Update: Beta 3 now released

Beta 3 also has completely revised and reformatted help, with full text searching enabled and help page descriptions. The download link below has been updated to suit.

How to download the beta release:

To use the beta version, you must either have a NovaMind license key or be able to use it as a non-expired trial. This beta release includes both the new Screenwriter module, allowing you to create screenplays within NovaMind Platinum, and the new Theme Editor system which we have written about in previous blog posts in Pro and Platinum. There are also a number of other improvements and bug fixes included in the beta.

The download link is at: http://downloads.novamind.com/novamind5/mac/NovaMind550b3.dmg . We will be releasing the updated version with the theme editor and screenwriter through the normal channels as soon as the beta testing is finished.

As a beta tester, please make sure your email address is included in any bug reports you submit, and give as complete a description of the problem as possible.

About the NovaMind 5 for Mac Screenwriter:

Firstly, to make things perfectly clear, we are not planning to develop screenwriter capabilities in the Windows versions of NovaMind. The vast majority of users of the screenwriting capabilities we have developed in the past have been Mac users.

Many professionals in the live theatre, movie and TV industries already use Mind Mapping and brainstorming techniques to generate and develop story ideas, characters, organize aspects of production and more – but what about something to help capture script ideas during those brainstorming and planning sessions? Without the ability to record these, ideas that have a lot of potential could miss being developed into something brilliant, or even worse, forgotten altogether.

NovaMind Platinum enables Scripts to be attached on any topic on the Mind Map to record all of your ideas – the character names, their dialogue, camera angles, scene settings and more! By simply clicking on the script button you can start typing your screenplay straight away while NovaMind formats your text according to the industry standards.

Screenwriters know that the formatting can mean the difference between acceptance or rejection. NovaMind makes this easy for you by handling the formatting while you, the writer, concentrate on the important stuff – the content!

You can write your complete movie/play/TV script in NovaMind and see the screenwplay take shape both from a visual storyboarding perspective and the actual screenplay. If required, reordering of parts of the screenplay is easy by grafting or reordering the branches with the portions of script attached to them.

NovaMind can also export your scripts into industry standard formats like RTF and FCF to be shared or imported into Movie Magic, Final Draft, text edit, MS Word and many other programs.

What’s new since the NovaMind 4 screenwriter?

Although the user interface of the screenwriter looks quite similar to that of NovaMind 4, there are many improvements both behind the scenes and visible in the program:

• Screenwriter preferences are reflected in the current script window immediately.
• The text spell and grammar checking and substitutions are propagated to the screenwriter window.
• The spell checker is fully integrated so it works with both the Mind Map and the script.
• When a topic is disabled for printing/export, it is drawn with a pink background behind that topic in the script view, and the action item is colored pink too.
• There is a new popup in the command bar for navigation directly to a specified page of a script.
• There is a new popup list of all scenes in the screenwriter command bar, with instant scene selection either in document or topic mode.
• Added the ability for the screenplay to be read to you using text to speech.
• The command bar has a new dropdown case change system with new case change options.
• There is a new optional screenwriter toolbar item for the main toolbar.
• You can now dictate your screenplays on systems that support dictation.
• Various parts of the system have been optimized.
• Scene numbering is updated while you are still editing the topic, giving you more rapid feedback of screen numbers.
• Tab completions for empty elements are now reflected in the command bar.
• Added support for the display of total number of pages in the print accessory and export accessory.
• Made sure that the current text is written to the topic before exporting.
• The screenwriter documentation has been completely rewritten to be much easier to follow.
• Scene and character name completions are now updated live as you type.
• Made it so that the navigation arrows in the screenwriter get updated on option key presses even if the screenwriter window is not key.
• Multiple changes in the print accessory controller to bring it into line with the export settings where appropriate.
• Made the print and export options be able to export scene ranges properly.
• Pagination and scene numbering now updates instantly when topic inclusions are changed during print and export.
• Switched to using a popover screenwriter inspector on 10.7+. This gives a much better user experience.
• Added the ability to add script to floating topics and callouts.
• Improved the handling of switching between full document mode and topic mode in the screenwriter.
• Improved updating of next tab, next return, and scene numbering when changing the insertion point in the screenplay without typing.
• Fixed quite a lot of bugs that were there in the previous screenwriter.

Other Changes and Bug Fixes

As this beta is also for the new theme editor, it includes fixes for a number of issues in that area of the program as well as various other fixes as below:

• Added the ability to do additive selections of topics by holding either the Shift or Command keys.
• Made the notes preview longer.
• Added protection to ensure that color sets would never have more than 10 colors in them.
• Fixed a potential memory error in the Find system.
• Fixed a potential memory error in the Change Spelling system.
• Fixed a bug where the navigation buttons would not get updated in all circumstances where the current topic had changed.
• Fixed a problem where the presenter controls were being updated when no presentation was running.
• Fixed a threading issue with tooltips during save.
• Fixed some memory management errors on the theme system.
• Fixed a crasher bug when the web site update check returns the wrong data.
• Added code to fix issues with creation of Mind Maps from topics where there are link lines on the Maps.
• Updated memory management of unique identifiers on persistent objects.
• Updated the theme chooser controller to comply with naming conventions.
• Fixed a problem where recreating a Mind Map from a copy operation would not set up the link lines properly.
• Fixed a problem with updating of topic controls while the document is being saved.
• Fixed a threading issue with the presenter controller.
• Fixed a bug in the find option that was used to go to the previous or next find word, where it would not take into account the search options.
• Fixed a problem where the licensing icons would be drawn upside down in some circumstances.
• Fixed a crasher bug which could happen if a colorset was not properly formatted.

Screenwriter Documentation

NovaMind Platinum includes a Screenwriting Module used to write scripts for movies, TV and plays. Screenplays must be in a specific format to be acceptable to movie studios, and for actors to read them. While there are many programs available for this purpose, NovaMind is the only program that combines screenwriting and Mind Mapping.

The combination of screenwriting and Mind Mapping gives many advantages over traditional screenwriting programs, such as:

• The ability to reorder your script at will
• Include or exclude different scenes or parts of scenes to perform experimental screenwriting
• Keep your logistics, casting, and general scheduling all in one place
• You can present your script to executives easily in summary form so they can understand the flow through the Mind Map without having to read the entire script
• Switch instantly between working on the entire script at once and working on a single scene or part of the script that it attached to a particular topic

Showing the Screenwriter Window

To start working with the screenwriter, choose Screenwriter from the Window menu. This will open the script window ready for you to work with it. There is also a toolbar icon so you can have the screenwriter option displayed on the main toolbar – just use the toolbar customization option to add it to your toolbar.

If you already have script attached to a topic, you can click the action icon on the topic to open the screenwriter at the script for that topic.

Attaching Script

You can attach screenwriter script to any of the Mind Map topics including the title, floating topics, and callouts. It is not possible to create a script without having a topic selected.

Show the screenwriter window, select the topic you want to add script to, and start typing.

If you already have text attached to other topics, NovaMind will automatically open up a gap for you to start typing in. The text attached to the non-selected topics is grayed out so you can easily see which text is attached to the selected topic. If you move the cursor in the text to the text that is attached to another topic, that topic is selected.

You can also copy and paste text easily between topics by copying (or cutting) from one topic (or a selection that spans multiple topics), and pasting into another topic.

The title of the window is updated to show the title of the selected topic.

In the command bar, you have forward and backward arrows which allow you to select the next or previous topic with script attached to it, so you can step through the screenplay. You can also hold down the Option key while using these arrow buttons, and it will take you to the next or previous topic whether it has script attached or not. The full capabilities of the command bar are explained below.

You also have the option of displaying only the script for one topic at a time if you prefer – this is toggled by clicking the button on the toolbar. The toolbar options are explained in detail below.

Screenplays (or Scripts) are made up of a number of Elements. NovaMind makes it easy and fast to write your scripts by anticipating what section type you are likely to add next and automatically applies it when you press return or tab. The elements are as follows:

• Scene Heading (a.k.a Slugline)
  
  This is the start of a new scene within the screenplay. Scenes can be numbered automatically by NovaMind, with the numbers appearing in the margins (if you have this turned on in the preferences).
  
  Scenes always have a name (or location), but can have a setting and a time of day associated with them too. The format is SETTING NAME – TIME OF DAY, for example INT. THE PALACE – AFTERNOON, which would mean Interior, at the palace, in the afternoon.
  
  NovaMind has standard scene prefixes (the settings) built in, but you can edit these in the screenwriter preferences. When you start typing a scene, if you type the start of one of the scene prefixes, a completion window will appear and you can choose the completion you want, or just keep typing if you are not going to use a prefix for this scene. If you type something other than a standard prefix, it will be interpreted as part of the scene location, so if you need different prefixes, you should edit the preferences.
  
  The scene names (a.k.a scene locations) are remembered on a document-wide basis, so while a screenplay is tied to a particular Mind Map, the scenes are remembered across Mind Maps in the document to ensure consistency. When you start typing a scene name, NovaMind will offer a list of matching completions, so you can either choose one of them if you are using the same scene location, or just keep typing if it is a different location.
  
  NovaMind has built in scene time of day completions, and these can be edited in the preferences. To use a scene time, after you have typed the scene name, type a space then a hyphen then another space (i.e. ” – “). NovaMind will work out that you are intending to use a time of day and provide you with a list of the completions for you to choose. If you type a different time of day option than what is in the completions, it will still be recognized as a time of day completion, but you really should stick to the ones in the completions, and edit the completions in the preferences if you need other ones.
  
