What am I missing in Acrobat?

[Beth Haney]

The answer is going to be simple, and I'm going to feel dumb, but that's OK. Here's the thing: I created a PDF slideshow. I have no trouble getting it to play, but when it gets to the end, the final image stays on the monitor (full screen mode) and I have to do a Force Quit to regain control of my computer!

I'm missing a setting somewhere, but I can't figure out what it is. Usually when something goes into full screen mode (which I'd really rather it didn't, frankly) I can click somewhere and disrupt it. Not this!

So what's the trick I'm missing?

Oh, yes, for anybody who doesn't know, I did this under OS 9.1 on my Mac.

[Beth Haney]

Hmmm. Nancy do you mean you're feeling "dumb" because you don't know how to "fix" this or because the same thing happens to you? Whichever - it's nice to have some company! :) Sometimes the easiest little things are the ones that give me the most trouble!

[Joe Henry1000]

Hi Beth,

I don't think you're missing anything. As far as I can tell the only way to quit a slide show is to command+Q. Kind of goofy if you ask me. You'd think that at the end of the show Acrobat would, like you said, allow you to click somewhere and regain control. Hmmm...

Joe

[Chuck Snyder]

Beth, they run fine on Windows, although at the end you press Esc to escape.
Chuck

[Richard Coencas]

Beth,

You aren't the only one to get confused by getting stuck in full screen mode. But as other's have already pointed out esc is the thing.

Rich

[Joe Henry1000]

You know what it might be? Mac users, at least this goes for me, aren't used to using the Esc key for very much. It never occured to me that would do the trick.

Oh well, I learn something new every day.

:-)

Joe

[Beth Haney]

That's for all the input, fellas. I had used the Escape key, but I was also holding a couple of others down to force quit the whole application. Of course that works, too. It just seems really weird!

Where do we sign up to request that Acrobat (at least I'm assuming this is a characteristic of Acrobat) be redesigned to do something simple. Like quit and go back to the regularly scheduled broadcast. ??? :) It just seems like something must be broken if you have to hit Escape or Quit!

[Chuck Snyder]

Joe, with a PC I'm continually pressing Escape when nothing else seems to
work....which is often! Part of the PC culture, I suppose...

:-)

Chuck

[Joe Henry1000]

Chuck,

Now that I think of it, I've played games in the past that used full screen mode and the key (pun intended) to getting out and back to the desktop was in fact, the Esc key. I should have thought to try it.

I think I'm loosing it in my old age. ;-)

Joe

[Beth Haney]

I probably haven't used the Escape key more than a half dozen times in my "computer life." I always wondered what that thing was for.

So I guess if I make one of these slideshow thingys, I better add instructions about the Escape key!

Hey, Joe? Do you know if there's a way to create a slideshow in iMovie and then convert it to either PDF or Quicktime? I haven't used iMovie for quite a while, so if I ever knew, I've forgotten. The advantage of iMovie is how easy it is to add images and then rearrange the order. It looks like if you don't like the order in Elements, you'd have to start over with a new slideshow. Right?

[Joe Henry1000]

Hi Beth,

I just got a new DV video camera so haven't messed around much with iMovie other than to import my movies. Well you got me curious and I thought I'd heard you could do photo slide shows with iMovie. So I fired it up and the answer is yes! If you use iPhoto (I don't think you do, do you Beth?), just click the Photo's button and you have access to your iPhoto library. If you don't use iPhoto you can also import directly into iMovie with the Import command under the file menu.

When you have your slide show finished just choose export from the file menu. Quicktime is one of the export choices. What you get in the end is a .mov Quicktime movie. Works pretty slick and of course you can add all kinds of fun transitions, effects and titles.

I'm going to have to play with this some more!

:-)

Joe

[Joe Henry1000]

One thing Beth, I'm using iMovie 3.0.3. I'm not sure if you can do the slide shows with photo's in earlier versions.

Joe

[Beth Haney]

I did several slide shows using iMovie 1, so I knew I could do easily. I just never tried converting the whole thing to another format.

And you're right about the poor resolution, Barbara, but I was hoping for a way to make a Quicktime "thing" so a Win user could view it on their monitor. That's the downside of iMovie - not cross platform without some additional manipulations, which I never tried. Well... when I get that new G5... I'll do DVDs. :)

Oh, I did make a VHS tape of an iMovie slideshow once. Gad it was awful when viewed on the TV!!!!

[Barbara Brundage]

You might want to check out "photo to movie" but I think that doesn't allow soundtracks. And I think, but am not at all sure because I don't have it, that if you have QT pro you might be able to avoid the imovie step with PE. I'll ask around about that.