This site is the online companion to my book/DVD, "The Macintosh iLife '05", published by Peachpit Press and Avondale Media. If you like this site, you'll love the book and its nearly three-hour DVD-Video disc. Learn more. Have news, tips, comments, or links? Send them along! How to contact me. Get an iLife. Get your own copy of "The Macintosh iLife '05". Patronize your local bookstore or buy from Amazon for just $23.09 (34 percent off). Learn more about the book and DVD. Find out what all the buzz is about: view samples of this beautiful book and watch QuickTime excerpts from the DVD. Upcoming Appearances June 21. Apple Store, San Francisco, 6 pm June 25. Northeast Ohio Apple Corps, 9 am July 23. iLife seminar, Santa Rosa, CA Photo gallery. I love the Flickr photo sharing service; here are some recent shots. (Newsreader users: To subscribe to my photostream, drag this link into your newsreader.)

Talking iLife on "Your Mac Life"

Yesterday evening, I was a guest on Shawn King's "Your Mac Life." We talked about iMovie plug-ins -- the subject of my latest Digital Hub column in Macworld magazine.

You can listen to an archive of the show using QuickTime Player. Launch the player, press Command-U, then paste the following address into the location box:

rtsp://qt.yourmaclife.com/yml/yml040421s.mov

To jump to my segment, fast-forward until QuickTime Player's counter reads approximately 01:17:50.

You can also get to the archive by going to the show's archive page.

How to Turn a Microsoft Office Document into an iDVD Slide Show

On Apple's iDVD discussion boards, a user writes: "I have several 8x11.5" posters (text & graphics) that were created in MS Word (Office X) that I would like to include in an iDVD project as a slideshow. Any advice as to how I might convert these documents to images?"

Well, that sounded like a challenge to me. Turns out the solution is simple.

1. Open your Word document

2. Choose Page Setup from File menu and choose landscape orientation (sideways -- to match the orientation of the slide show).

3. Print to a PDF (in Panther, choose Save as PDF in the Print dialog box).

4. Drag that PDF into an iDVD slide show. (Yes, iDVD appears to accept a PDF just fine, at least in my quick test.)

Preview your DVD, and you should see the page appear as a slide.

Note that small text is likely to be difficult to read on a TV screen. You'll get the best results with docs that contain font sizes above 14 point. And use the Show TV Safe Area command (Advanced menu) to make sure nothing gets cut off.

Also, this tip works best if each poster is a single MS Word document. For multipage Word documents, you have to save each page to a separate PDF.

Although the original question dealt with Word, I suspect this would work very well with other types of Office documents, including PowerPoint slides.

It's almost here! The next edition of the top-selling iLife book is going to press soon. Almost 300 full-color pages, every page revised for iLife '04, and an all-new, two-hour instructional DVD. Pre-order The Macintosh iLife '04 for $20.99 (30 percent off).

  04/20/2003 - 04/26/2003
  04/27/2003 - 05/03/2003
  05/04/2003 - 05/10/2003
  05/11/2003 - 05/17/2003
  05/18/2003 - 05/24/2003
  05/25/2003 - 05/31/2003
  06/01/2003 - 06/07/2003
  06/08/2003 - 06/14/2003
  06/15/2003 - 06/21/2003
  06/22/2003 - 06/28/2003
  07/06/2003 - 07/12/2003
  07/13/2003 - 07/19/2003
  07/20/2003 - 07/26/2003
  08/03/2003 - 08/09/2003
  10/05/2003 - 10/11/2003
  10/12/2003 - 10/18/2003
  10/19/2003 - 10/25/2003
  11/02/2003 - 11/08/2003
  11/30/2003 - 12/06/2003
  12/07/2003 - 12/13/2003
  12/21/2003 - 12/27/2003
  12/28/2003 - 01/03/2004
  01/04/2004 - 01/10/2004
  01/18/2004 - 01/24/2004
  01/25/2004 - 01/31/2004
  02/01/2004 - 02/07/2004
  03/07/2004 - 03/13/2004
  03/21/2004 - 03/27/2004
  04/11/2004 - 04/17/2004
  04/18/2004 - 04/24/2004
  04/25/2004 - 05/01/2004
  05/02/2004 - 05/08/2004
  05/09/2004 - 05/15/2004
  05/16/2004 - 05/22/2004
  05/23/2004 - 05/29/2004
  05/30/2004 - 06/05/2004
  06/06/2004 - 06/12/2004
  06/13/2004 - 06/19/2004
  06/20/2004 - 06/26/2004
  06/27/2004 - 07/03/2004
  07/11/2004 - 07/17/2004
  07/18/2004 - 07/24/2004
  07/25/2004 - 07/31/2004
  08/01/2004 - 08/07/2004
  08/08/2004 - 08/14/2004
  08/22/2004 - 08/28/2004
  08/29/2004 - 09/04/2004
  09/05/2004 - 09/11/2004
  09/12/2004 - 09/18/2004
  09/19/2004 - 09/25/2004
  09/26/2004 - 10/02/2004
  10/03/2004 - 10/09/2004
  10/24/2004 - 10/30/2004
  10/31/2004 - 11/06/2004
  11/07/2004 - 11/13/2004
  11/14/2004 - 11/20/2004
  11/28/2004 - 12/04/2004
  12/05/2004 - 12/11/2004
  12/12/2004 - 12/18/2004
  12/19/2004 - 12/25/2004
  01/09/2005 - 01/15/2005
  01/16/2005 - 01/22/2005
  01/23/2005 - 01/29/2005
  01/30/2005 - 02/05/2005
  02/06/2005 - 02/12/2005
  02/13/2005 - 02/19/2005
  02/27/2005 - 03/05/2005
  03/06/2005 - 03/12/2005
  03/27/2005 - 04/02/2005
  04/03/2005 - 04/09/2005
  04/10/2005 - 04/16/2005
  04/17/2005 - 04/23/2005
  04/24/2005 - 04/30/2005
  05/01/2005 - 05/07/2005
  05/08/2005 - 05/14/2005
  05/15/2005 - 05/21/2005
  05/22/2005 - 05/28/2005
  05/29/2005 - 06/04/2005
  06/05/2005 - 06/11/2005
  06/12/2005 - 06/18/2005

Really old stuff (before February 2003)

©2002-2005 by Jim Heid.