  If you start a scene with a prefix, it is correct practice to finish with a suffix. NovaMind will detect the prefix and will prompt you to insert the suffix at the end of the scene when you press Tab or Return, even if you haven’t typed in a the ” – ” characters to trigger the completions.
  
  By default, at the end of a scene, if you press Tab or Return, it will take you on to an Action element. This can be altered in the screenwriting preferences if you want to go to a different element.
  
  Also, by default, the first element that is created when you add a script to a topic is a scene. Again, this is editable in the preferences (Default element type), but the default setting is what you would want if you are going to have one scene per Mind Map topic.
• Action
  
  This is the narrative description of the events of a scene, written in the present tense. NovaMind automatically capitalizes the first word of every sentence so you don’t need to worry about that.
  
  By default, when you press either Tab or Return while in an Action element, it will create another Action paragraph.
• Character Name
  
  A character name element is always used to introduce a character before their dialogue. This holds either their actual name or for minor characters, they can be listed without a name, for example CUSTOMER or POLICE OFFICER 1.
  
  Like scene names, character names are also remembered across the whole NovaMind document, so you can use the same characters in several screenplays on different Mind Maps. If you start typing the name of a character you have already used, NovaMind will offer completions for you to choose from.
  
  Sometimes you want to indicate how the character’s voice will be heard. This is done using a character parenthetical (a.k.a character extension). NovaMind has built in character parentheticals. Just type a space and then open parenthesis and NovaMind will present you with a list of completions for you to choose from. Use your arrow and return keys to select from the list. You can either choose one of the predefined options, or type something different, but in just about all circumstances you should use one of the standard options, and if you want to use different options, update them in the preferences.
  
  By default, pressing Tab after typing a character name will add a Parenthetical element, and pressing Return will add a Dialogue element.
• Parenthetical
  
  A parenthetical element (a.k.a wryly) is used to direct the way the actor is supposed to behave or sound as they deliver their lines. NovaMind automatically adds the opening and closing parentheses and positions the insertion point between them.
  
  By default pressing Tab or Return after typing a parenthetical will add a Dialogue element.
• Dialogue
  
  The dialogue is the lines of speech for the character. It always follows a Character Name element so you know who is speaking.
  
  NovaMind automatically capitalizes the first word of every sentence so you don’t need to worry about that.
  
  By default pressing Tab when in a Dialogue element adds a Parenthetical element so you can give the actor further attitude direction. Pressing Return adds an Action element.
• Transition
  
  Transitions are elements that provide direction for filming about how to transition from one scene to another. NovaMind has a number of transition completions defined, so as soon as you type the first letter of a transition, it will provide all the relevant completions. If you need a different transition, you can type it, but it is recommended that you stick to the predefined transitions and if you need others, you can edit the completions in the screenwriter preferences.
  
  By default pressing either Tab or Return will add a Scene Heading element.
  
  Normally if you are writing a spec script, you would not normally include transitions, but for a shooting (production) script, transitions can be included.
• Shot
  
  A shot tells the reader the focal point within a scene has changed, and gives an indication of what the camera sees. For example, TRACKING SHOT would mean that the camera is following a character as he walks in a scene. WIDE SHOT would mean that we see every character that appears in the scene, all at once.
  
  By default pressing Tab when in a Shot will add another Shot element, and pressing Return will add an Action element.
  
  Normally if you are writing a spec script, you would not normally include shot elements, but for a shooting (production) script, shots can be included.
• General
  
  General elements are used for any text which does not fit the requirements of any of the standard elements. It should be used only in unusual situations, since the standard elements should cover all normal usage.
  
  By default pressing Tab or Return in a General element will add another General element.

Empty Script Elements

If you have an empty script element, you can press Return to select the element type you want to use, and it will be converted to that element type.

You can also switch to other element types using the Tab and Shift+Tab keystrokes. These are standard settings, as follows:

• Scene Heading: Pressing Tab changes the element to an Action element. Pressing Shift-Tab changes to a Transition element.
• Action: Pressing Tab changes to a Character Name element. Pressing Shift-Tab changes to a Scene Heading element.
• Character Name: Pressing Tab changes to a Transition element. Pressing Shift-Tab changes to an Action element.
• Parenthetical: Pressing Tab or Shift-Tab changes to a Dialogue element.
• Dialogue: Pressing Tab or Shift-Tab changes to a Parenthetical element.
• Transition: Pressing Tab changes to a Scene Heading element. Pressing Shift-Tab changes to a Character Name element.
• Shot: Pressing Tab or Shift-Tab leave you on a Shot element type.
• General: Pressing Tab or Shift-Tab will leave you on a General element type.

Changing Element Type

You can also change element type either for an empty element or an existing element by using the hotkeys defined below:

• ⌘1 Scene
• ⌘2 Action
• ⌘3 Character Name
• ⌘4 Parenthetical
• ⌘5 Dialogue
• ⌘6 Transition
• ⌘7 Shot
• ⌘8 General

As you can see, the whole thing is designed to enhance the writing experience, minimizing typing, anticipating your needs and allowing you to keep your hands on the keyboard.

Find and Replace

In NovaMind Platinum, the Find and Replace options have been extended to include Screenwriter Script in your find options.

Spelling, Grammar and Substitutions

The screenplay text uses all the settings you have set up in the text preferences. Also when you check spelling in your Mind Map, it includes your screenplay.

Speech

Normally if you are using the speech options, it will just read from your Mind Map. If you want to have your screenplay read to you, choose the option to show the entire document (by clicking on the icon at the left of the screenplay window if necessary), then use Command+A to select all. Now use the Edit / Speech / Start Speaking Selection option. Of course if you just want part of your screenplay spoken, just select that part.

Dictation

The screenwriter has been engineered to work with the Mac built in dictation, and you can activate it through the edit menu or by pressing the Fn key twice.

Command Bar

Within the script window is a command bar at the bottom designed to show you relevant information about your script, and give you control over the various aspects of the screenplay.

The items on the bar are as follows:

• << Select the previous topic with screenwriting text attached to it, gray out the script attached to the other topics, and put the cursor at the start of the text for that topic.
• < When you hold down the Option key, the double arrow will change to a single arrow, and instead of moving to the previous topic with script attached to it, you will move to the previous topic, whether it has script attached or not.
• >> Select the next topic with screenwriting text attached to it, gray out the script attached to the other topics, and put the cursor at the start of the text for that topic.
• > When you hold down the Option key, the double arrow will change to a single arrow, and instead of moving to the next topic with script attached to it, you will move to the next topic, whether it has script attached or not.
• The Print checkbox. Include the script for the selected topic in the screenplay output (printing and exporting). If you have the print / export checkbox unchecked, the background behind the script for that topic is pink so you can see at a glance what is included and excluded.
• Page X of Y pages. If there are multiple pages, there will be a popup menu available so you can jump directly to a particular page.
• Scene #. If there are multiple scenes in your screenplay, there will be a popup menu available listing all the slug lines for all the scenes, so you can jump directly to any scene.
• Current element. This shows the element you are currently in. It is also a popup menu which allows you to change the element type. If you change the element type then the change is applied to the selected element.
• a>A. Pulls up a popup menu so you can choose how you want the capitalization of the selected text. The options are UPPER CASE, lower case, Camel Case, Sentence case.
• Tab element. This section shows the Tab sign and the element that will be used when you press Tab. Note that for some sections this value may be different depending on whether you have text in the currently selected element or not.
• Return element. This section shows the Return sign and the element that will be used when you press Return. Note that if you press Return when the currently selected element is empty, the text will show “Select Element”, and if you press Return it will show a popup table allowing you to select the section type you want.
• Zoom popup. Allows you to select the amount to zoom the screenwriter text, to enhance readability.

Toolbar

At the top of the screenwriter window there are three icons on the toolbar:

• Document / Topic view. You can view your screenplay either as a complete document, or just the script that is attached to the selected topic. This can be very useful for maintaining focus on the portion of the screenplay you are working on at the time. Click the icon to switch between views.
• Print. This allows you to print your screenplay. Full details are in the separate section on printing your screenplay.
• Inspector. Clicking this shows a list of all the scenes in the document. You can edit the scenes and they will be updated throughout the document. There is also a popup menu which allows you to switch to showing all the characters. Again, you can edit them and they will be changed throughout the document. Note that changing the character name will change everywhere it is used in the Character Name elements, but will not change it if it has been typed in other places in the script.

Disabling Scripts from Print and Export

The script command bar shows a checkbox for “Print”. By default, all scripts will be printed unless if you remove the tick out of the checkbox meaning that particular script will be “disabled” and will not be included when you send your scripts to print or be exported. If you have disabled printing and export for a topic, the action item on the topic will also be filled with pink. To “enable” that portion of script , you will need to put the tick back in the checkbox.

You can also hold down the Option key and click on the script action icon on the Mind Map topic to toggle printing on and off.

There is an option for the print and export settings to include all topics which will override whatever settings you have made. This is a easy way to print everything without having to go through checking and unchecking script boxes.

Mores and Continueds, and Scene Numbering

When formatting scripts, it is part of the industry standard to insert “Mores” and “Continueds” when dialogue or a scene runs onto a second or subsequent page. NovaMind can do this automatically for you. Please refer to the Screenwriting / Continuations tab on the Preferences Panel for the options and to adjust these settings to suit so that they will be applied to your NovaMind scripts.

Widow / orphan protection

NovaMind will automatically protect your dialogues so that the dialogue will not be split from the character name. This is so that you don’t get the character name on one page and then the dialogue on the next page.

