with a Prezumé, shows you how to present yourself online with a more creative curriculum vitae. A résumé in Prezi is a prezumé!
Project 3, I Want to Use Prezi for My Lessons, teaches how you can use Prezi to create learning materials. In this project, we will create a prezi about “The world of bees.”
Project 4, Designing a Serious Corporate Presentation, helps you to create better business presentations in Prezi by using a seven-step workflow.
Project 5, Presenting in the PechaKucha Style, teaches you how to use a whole new way of presenting. You will learn how to build a prezi in PechaKucha style.
Project 6, Presenting Boring Stuff in a Better Way, teaches you how to present data in a much better way. The challenge is to make data visually more attractive.
Project 7, I Really Like Those Hand-drawn Prezis, shows you it’s not difficult to make your own drawings to tell your story in Prezi.
Project 8, Let’s Animate Your Prezi, teaches you how to create stunning Flash animations and use them in Prezi. You’ll create a Prezi machine step by step.
Project 9, More Interactivity with the Prezi Player API, teaches you how to create a menu on a website to navigate through your embedded prezi. You’ll be using the Prezi Player API.
Project 10, Creating an Award-winning Prezi, shows you how the winning prezi IDENTITY of the TED + Prezi Contest, Ideas Matter, was created.
What you need for this book
Of course, you need a Prezi account (www.prezi.com). Any Prezi account will do to create the projects of this book. The Prezi.com website supports all major modern browsers.
You don’t need additional software for the first five projects of the book. In the last four projects, we’ll be using Microsoft Excel, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Flash Professional (www.adobe.com/products), and the Prezi Player API (prezi.github.io/prezi-player). You don’t need the latest software. GIMP (www.gimp.org) or Inkscape (www.inkscape.org) are an alternative to Adobe Illustrator.
Who this book is for
You know how to make a basic presentation with Prezi. You played around with the tool; you know how to insert text, images, and videos and how to create a path in your prezi. You have seen really cool Prezi presentations online and if you are wondering how they were created, this book is perfect for you.
This book covers 10 different Prezi projects; each project has its own area of focus. You’ll learn a lot of practical details and tips. You’ll also learn a seven-step workflow that will help you create better presentations and to get the most out of Prezi.
You’ll learn how the professionals build their presentations with Prezi with this Prezi Hotshot book.
Conventions
A hotshot book has the following sections:
Mission briefing
This section explains what you will build, with a screenshot of the completed project.
Why is it awesome?
This section explains why the project is cool, unique, exciting, and interesting. It describes the advantages the project will give you.
Your Hotshot objectives
This section explains the major tasks required to complete your project, which are as follows:
Task 1
Task 2
Task 3
Task 4
Mission checklist
This section mentions the prerequisites for the project (if any), such as resources or libraries that need to be downloaded.
Task 1
This section explains the task that you will perform.
Prepare for lift off
This section explains any preliminary work that you may need to do before beginning work on the task.
Engage thrusters
This section lists the steps required in order to complete the task.
Objective complete – mini debriefing
This section explains how the steps performed in the previous section (Engage thrusters) allow us to complete the task.
Classified intel
This section provides extra information that is relevant to the task.
After all the tasks are completed, the following sections should appear:
Mission accomplished
This section explains the task we accomplished in the project. This is mandatory and should occur after all the tasks in the project are completed.
A Hotshot challenge / Hotshot challenges
This section explains things to be done or tasks to be performed using the concepts explained in this project.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: “We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive.”
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: “Clicking on the Next button moves you to the next screen.”
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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Downloading the color images of this book
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Errata
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Questions
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