Screenwriter Preferences

The screenwriter preferences allow you set up a wide range of settings for your specific needs. The screenwriting industry has very specific formatting requirements, and the defaults in the preferences are set up to match these requirements. If you want to revert to these industry defaults at any time, just click the reset button at the bottom of the preferences panel.

All the options in the preferences are applied immediately, so you can see what the impact of the changes is.

Page:

By default, the page size is set to US Letter, since that is the industry standard, but you can change it if need be. Typically the only change you might possibly make there is switching it to A4. If you need to change it, click Page Setup and choose the page size you want to use.

If you need to change the margins, just type the new values. The default settings match the industry standard, so should only be changed if you know what you are doing.

Elements:

Default element type:

This is the element type that is used when you first start adding script to a topic. By default this is set to Scene Heading, assuming that you would want to have one scene per topic, but you can change it to whatever you want. Of course it’s pretty easy to change the element type while you’re editing, but this saves you having to think about it if you have a standard way of working.

Element Settings:

The next section is all related to the element you select in the top popup. To view or edit the settings for an element type, choose the element. The options are displayed below:

• Tab Action
  
  This is the element type that is added if you are typing in the selected element type and then press Tab. This will also be reflected in the Command Bar.
• Return Action
  
  This is the element type that is added if you are typing in the selected element type and then press Return. This will also be reflected in the Command Bar.
• Left and Right indent
  
  The indent from the margin for this element type.
• Force Capitals
  
  Whether this element type is automatically forced to be upper case.

Completions

The completions section allows you to set up the completions you want to have available for various automatic completions in the software. To add a completion, click the “+” button, then edit the row that has been added. To delete a completion, select it and click the “-” button. The completions are shown in the order you have them set up in the preferences. You can reorder them by dragging the rows to the positions you want them. This can be handy if there is a completion that you use more often than the others.

Character Parentheticals

These are chosen when you type a space and an open parenthesis after a character name. They should be abbreviations of indications as to where the voice will be heard on screen (e.g. V.O. for voice over)

Transitions

These are brief shooting instructions for cutting from one scene to the next or other related photography instructions. Edit them as required, but they should be kept short, and you would normally only put them in in a production script.

Scene Prefixes

Normally these would be kept to the brief location prefixes that are understood in the industry (e.g. INT. for interior).

Scene Time

This list should be times of day that need to be indicated in your script. Note that these completions will automatically be shown if a scene prefix is used for a particular scene.

Continuations

Scene Numbering Positioning

You can optionally have the scene numbers shown in the margins of the page. It is normal to have them shown at both sides of the page, but some directors may want it done on just one side or not at all, so we have all these options available.

Scene Continuations

You can set the continuation options for scenes to show at the bottom of the page (CONTINUED), or at the top of the next page CONTINUED:, or both. Normally you would have them both on.

The text at top of page is the text that is shown at the top of the second or subsequent pages of a scene.

The text at the bottom of the page is the text that is shown at the bottom of any pages in a scene where the scene goes on to another page.

If you have the Scene continuation numbers turned on, for scenes that continue for two pagebreaks or more, the continued text will have the number of pages used by the scene shown in the continued number for the page.

Dialogue Continuations

You can set the continuation options for dialogues which cross page boundaries to show at the bottom of the page (MORE), or at the top of the next page (CONT’D), or both. Normally you would have both turned on.

The text at top of page is the text that is shown at the top of the second or subsequent pages of the dialogue, where the dialogue has crossed the page boundary.

The text at the bottom of the page is the text that is shown at the bottom of any pages where the dialogue goes on to another page.

If you turn on the Automatic Character Continueds option, the character name will be included before the (CONT’D).

Screenplay Printing

Layout

You can include whichever scene and dialogue continuations you want. See the description in the screenwriting preferences documentation for details on what scene and dialogue continuations mean. The actual text of the continuations will be as defined in the preferences.

You can have scene numbering to the left, right, both or none. For more discussion on scene numbering, see the screenwriting preferences section of the documentation.

You can have the border of the screenplay outlined with a frame and/or top and bottom lines in whatever color and thickness you need.

Topics

You can either generate the screenplay with all the topics or just the ones that you have selected for printing (as described above in the documentation). If you choose to just print the selected ones, all the topics on the Mind Map are listed so you can update which topics are printed within the print panel.

You can use the ability to turn off specific portions of the text for experimental writing. For example, if you are writing a screenplay and you have 4 possible endings that you want to try out, you can write the 4 endings on 4 topics, and turn off all but the one you like the best.

Now print the screenplay and send it off for review.

If the reviewer likes the screenplay but doesn’t like the ending, uncheck the ending you had used, check your second choice, and a few seconds later, you can produce a screenplay with the alternate ending.

Range

You can print either the entirety of the screenplay text, the current topic, or a specified range of scenes or pages from the generated screenplay.

Mind Map

Include Topic Titles will include the titles of the topics in the screenplay as it’s generated. The titles are added before the associated script, and formatted as General elements.

Include Topic Notes includes any text notes that have been attached to the topic. These are added after the titles (if selected) and before the script, and are formatted as General elements.

Include Topics Without Script Text. When checked, NovaMind will print the text from ALL the Mind Map topics, not just the ones that have scripts.

Importing Scripts

You can import from .fcf (FinalDraft interchange format) and Movie Magic exported RTF files.

Select the appropriate import format and the required file. The import will take the screenplay and import it by splitting the scenes up – one per topic, and naming the topics with the scene names. You can then reorganize your scripts on to the topics you want if you wish to split things up differently.

Exporting Scripts

You can export your script to one of the following formats:

• FCF (Final Draft interchange format)
• RTF (specially formatted Rich Text which can be opened in programs like Movie Magic Screenwriter)

Topics

You can either generate the screenplay with all the topics or just the ones that you have selected for printing/export (as described above in the documentation). If you choose to just export the selected ones, all the topics on the Mind Map are listed so you can update which topics are printed/exported within the export panel.

You can use the ability to turn off specific portions of the text for experimental writing. For example, if you are writing a screenplay and you have 4 possible endings that you want to try out, you can write the 4 endings on 4 topics, and turn off all but the one you like the best.

Now export the screenplay and send it off for review.

If the reviewer likes the screenplay but doesn’t like the ending, uncheck the ending you had used, check your second choice, and a few seconds later, you can produce a screenplay with the alternate ending.

Range

You can print either the entirety of the screenplay text, the current topic, or a specified range of scenes or pages from the generated screenplay.

Mind Map

Include Topic Titles will include the titles of the topics in the screenplay as it’s generated. The titles are added before the associated script, and formatted as General elements.

Include Topic Notes includes any text notes that have been attached to the topic. These are added after the titles (if selected) and before the script, and are formatted as General elements.

Include Topics Without Script Text. When checked, NovaMind will export the text from ALL the Mind Map topics, not just the ones that have scripts.

And that’s about it for the latest beta release – hope you enjoy using the screenwriter.

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of a new version of NovaMind for Windows 8. The new version adds file compatibility with NovaMind 5 (for the Windows desktop and Mac platforms), so you can import and export those files without losing attributes which are not in the Windows 8 version of NovaMind. It also improves keyboard based editing and navigation with new shortcut keys.

The Windows 8 version of NovaMind required us to use different technologies than those found on both NovaMind 5 for Windows and NovaMind 5 for Mac, but many of our users need to go back and forth between NovaMind 5 and NovaMind for Windows 8. We therefore included both import and export options for NovaMind 5 files which leave the attributes of the NovaMind 5 files unchanged for items that have not been edited in NovaMind for Windows 8, whether those attributes are available in NovaMind for Windows 8 or not.The result of this is easy migration of files to and from between NovaMind for Windows 8 and NovaMind5.

In addition, the new release has improved Mind Map navigation and editing with new hotkeys, and an updated tutorial which explains the new hotkeys.

The update is now available through the Windows Store either as a free application, where you can purchase selected extensions, or as a paid application, which includes all the functionality available. NovaMind for Windows 8 requires Windows 8 to run.

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of a new version of NovaMind for Windows 8. The new version adds the ability to have as many hyperlinks as you want on each topic, and notes attached to each topic.

You can add as many hyperlinks as you need to any topics, so that you can link to web pages and other resources and access them whenever you need to.

Using Notes, you can add as much text as you like to any topic, so that you can have full descriptions without affecting the conciseness and readability of your Mind Map.

Maximize the notes window to edit/read your notes in almost full screen.

As usual there are tutorials available to get you up to speed with the use of these new features.

The update is now available through the Windows Store either as a free application, where you can purchase selected extensions, or as a paid application, which includes all the functionality available. NovaMind for Windows 8 requires Windows 8 to run.

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of a new version of NovaMind for Windows 8. The new version adds the ability to have topic images on your Mind Maps. You can have up to 4 images per topic, and can resize the images to suit your needs. This update also brings the capability to resize the text area of the topic so you can get the text to wrap where you want it.

NovaMind comes complete with over 2,300 images which you can search to quickly find the ones you want to use. They are also organized into categories, to help you find the ones you are looking for.

You can zoom out to see the categories by either using a pinch gesture or clicking the [-] button in the bottom right corner of the panel.

You can import your own images into the image library by using the Image Import Manager. You can either import images from your own computer, or import them from the Internet using the built in Google Image Search.

You can select multiple images to import at once. Here you can see a search for the term “mouse” and we’re going to import 3 images.

When you have imported the images, they appear in your image library, and are searchable along with the other images in the library.

The arc menu has been updated to handle the new functionality, giving you both an option to show the images panel directly, and the center of the arc menu now has both the option to expand the menu, and a new star segment, which is used for showing the style panel.

When you initially show the style panel, it will show you the options for the images, adornments and themes.

Over time, we plan to add other options for styling your Mind Maps and topics.

The image system is fully touch compatible, and allows you to drag and drop the images on topics, drag them off to remove them, drag them to either reposition them on a topic, or to copy or move them to another topic. You can have up to 4 images on any topic.

You can resize the image area to make it the size you require.

And within the image area, you can set whether the image itself is scaled to fit or fill the area, or stretched.

Whether you have images on the topics or not, you can resize the text area to get the text to wrap where you want it to.

The update is now available through the Windows Store either as a free application, where you can purchase selected extensions, or as a paid application, which includes all the functionality available. NovaMind for Windows 8 requires Windows 8 to run.

The update comes complete with a tutorial to get you up to speed quickly using the images.

Theme Selection, Default Themes, Favorites, and the Theme Editor

Tutorial for the new theme system for NovaMind for Mac: Set default theme, favorite themes, custom themes, import and export themes, create theme from Mind Map, and full theme editor.

This video is also available on YouTube.

Special Note:

The theme editor is currently in beta testing. You can use the beta version including the theme editor by downloading it from http://downloads.novamind.com/novamind5/mac/NovaMind550b1.dmg . We will be releasing the updated version with the theme editor through the normal channels as soon as the beta testing is finished. To use the beta version, you must either have a NovaMind license key or be able to use it as a non-expired trial.

Transcript is as follows:

Themes give you control of the overall look of your Mind Map in a single simple setting. This allows you to very easily create great looking, consistent Mind Maps. They allow you to easily experiment with different looks for your Mind Maps.

When you apply a theme to your Mind Map, it will introduce a new default color set and font set, as well as setting the styles of the topics, callouts, floating topics, connections, and so on, but only where you have not explicitly overwritten the standard styles with your own custom settings. In other words, if you have changed something, then that change will be honored.

So if we create this Mind Map and set the fill color of this topic, then if we were to change the theme, the color would stay as you have set it.

Let’s have a look at how to change the theme used on this Mind Map.

We can either use the Format / Change Theme… menu item, or click on the Theme icon on the toolbar. You will be shown a list of the available themes like this…

What you see is a sample Mind Map styled using the theme, and the default color set for that theme.

You will see that the theme that is in use on the currently displayed Mind Map is drawn with a darker background, and a yellow border. Also, if the theme is the default theme used when creating new Mind Maps, it will have a check mark at the top right corner.

There are four categories of theme:

Firstly, built in themes. Built-in themes are the themes that come with NovaMind. It is possible that we may add new themes over time, so you may want to check back here after updates, even if you aren’t usually using the built-in themes.

Favorites are themes that you have marked as favorite. The newest favorite theme will be presented first in the list, with the others in reverse order of when they were made favorites.

Custom themes are available in NovaMind Pro and Platinum. These are themes that you have either created, or imported.

The themes in the “In Document” section are the themes that are used in your current document. Note that if you got a document from someone else, or created the document with a theme you don’t currently have on your system, the theme will appear in this list, but you wouldn’t be able to apply it to other documents, since you don’t have it on your computer. However, if this is the case, you would be able to use the option to save it as a custom theme, if you are using NovaMind Pro or Platinum.

To use one of the themes, click on it to select it. It will be applied to the current Mind Map. You can see that the look of the entire Mind Map changes when we change the theme.

To see the options for working with the existing themes, click the action button with the gear on it. You will see a menu like this…

Let’s just go through the actions.

Firstly the Favorite option: You can make built in themes and custom themes favorites, but if there is a theme which you have in a file, but it is not either a custom or built in theme, then you won’t be able to make it a favorite, because it only exists in the current document. Selecting the menu item will toggle its favorite status. If it is a favorite, it will be listed in the favorites section, with the newest favorites at the start of the list. If it is already a favorite, it will have a check mark beside it, and if you uncheck it, it will be removed from the favorites.

Set as Default: This will be disabled if it is already the default theme. The default theme is the one that is used for your Mind Maps when you create a new Mind Map or a new document. The default theme has a checkmark in the top right corner of the theme image.

The Save… option is only enabled when you are looking at a theme which exists in the current document, but is not either a custom or built-in theme, and you are running NovaMind Pro or Platinum. When you choose the Save… option, the theme will be saved as a custom theme, and will be available for you to use as you would any custom theme. This provides you a convenient way to grab a theme that you don’t already have, from a document, so that you can reuse it later.

The Edit… option opens the theme in a theme editor window. We’ll talk about editing themes shortly.

The Delete… option is only available for custom themes. When you delete a custom theme, it is removed from your list of custom themes, but if it is used in any existing documents (including the one you have open at the time), it will remain in those documents.

The Export… option allows you to share themes with others by exporting them as a file. This option will allow you to give the exported theme a name, and it will be exported as a theme file with the extension .nmtheme.

Also on the theme panel, there is a slider which allows you to say how big you want the theme shown.

There is also an action button, with a menu of options:

Firstly, Reset to Theme… allows you to reset the current Mind Map to the theme defaults. This is particularly useful in two situations: firstly, if you have been playing around with lots of custom colors and topic shapes and just want to reset everything to the theme settings so as to take advantage of the automatic formatting that comes with the theme system. The second situation is if you have imported a document (e.g. from NovaMind 4), and you need to reset the settings so you can take advantage of the power of the themes. Choosing this option will remove all the custom settings for the map background, and all the custom formatting of shapes, lines, fill colors, children coloring, effects and connection lines. All are returned to their default values (calculated based on the selected theme).

The Import Themes… option allows you to select themes that you want to import as custom themes. Note that each theme has a custom identifier, and can only be imported once, and when you edit a theme, it is given a new identifier, so that existing documents that used the theme as it used to be defined are not affected by your editing of the theme, and so that everyone who opens the document gets exactly the same view of the Mind Map. If someone is sharing themes with you, they can send you the .nmtheme files, and you can import them into your system. This option is only available for NovaMind Pro and Platinum.

The Create Theme from current Mind Map… will take the Mind Map you are working on and extract the settings from it to create a theme, and will open the theme in the theme editor. Note that the theme defines some settings but not others. In general terms, it takes the styling information on a level by level basis, and if there are multiple settings at a single level, it will take the first one it comes across with subtopics, or if there aren’t any with subtopics, it just takes the first subtopic and creates the theme from that.

All of the theme editor functionality where you are creating or editing custom themes is in NovaMind Pro and Platinum only.

The theme editor allows you to take an existing theme, or a newly created theme, and edit it. The theme editor opens up a window that looks pretty much the same as an ordinary document, but you will see that some of the options are disabled, and some work slightly differently. You will find that in order to show how the document will look as a theme, when you start editing it, it will create three subtopics at each level, and subtopics will be added off the center topic to make it easier to see what the theme would look like when applied to a Mind Map.

Various options like layout angle, and moving topics to specific positions are disabled, as is task information like checkboxes, start and finish dates, outline numbering, and so on, since they do not relate to a theme, which is for the overall formatting of the Mind Map.

You can edit the theme Mind Map to suit your needs, adding as many levels of subtopics that you want to define the formatting for. Generally speaking you’ll just want to use the two or three levels, and set the styling of each topic as you would like it, but to get the most out of your themes, let’s just go over some of the things you can do with the different settings.

For floating topics, the theme just represents one floating topic, so there is no point having more than one in the theme editor, but in addition to setting the style of the floating topic itself, you can add a callout and style that differently than the default callout style if you want, and you can add subtopics, and use the full range of styling options for those subtopics, if you want to use different styling than the default subtopic styling used on the Mind Map itself.

For callouts, normally there will be a callout on the root topic, which can be styled the way you want it, but again, you can create subtopics on the callout and style them the way you want if you want callouts to have a different style of subtopic than the default. You can also add callouts to subtopics and style them differently if you want to have callouts styled differently at different levels. As there is just one callout style per level, and the theme editor will just use the first one it comes across when extracting the theme from the Mind Map in the theme editor.

Shapes automatically use the callout styling, so are not defined independently of the callouts.

Two levels of boundaries are defined in the theme, so if you want to define both, you will need a boundary embedded in a boundary on the Mind Map. This is set up by default on the theme editor for you. When you embed multiple levels of boundaries inside each other on your Mind Map, it will alternate between using the first level and second level boundary settings from the theme by default.

There is just one setting for link lines, so the settings will be taken from the first link line found in the Mind Map. By default the theme editor creates a link line for you. The link line styling that is saved in the theme includes the line color and thickness but not the terminators.

We strongly recommend that you select or create a color set that represents the colors you want to use in your theme, and only use those colors for your theme. This means that when you use the theme (or someone else uses it), and change color sets, all the related colors get updated, keeping the entire Mind Map looking good, no matter what color set you are using at the time.

As with the color set, we also recommend that you select or create a font set that suits your needs, and use that throughout your Mind Map in the theme editor, and that you use the named theme fonts for their intended purpose, so that if someone switches to a different font set, everything adjusts appropriately. You should be aware that the font set just defines the font face, and not the font styling or size – that is done on the Mind Map in the theme editor.

For the fonts on your topics, we recommend use the typefaces defined in the font set, but you can set the font styling, including the font size for any level on the Mind Map. Note that the actual font styling that is used is the first character of the topic at that level which the theme editor uses when it is generating the theme from the Mind Map in the theme editor. For this reason, we recommend that you select all the sibling topics and change the font settings using the inspector like this:

Right click on a topic, and choose the context menu option “Select this topic and its siblings” then use the text inspector to make the required changes to the font.

For the text color, we recommend that you stick with the automatic text coloring, unless you have a specific reason to set a specific color for the text. Doing this will ensure that when the text is drawn over a dark background it uses white text, and when it is drawn over a light background it uses black text. And similarly for the link line settings, we recommend that you use the automatic coloring there for the same reason, unless you have a specific reason why you want to set the color to a specific color.

You’ll also see that on the text inspector there are two buttons that only show up when you are using the theme editor.

Clicking these buttons increase or decrease the size of the text on all topics on the Mind Map. These buttons are there as a convenience when you have an existing theme and just want to change all of the font sizes at once. These buttons are set to repeat if you hold them down, so if you want to make the text a lot bigger or smaller click and hold the button; otherwise just click the button. The actual font size doesn’t usually make a huge difference since the whole Mind Map is scaled when you print out, but there are a few circumstances where you’ll want to set it explicitly.

You will see that there is a note on the root topic. To change the default font for notes, change the font settings to whatever you want. Again, we would recommend using the font set to define the font face, and the rest of the font settings are extracted from the way you have the text formatted (or more specifically, the first character of the note).

Remember that the canvas settings are included in the theme too, so you can set a solid or gradient color, and have a texture image if you want. The usual recommendations apply as to keeping the background from being too overpowering, and using the texture opacity if necessary to make sure it looks good.

As you edit your theme, any style changes that you make to a topic will be reflected on its siblings, so that it maintains a look as close as possible to how the theme will look. So for instance if we select this topic and change its shape, its siblings will be updated too.

Once you have your theme the way you want it, you can save it, either by using Command+S or just closing the theme editor window, and if there were any unsaved changes, you will be asked if you want to save your changes.

When you save your theme, a panel is shown like this:

The top part of the panel shows a preview of the theme. We ensure that this is exactly accurate by extracting the theme information from the theme editor and creating the final theme, and then generating a showcase Mind Map using the actual theme. If it isn’t what you wanted, you can click on the Cancel button and it will return to the editor.

The theme name is the name that will be shown in the theme chooser. If you are editing an existing theme, it will default to the name of the existing theme. If you are creating a new theme, or editing a built in theme, you will want to edit the theme name so that you don’t end up with multiple themes with the same name.

The Save As New Theme option will always be enabled, and will add the theme to the custom themes available for you to select.

The Save option will only be enabled if you are editing what is already a custom theme. What happens when you save an existing custom theme is that behind the scenes it is saved as a new custom theme, and any open documents that are using that theme are updated to use the newly saved theme. This is done so that if you have any other documents that were using the theme as it was, they will still look the way they were, and also if you have shared the a document with that theme in it with someone else, they will see it as it was too. Of course if you edit a custom theme, and then open another document that was created with the previous version, it’s a simple matter of clicking on the theme to update its use to the latest version.

So that’s about it as far as theme selection and editing is concerned. Themes are very powerful and should be used wherever possible to do the majority of your formatting of your Mind Maps, so that you don’t have to manually adjust settings on lots of topics.

Handouts, Slide Export, creating Videos, and importing into other presentation software

This video tells you how you can create handouts of your slides, how to export the slides, how to create Keynote or Powerpoint presentations from your slides, and how to create videos of your presentations.

This video is also available on YouTube.

Transcript is as follows:

In this presentation, we will talk about what else you can do with your presentation slides besides giving a presentation within NovaMind Platinum. We will talk about four things: printing handouts, exporting your slides as images, creating presentations from the slides in other software, and recording your presentation as a video that you can share it or upload it to Youtube.

Firstly, let’s talk about printing handouts. Handouts can be useful for your audience to either follow along with your presentation, or so they have a permanent reminder of the content after the presentation is over.

To print handouts, either use the print button on the slides panel, or the Print Slides menu option.

You will see a standard print panel, but with extra options specific to printing your slides and handouts.

The first item is the range of slides that you want to print. You can print either all of them, or just specific slides, and you have the option of whether to include the introductory slide or not.

Then you can select the content that you want included. If you choose to include the background then any colored background or texture image on the background of the slide will be printed. If you leave this option off, then the slide will be printed as if it was on white paper, and any automatic colored text will be adjusted accordingly.

If you choose the option to include a border, a box will be drawn around the slide in the color you select, or black if you don’t explicitly select anything else.

If you choose the Hide topic text option, then the slides will be printed without any text on the topics. This can be very handy if you want to print handouts for your audience to fill in during your presentation. Having your audience fill in the Mind Map during the presentation is a good aid to their memory because they are getting visual, audio, and kinesthetic learning, and also have the option of recording the information in their own words, and extending the Mind Map with their own thoughts.

The next section is the page content. In this area, you choose the number of slides to put on each page, and whether to include lines for people to write notes on. The preview below this section shows how the page will be configured, and also reflects whether you are printing in landscape or portrait orientation.

The other options for headers and footers are the same as normal printing options, so we won’t go into those here.

Now let’s talk about exporting slides. You may well want to export each of your presentation slides as images for use in other programs, or to share on a web site, or give to other people for some other purpose.

You can either use the File / Export option on the menu, or use the presentation slides panel context menu to export the slides. If you are using the main menu, you can export just the slides selected in the presentation slides panel by holding down the Option key while using the export menu (you will see the title of the menu item change accordingly). If you want to use the presentation slides panel directly, just right click on it and you will be able to export from there, and if you have any slides selected, you will also be able to export just the selected slides.

When you export slides, an open panel will be shown, allowing you to select the folder in which you want to put your slide images. You don’t need to worry about the contents of this folder, since the export creates a new folder within the selected folder for the exported images. The new folder will be named according to the name of the NovaMind file you are exporting from if you have saved it, or the title of the first Mind Map in the file. If a file or folder of that name already exists, it will start adding numbers after the name until it finds an unused name, and then creates that folder, so as to not disturb anything already there. The slides are exported to the newly created folder, and at the end of the export process, that folder is opened in the Finder.

When you export, you will be given some options like this. The first section allows you to choose which slides to include in the export. If you have chosen to export only selected slides, the Slides option will already be selected, and the slide numbers field will already be pre-populated with the slides you had selected.

If you choose to include the intro slide, then the title and subtitle will be used according to your presentation setup, and if you have checked the “Help spread the word” option, there will be a small “Created using NovaMind” text in the bottom right corner of the intro slide image.

If you export the intro slide, it will be numbered 0 in the exported file names, and each other slide will be named according to the slide number.

When you export, you can set the size of the files that are produced either according to the popup, or if you choose the custom size, you will be able to set the width and height in the text fields below the popup.

In the options, you can choose to export the Mind Map background as part of the image, in which case, the images get produced with the backgrounds you have set for those Mind Maps. If you choose this option, and also produce an intro slide, the intro slide will be colored according to the average color of the first Mind Map’s background, and the text will be either black or white, according to the most contrasting color for the background that is used.

If you decide not to export with the background, the image produced will have a transparent background, so that you can include it in other presentation software like Keynote or Powerpoint. There are two options if you are exporting without a background: Export for light background and Export for dark background. This determines the coloring of automatic colored text and link lines – the automatic coloring will be white if you choose to export for a dark background, or black if you are exporting for a light background. This means it will show up nicely when you place it in your other documents.

Now let’s take the exported slides and create presentations in other software. Firstly, Keynote.

Create a Keynote presentation using the theme you want to use.

Select all the exported slide images, and drag them onto the slides sidebar. Make sure you drag it on to the sidebar itself and not on to a slide.

All the added slides will be selected as you can see from the yellow border.

You may see that there are other things on the slides as well as the images. To get rid of them, go into the Masters section and choose Blank.

Select the transition you want to use. Usually a dissolve looks good.

And that’s it!

So it’s pretty easy to get your slides into Keynote, but a little more difficult to get them into Powerpoint. This method requires Powerpoint 2008 or later.

Open Automator in your Applications folder.

When Automator opens, you’ll see a “Choose a type for your document” dialog. Click “Application” then click “Choose”.

In the search box next to “Variables” type “Ask for Finder Items” (the Actions item should be selected).

Drag “Ask for Finder Items” to the right, into the workflow area and put a check next to “Allow Multiple Selection” in the “Ask for Finder items” item you just added.

Go back to the search box and type “Create PowerPoint Picture Slide Shows”. Add that item to the workflow.

Choose File | Save. Give the Automator application a name and save it to any convenient location.

Whenever you want to create presentations from your slides, double click the application, choose the images you want to use and click Choose.

It will create the presentation for you from the slides, and you can edit it in Powerpoint.

To record your presentation as a video, you can either use the free Quicktime Player application that comes with MacOS X, or use a third party video capture application. Personally, I use ScreenFlow for capturing and editing the videos, since it has what I consider to be the best range of features, and is very powerful while still being easy to use, and relatively inexpensive. If you already have ScreenFlow or some other video capture software, I assume you will know how to use it, and will be able to capture and edit your videos quite easily, so we will concentrate here on capturing using the free Quicktime Player application.

Normally you will want your presentation to be a particular size for viewing – especially if you are planning to share it on YouTube or use it on a projector. We therefore recommend that you use the option to do the presentation in a window rather than full screen. Typically if you want to share on YouTube, you would use either HD 1080 (preferred) or HD 720, and if you are going to use it on a projector you’d want to check the resolution of the projector, but the latest good quality projectors are capable of HD 1080 resolution too. For the purposes of this presentation, we will capture at a smaller size so that you can see the way we select what to capture.

If you want to have an audio track with your presentation, it is very difficult to get your audio right the first time, so we would recommend creating the audio track first, and then doing the screen recording. You can record audio directly in QuickTime Player, but this has only limited editing capabilities, so we would recommend using more sophisticated software for this if you are doing a reasonable size presentation – for example Audacity, which is free software, and very capable. You would export your sound file from Audacity (usually as an AIFF or MP3 rile) and open it in QuickTime Player.

Start your presentation in windowed mode at the size you want, then switch to QuickTime Player, and choose the File / New Screen Recording menu. You will see a window for your recording with a record button on it. Before you start recording, click on the down arrow button at the right side of that window, and choose what you want to use for sound – if you have done as we suggested and recorded your audio separately, select None – you will add the audio later. If however you want to narrate as you go, you will want to have the microphone selected. For the other options, you are in most cases best to leave the quality setting on high, and you probably don’t want to use the option to show the mouse clicks seeing as you will highlight the topics directly in the presentation.

If you are using a windowed presentation as suggested, drag your recording area to exactly match the size of your presentation window.

If you are using a pre-recorded audio file, then start your audio playing, and go through your presentation in time with the recording. When you have finished recording, you can either press the Stop Recording option in the menu bar, or use Control+Command+Esc to finish recording.

Now you can drag your audio on to the screencast to add it as the soundtrack, and export the whole thing as a ready to go presentation, or use the built in Share options if your version of Quicktime has this option.

This video is also available on YouTube.

Giving a Slide Based Presentation using the NovaMind Presenter

Once you have created the slides for your presentations, this video tells you how to use all the facilities available to you during your presentation.

Transcript is as follows:

In the last video, we went through all the steps required to create your presentation slides, ready for your presentation using NovaMind Platinum.

In this video, we will go through all the options while you are giving your presentation.

When you want to start your presentation, you can either use the Start Presentation menu item on the Presenter menu, or click on the button to start the presentation.

This will start the presentation in full screen mode.

If you want to run your presentation in a window instead of full screen, hold down the Option key – the menu item will change to “Start Presentation in Window”. The size of the window will depend on what you have selected in the “Windowed Presentation View Size” menu. This can be very useful if you want to have other things on the screen at the same time, or if you are on a webinar and want to share the presentation at a certain size, or if you are creating a video from your presentation.

When you choose the size of the presentation to be one of the standard sizes, NovaMind will resize the window so that the content area is the specified size, so that if you are recording the presentation for a video, you can crop it to that size and see just the content without the window title bar.

If you haven’t turned off the introductory slide, this is the first slide you will see.

The background will cycle through a whole lot of gentle animations in random order, to keep things interesting for your audience, without being distracting.

As you can see, the title and subtitle are the ones we set up in the previous video, and the scrolling text comes across from time to time. Down at the bottom right, you will see the “Created using NovaMind” text and URL because we said that we want to help spread the word about NovaMind.

At the bottom left side, you will see the presentation controls. Let’s go through them and explain them.

The first one is the presentation mode control. At the moment, we are presenting the slides, but we can jump to edit mode if we want to and edit the Mind Map, and of course our slides will update automatically. We can even add and remove slides during the presentation, and the presentation gets updated automatically.

You can also switch into Walkthrough mode if you want, and do some or all of a walkthrough presentation, and then come back to your slide based presentation. The details of giving a Walkthrough presentation are covered in another tutorial video.

And of course you can exit the presentation from this menu, or from the main menu, or just by pressing Escape or Q or Command+. (command period).

If you want to be reminded of the shortcut keys at any time during your presentation, you can press the ? or / key and it will show the help screen. Press any key to close the help screen and continue with your presentation.

If you are using an Apple remote for your presentation, you can switch presentation modes by pressing and holding the Menu button. It will cycle through the presentation modes.

Next, you can see the slide selector. You can access the slide selector either by clicking on this button, or using the +, -, or = keys, or typing a number between 1 and 9 to open the slide selector with that slide selected. This slide number is based on the slides that are included in the presentation (that is, excluding hidden slides). Using the Apple remote, you can show the slide selector by pressing the Menu button.

When the slide selector is displayed, you can either double click on the slide that you want, or use the arrow keys to highlight the one you want and press Return to present that slide. If you are using an Apple remote, you can use the +, -, forward and reverse buttons to select the slide you want, and then the play/pause button to use that slide. To exit the slide selector without selecting a new slide, just click on the slide selector button, or type + or – or = again, or on the Apple remote, press the Menu button again.

And the other two buttons are the ones for going to the next or previous slide. There are lots of ways of going to the next slide: Using the keyboard, you can press the Spacebar, the Right Arrow, Return, N, Enter, or Page Down to go to the next slide. Using the mouse, you can click on the slide that’s being displayed, or the right arrow button on the controls. Using the Apple remote, you can click the Play/Pause button, or the forward button.

To go to the previous slide: Using the keyboard, press the Left Arrow, P, or Page Up. Using the mouse, you can click on the left button on the controls, and using the Apple remote, you can use the rewind button.

OK, let’s start our presentation by pressing the Spacebar to go to the first slide.

If you remember, we wanted to have just the title and first level topics showing, and we wanted it to zoom right in to the topics.

Let’s just go straight on to the next slide. You can see that the topics expand and collapse as required and the Mind Map zooms to show the topics required for the next slide.

On this slide, you can see that we’ve zoomed right in to these topics, so the adornment image looks a bit pixellated because we have zoomed right in beyond the natural size of the image, but the task and other information indicators still look good, as we mentioned when we were setting up the slides.

Now on the next slide, we just have it just set to the normal slide sizing, so the zoom will never be more than 200%, and the adornment images look great.

During your presentation you can draw on the screen by clicking and dragging using a mouse or trackpad. This can be useful for highlighting areas of interest or things you are talking about at the time.

The first line you draw is red, and then different colors are used for the other lines you draw, so that you can refer to the lines by color if you like. Lines are removed when you move to another slide in the presentation, and you can remove just the last drawn line by pressing either Delete or the Backspace key. If you want to remove all the lines without going to another slide, press the C key.

The lines you draw during the presentation are just temporary, so are not stored in your document at all.

You can also highlight topics during the presentation: Double Click the topic you want to select – it will be highlighted with a red border. If you want to highlight other topics, hold down the Shift key while Double Clicking on them. You can also use the context menu by right clicking on a topic, and select whether you want to select that topic only, the topic and its immediate children, that topic and its descendants, or that topic and its siblings. To deselect the topics without going to the next slide, double-click on the background.

If a topic has notes on it, you can show the notes by double-clicking on that topic to select it and pressing T, or just click on the notes indicator. To hide the notes, click outside the area where the note is displayed, or type any key. NovaMind makes the notes text bigger so that it is readable on a presentation, and you probably don’t want to have long notes, but if the note is too long, you can scroll it, and also you can use a mouse or trackpad to select text to highlight it.

To hide the notes, click outside the area where the note is displayed, or type any key.

If you are in the middle of a presentation, and want to stop, and hide the Mind Map so as not to distract people, you can cover the presentation with a white screen or black screen. To cover with white, press W, or to cover with black, press B. To return to the presentation, just click anywhere or press any key.

Although the scrollbars are hidden while presenting, if you have a trackpad, you can still scroll using a two finger swipe. You can also pan by pressing and holding the spacebar while clicking and dragging with the mouse.

You can use pinch zooming if you have a trackpad. If you are using an Apple remote, you can press and hold the + button to zoom in, or press and hold the – button to zoom out.

When you view a slide, the topics are expanded or collapsed as per the slide definition, but if you do need to expand or contract subtopics manually, the controls are still enabled both for just clicking to expand and collapse, or right clicking for the context menu.

The hyperlink and attachment controls are active, so you can click them. The required application will be opened to show the link or file. If you are using Mac OS 10.7 or later and running the presentation in full screen mode, it will switch you out of the Space that is used to do the presentation, but when you go back to NovaMind, it will be there as it was before.

So let’s just quickly go through the rest of the slides. This one is where we had selected a shape, the floating topic, and the Slides topic to make sure that they all show on the slide.

This one is where we just had an image shape selected.

This one is where we had a floating topic selected so that it shows the floating topic and its subtopics.

And now you can see that we switch to another Mind Map for this slide.

Then if you remember, we duplicated the previous slide so that we could switch back to that for context before continuing with the presentation.

This slide reminds you of the different types of object you can use to define your slides.

Then this one is where we had a dummy Mind Map with a whole lot of shapes that we can use to switch to as standalone slides. In this case, we had selected the box with the text in it and the star to define the slide.

And here, we were talking about having topics highlighted automatically when you go into the slide. This is also handy if you are using a remote control and want to have topics highlighted. And of course if you’re using a mouse, you can double click on topics to select them, as we talked about before.

In this slide you can see that these topics and subtopics were highlighted, but notice that the attached shape was not highlighted and the link line was not highlighted because they would need to be explicitly included in the slide definition to be highlighted. Note that although shapes are not automatically highlighted when you say you want to highlight topics, they are included in the area used for the topic, since a shape is considered to be part of the topic itself, even though it can be physically separate.

And that’s the end of the presentation. On the exit slide, you can see that the controls are still there, so you can use the slide selector or back arrow to go to the slides in the presentation, and you can switch presentation modes while still in the presenter, if, for instance you want to use the walkthrough mode for ad-hoc highlighting of topics during question time after your talk.

So that’s pretty much it for the presentation of your slides. There is another, short video that explains what else you can do with your presentation slides to export them for other purposes or print them as handouts for your audience.

This video is also available on YouTube.

Creating NovaMind 5 for Mac Presenter Slides

This video tells you how to set up your slides for your presentation using NovaMind 5 Platinum.

Transcript is as follows:

In this video, we will go into detail about how to create presentation slides using the Presenter, available in NovaMind Platinum.

NovaMind allows you to define a presentation, by setting up virtual slides which define which topics you want to show, which topics have their subtopics collapsed, how far to zoom in to the topics when giving your presentation, and whether to automatically highlight the topics during the presentation.

The slides are dynamic, and automatically adjust where necessary as you edit your Mind Map.

The slides are defined for the entire document, and can include topics from all the Mind Maps included in the document.

So let’s define some slides for this document, and look at how they will be presented.

Firstly, let’s say we want to start the presentation by showing just the title and main topics, and none of the subtopics. So let’s select the Mind Map title and use Option+Command+1 to show just down to one level of subtopics. Now with the title still selected, we will create the slide. And we want to make sure it’s presented loud and clear, so we will use the inspector to say that we want to zoom right in.

Let’s just test the slide to make sure it’s going to do what we want it to do by double clicking on it. When you do this, it will show the slide as it would be as if it was presented during a presentation, except it will just use the space that it currently has on the canvas. You will see that the Mind Map title has green glow around it for a couple of seconds because that was what was used in the definition of the slide, and you can see that we zoom right in so that the Mind Map fills the available area.

When you say you want the slide presented close up, it will take all the topics shown on the slide and make that fit into the screen, no matter how much it needs to zoom in, right up to 500% zoom. You should be careful about using this option if you have images on your topics, because it does zoom right in, and the images may look all pixellated or blocky. The normal zoom amount for the slides will only zoom in to a maximum of 200%, so that images will still look good. Adornments are always sized at 50% of the actual image size, and by default texture images are sized at 50% deliberately so that when you do a presentation with the normal zoom in effect, the images still look good. The task information like priority and percentage complete is drawn in code, so that will still look good no matter how much you zoom in, and the icons for attachments, links, and notes are vector images, so also will look good no matter how much you zoom in.

Now let’s say we want to present the first of the subtopics with its subtopics, but make sure the other subtopics are still collapsed. We just expand that one subtopic and select it to define the next slide from there.

Now let’s see what happens when we edit the topics that are included in the slide. In this case, we will add a subtopic. Now when you double-click on the slide, you will see that the slide is different and includes the new subtopic. The slides are updated like this as you add and remove topics. If you remove topics that are included in the definition of the slide, the slide definition will be updated automatically, and if you remove all the topics that define the slide, the slide will be deleted automatically.

You can select multiple topics from anywhere on the Mind Map to define the slide, so for instance, we could select this topic, this floating topic, and this shape, and when you show the slide, all of those will be visible.

An advanced option that you might like to try is if you just want to present one piece of information, or just a few topics on a slide, you could either add a shape that is away from the Mind Map, and use that to define your slide, like this…, or add a floating topic with a few subtopics like this…, or add another Mind Map to your document and present from that, in which case the presenter would fade out your main Mind Map, and fade the other one in, then you could copy the previous slide to go back to where you were, by Option-dragging it, or you could have a Mind Map that just has a title, and has a whole bunch of shapes on it, spread out, and you could use that as a pool of things to switch to, before going back to your main Mind Map.

Another thing you might like to think about is creating a slide for a boundary. Just select the boundary and create a slide. When you go to present that slide, it will position the whole boundary and everything within it appropriately.

You can see that if you think about it, there is a lot of flexibility built in to the Presenter beyond purely presenting a Mind Map topic by topic.

Now you can see that there is an option on the inspector to highlight topics. When you turn this option on, when you go to that slide, all the topics that define what is shown on the slide are highlighted. Note that this is not just the topics that you had selected when you created the slide, but all the topics that define the slide. So for instance if you have a topic with a couple of subtopics like this, and select the parent and one of the children, then those will be highlighted, but if one of the ones you have selected has children topics which you haven’t selected, and they are not collapsed, then they will be highlighted too.

Normally if you have topics which have shapes attached, you wouldn’t want the shapes highlighted, so these would not normally be highlighted, but if you do want them highlighted, just make sure they are included in the selection when you create the slide, and they will be highlighted.

The option for highlighting topics is useful if you want the topics highlighted when you go into that slide. During the presentation you can highlight and unhighlight topics at will.

You can see which topics will be highlighted by double-clicking on the slide. All the topics which will be highlighted are selected.

Having the topics which are highlighted automatically updated allows for the highlighting of topics to be updated automatically as you edit your Mind Map, but there is a situation where this could be not exactly what you want to happen, and that is where you have leaf topics selected. Since they currently don’t have any subtopics, you can’t collapse subtopics, so when you go back later and update your Mind Map and add subtopics, they will automatically be displayed. So there is an extra option for this situation. Just hold the Option key down while you create the slide, and now even if you add subtopics later, they will be collapsed when you show the slide.

If you want to keep a slide but not use it in the current presentation, select it and use the inspector to hide it. You will see a diagonal bar across it, and it will not be included in your presentation. You can select multiple slides at once to hide from your presentation. And just uncheck the slides to include them in the presentation again.

You can reorder your slides just by dragging them into the order you want them.

So that pretty much covers the setting up of slides, so before we go into the presentation itself, let’s set up the introductory slide for the presentation. This is a slide that is shown before you begin your presentation, typically while you are being introduced for your talk, or you can just show it quickly at the start of your presentation if that is what you would prefer.

The configuration options are on this inspector.

If you don’t do anything at all, there will be an introductory slide with the basic options set, and it will show the title of the first Mind Map in the document as the title, but you probably want to make it a bit more interesting than that.

The first option lets you not use an introductory slide at all, but I think the introductory slide is cool, so I’ll leave it showing.

Then we have the title. If you leave this blank, it will use the title of the first Mind Map in the document, but if you want the title to say something different, just type it in there.

The subtitle is shown a little bit smaller than the title, and can be as long as you like – it will wrap and shrink to fill the space, but of course we recommend that you don’t write a novel there. You can leave it blank if you don’t want a subtitle, or we would suggest using something less than about 10 words so it is still easy to read.

The scrolling text section allows you to set up lines of text which will scroll across the screen slowly at random time intervals. You can enter multiple lines of text, and each line will be scrolled across the screen, in random order at random times. It will be positioned so that it doesn’t go across any of the other lines of text that you have defined for the slide, like the title and subtitle.

If you have the “Display Time” checkbox turned on, it will use the default short time format that you set in your system preferences to display the time. The time will be displayed as a digital clock that floats across your screen.

If you define something in the Twitter Search field, and you are connected to the Internet, NovaMind will find tweets based on the search term, and show them in the introductory slide. This can be fun if you are at a conference and give people a hashtag for them to include in their tweets. If you use that hashtag as the search term, your introductory slide can show tweets that the audience tweet using that hashtag.

And lastly, the “Help spread the word checkbox”. If you check this, there will be a small note on both the introductory slide and at the end of the presentation that it was created using NovaMind. Most people have never seen a NovaMind presentation before, and we hear that lots of people who use NovaMind for their presentations have a crowd of people coming up to them after the presentation asking what software they were using. This option allows you to give this information to your entire audience, which helps spread the word about NovaMind, so that we can continue to make it better for you.

So now you know everything there is to know about creating your presentation, and seeing as there is so much information, we’ll create a separate video about giving your presentation using NovaMind.

This video is also available on YouTube.

NovaMind 5 for Mac Presenter Walkthrough Mode

This video shows you how to get the most out of the Walkthrough mode of the NovaMind 5 Presenter, available in NovaMind 5 Platinum.

Transcript is as follows:

In this video, we will go into detail about how to use the Walkthrough mode of the Presenter, available in NovaMind Platinum.

You don’t need to do anything to your Mind Map to prepare it for doing a Walkthrough presentation.

When you want to start your Walkthrough presentation, just select the Presenter menu, and Start Walkthrough. This will start the presentation in full screen mode.

If you want to run your walkthrough presentation in a window instead of full screen, hold down the Option key – the menu item will change to “Start Walkthrough in Window”. The size of the window will depend on what you have selected in the “Windowed Presentation View Size”. This can be very useful if you want to have other things on the screen at the same time, or if you are on a webinar and want to share the presentation at a certain size, or if you are creating a video from your presentation.

When you choose the size of the presentation to be one of the standard sizes, NovaMind will resize the window so that the content area is the specified size, so that if you are recording the presentation for a video, you can crop it to that size and see just the content without the window title bar.

Once you are in the Walkthrough presentation, you can click on the gear icon to the bottom left of the window, to change the options used for the presentation.

The first three options are connected, so you can select the one you want:

“Don’t Expand Subtopics”, “Expand One Topic Level”, or “Expand Two Topic Levels”: this controls how many levels of subtopics are expanded when you visit a topic.

If you choose the “Don’t Expand Subtopics” option, the only topics shown will be those that are shown when you start the walkthrough, or any you manually expand. This is useful if you want to set up exactly which topics you want to present before the presentation, and not have any other topics automatically expanded during your walkthrough. Using this option also disables the Auto-collapse option, since the idea is to just show exactly what you had showing when you started the presentation.

The next option is “Visit All Topics”. If this is turned on and you are navigating through the walkthrough normally, each of the subtopics will be highlighted in turn before going on to the next topic. This can be useful if you treat your Mind Map like a list where you want to go through all the items and highlight and talk about each one in turn. If you have this option turned off, when you get to a topic which only has one level of subtopics, those subtopics will not be visited individually. If you think of it more as a topic with subtopics being reminders as to the meaning of the topic, then you might like to leave this option turned off.

And finally “Auto-collapse Topics”. If this option is turned on, the topics that are not being presented at the time are collapsed. This is useful if you want to just concentrate on that part of the Mind Map without being distracted by everything else. If this option is off, any topics that are expanded will not be collapsed again – this can be useful for progressive revelation of information.

When you change any of these settings, they will be remembered in your preferences, and used the next time you do a Walkthrough presentation.

While you are in the Presenter, you can exit the Presenter (no matter which mode you are in), but pressing the Escape key or Q key on the keyboard, or Command Period. You could also choose the End Presentation option from the menu if you are not running in full screen, or select the option to exit the presentation from the presentation mode popup.

If you need help or want to be reminded of the shortcut keys during your presentation, you can press the ? or / key to show the help. Press any key to close the help screen.

To go to the next topic in your walkthrough, if you are using a keyboard, you can press the Spacebar, Return, N, Enter, or Page Down. There is also a menu option under the Presentation Control menu, so you can assign a keyboard shortcut to that if you like, using the System Preferences. Using a mouse or trackpad, you can click on the right arrow button on the controls. Using the Apple remote, you can click the Play/Pause button.

When you use any of these options, it will take you to the next topic in logical order, visiting and highlighting the appropriate topics. If you have the Visit All Topics option turned on, this will mean that the leaf topics will be visited while keeping the parent topic in view.

You should be aware that you can not use the right arrow to go to the next topic in the walkthrough, since it uses the normal logic for selecting topics as if you were not in a Walkthrough.

To go to the previous topic in your walkthrough, if you are using a keyboard, press the P, or Page Up. There is also a menu option under the Presentation Control menu, so that you can assign a keyboard shortcut to that if you like using the System Preferences. Using a mouse or trackpad, you can click on the left button on the controls.

Again, you should be aware that you can not use the left arrow to go to the previous topic in the walkthrough, since that uses the normal logic for selecting topics as if you were not in a Walkthrough.

You use the arrow keys on the keyboard to navigate to the next topic in that physical direction, just the same as when you are not in a presentation. The only difference is that it will automatically expand and collapse subtopics as required to show the subtopics (unless you have set it to not expand subtopics). If you are using the Apple remote, then the +, forward, -, and rewind buttons act as if they were the arrow keys.

You can also click on any topic to select it.

In the Walkthrough mode, there can only be one topic selected at a time.

If you have multiple Mind Maps in your document you can go to the next Mind Map by using the } or ] key. If you are using an Apple remote, you can press and hold the right arrow/fast forward button to switch to the next Mind Map. You can switch to the previous one using the { or [ key. If you are using an Apple remote, you can press and hold the rewind button to go back to the previous Mind Map.

If a topic has notes on it, you can show the notes by selecting that topic and pressing T, or clicking on the notes indicator. To hide the notes, click outside the area where the note is displayed, or type any key. NovaMind makes the notes text bigger so that it is readable on a presentation, and you probably don’t want to have long notes, but if the note is too long, you can scroll it, and also you can use a mouse or trackpad to select text to highlight it.

To hide the notes, click outside the area where the note is displayed, or type any key.

During your presentation you can draw on the screen by clicking and dragging using a mouse or trackpad. This can be useful for highlighting areas of interest or things you are talking about at the time.

The first line you draw is red, and then different colors are used for the other lines you draw, so that you can refer to the lines by color if you like. Lines are removed when you move to another topic in the walkthrough presentation, and you can remove just the last drawn line by pressing either the Delete or Backspace key. If you want to remove all the lines without going to another topic, press the C key.

The lines you draw during the presentation are just temporary, and are not stored in your document at all.

If you are in the middle of a presentation, and want to stop, and hide the Mind Map so as not to distract people, you can cover the presentation with a white screen or black screen. To cover with white, press W, or to cover with black, press B. To return to the presentation, just click anywhere or press any key.

Although the scrollbars are hidden while presenting, if you have a trackpad, you can still scroll using a two finger swipe. You can also pan by pressing and holding the spacebar while clicking and dragging with the mouse.

There is a slider along with the presentation controls, which allows you to zoom in or out, and you can use pinch zooming if you are using a trackpad. If you are using an Apple remote, you can press and hold the + button to zoom in, or press and hold the – button to zoom out.

When you select different topics, the topics are expanded and collapsed as per the walkthrough configuration, but if you do need to expand and contract subtopics manually, the controls are still enabled. If you have auto-collapse turned on, when you select a different topic, the expansion status of the topics will be set automatically again.

The hyperlink and attachment controls are active, so you can click them. The required application will be opened to show the link or file. If you are using OSX 10.7 or later and running the presentation in full screen mode, it will switch you out of the Space that is used to do the presentation, but when you go back to NovaMind, it will be there as it was before.

If you are in the middle of a Walkthrough presentation, and want to edit your Mind Map, you can switch to Edit mode, and edit your Mind Map to suit, and then switch back to Walkthrough mode to continue your walkthrough. You can also switch to slide presentation mode if you have defined slides, and then switch back to walkthrough mode when you want to.

So that’s pretty much everything that is in the Walkthrough mode of the Presenter. It’s very simple to use, but has a lot of power there when you need it.

This video is also available on YouTube.

NovaMind 5 for Mac Presenter Overview

This video gives you a brief overview of the capabilities of the NovaMind 5 Presenter, available in the Platinum edition of NovaMind 5.

Transcript is as follows:

The NovaMind Presenter is a very powerful presentation system built right in to NovaMind, allowing you to predefine how you would like your Mind Map to look using “slides”, and present the slides either as a full screen presentation, or in the current window. It also allows you to do a walkthrough presentation without having to define any slides, which allows you to present the entire Mind Map in order, in a standardized way. There is also a built in capability to edit your Mind Map during the presentation without having to drop out of the presenter mode.

The presentation features are available in NovaMind Platinum.

In this video, we will introduce you to the capabilities of the Presenter. There will be other videos which go into more detail about how to create and edit your presentations, and the various options available in the presenter.

There are two types of presentation: a slide based presentation where you define what to show before your presentation, and a walkthrough presentation which just goes through the topics in order, without setting things up beforehand.

If you are working on a document and suddenly want to do an ad-hoc presentation, you could use the Walkthrough mode.

Here we have started a walkthrough. As we go from presenting one topic to the next, it is highlighting the topics, and expanding and collapsing subtopics as necessary.

We can jump to presenting a particular topic just by clicking on it.

We can zoom in to an area of the Mind Map we are interested in, and collapse or expand subtopics.

We can draw things on the screen to draw attention to particular topics or explain things as we go along.

If we want to pause the presentation and not distract people with the Mind Map while we talk about something else, we can make the screen either white or black.

If we have multiple Mind Maps in the document, we can switch from one to another within the walkthrough presentation.

If there are notes on the topic, we can show the notes while in the presentation.

If there are attachments or hyperlinks, you can open them, and they will open in their native application, without changing where you are up to in your presentation.

If you need to edit your Mind Map, you can switch to edit mode, make your changes, and then continue with your presentation.

So that is the walkthrough mode. You don’t need to prepare anything beforehand, and it has basic presentation capabilities at your fingertips. There are also configuration options that give more flexibility over the presentation, which we will cover in another video and the documentation.

So let’s look at the slide presenter. This is the powerhouse presentation system. It is very easy to set up, and gives you control over what is presented when, and at what size.

The presentation is defined by slides, which represent the topics that are going to be presented. If you define your slides and then edit your Mind Map, your slides are updated accordingly.

There is an introductory slide available which you can configure to suit your needs. This can be displayed before your presentation to introduce your topic while you are being introduced. It has a wide range of subtle animations to keep things interesting but not distracting. You can also include scrolling text, the time, and even a twitter feed.

As you go through your presentation, your slides are presented according to how you have configured them. If you say you want to be zoomed right in to focus on just one or a few topics, then that will happen. If you say you want to be zoomed out to give an overview, that will happen, or if you just want the normal amount of room around the selected topics, then you can just use the normal option.

You can set a slide up so that it highlights the topics that define it automatically as you go into that slide, and you can manually select topics to highlight.

As with the Walkthrough mode, you can zoom in to topics, pan around the Mind Map, and collapse and expand subtopics while still on the slide, and also draw on the screen.

You can also display topic notes, and pause the presentation, displaying either a white or black screen, and open hyperlinks and attachments, just like the Walkthrough presentations.

If you want to jump to a particular slide in your presentation, you can choose the one to go to in the slide selector.

You can switch into edit mode during your presentation, and edit the Mind Maps, and even add or remove slides, and then continue your presentation, without having to leave presentation mode. All your slides will update automatically according to your edits.

You can also print out your slides as handouts. There are a number of options of how many slides to have per page, whether to include lines for notes, and whether to include the topic text or not. This gives you a lot of flexibility over the layout of the handouts, so you and your audience can make the best use of them.

As with the Walkthrough, you can either do a full screen presentation or have it presented within a window your desired size.

You can also export your slides to use either as individual images or to create presentations in other software such as Keynote or Powerpoint.

You can also create a video of your presentation by recording it with the QuickTime viewer application or a third party screen capture program such as ScreenFlow.

So in this video, I’ve just touched on some of the capabilities of the presentation features in NovaMind Platinum. If you are looking for more detailed information, please see the documentation or the other videos explaining in detail how to use the different capabilities of the NovaMind Presenter.