Presentations on tablets

I am increasingly interested in designing documents for tablets. They could work great in one-on-one meetings (or even stand alone). I have not found the right platform to develop them yet though.

PDFs do not always work (especially when converted using the Microsoft Office plug in) and show up within the frame of the iPad PDF reader (menu bars, chart thumbnails).

HTML5 looks promising. Onswipe aims to be an HTML5 publishing platform for magazines that also could be useful for presentations. If you visit the Marie Claire web site on an iPad for example you see what it can do (it looks like an app, but it is a regular HTML page). But you also see the limitations. A browser-based environment makes page switching slow, and again, you still have the navigation frameworks of the browser application.

Custom apps. Over the past weeks, I taught myself Adobe InDesign, and loaded up software that can turn Adobe InDesign files into custom iPad apps. My computer science background is trying to convince me actually download the entire IOS 4.3 SDK to have a look inside to see what it takes to program an iPad app from scratch. It is a heavy-handed approach though.

Do you have experience with this? Let us know in the comments.

9 comments

Jan Schultink2011-07-25 20:33:31

Thank you guys. Let's continue to explore.

KEXINO2011-07-25 09:30:52

What "InDesign-to-iPad" software did you get?

Jan Schultink2011-07-25 10:53:25

I am in the process of testing Twixl and Mag+. Have you tried any?

KEXINO2011-07-25 09:32:13

What software did you buy to turn InDesign files into iPad apps?

Sander Reijn2011-07-25 17:37:19

Keynote for iPad lacks many of the snazzier features found in the desktop. The App version of Keynote is very Neanderthal. It's not a full version. Building or converting "simple" slides isn't the problem, but custom shows/interactivity etc. is a problem.

Jan Schultink2011-07-25 07:14:23

I will look into it.

Niva Silva2011-07-25 15:03:08

Thanks for sharing your progress on this, Jan.

Here at Soap, we have been adapting ppts to iPad's Keynote successfully. Job by job we learn new possibilities and limitations.

Now we're starting to test some native and html5 platforms for more powerful presentation apps. is one of the candidates.

Jason Leow2011-07-25 04:16:10

Hi Jan,

Why not use the Keynote app or the Documents To Go app (for PowerPoint)? For less than US$20, it seems like the most cost effective way... no need to code a custom app, no need to work around using pdfs... What do you think? :)

Madeline2011-07-26 16:39:27

The tablet has certainly become "the ultimate storytelling device." At Sales Graphics, we use an app called Custom Show to create incredible presentations on the iPad. This may not be the program for you Jan, but the sample available for download is worth a look just to observe the design alone.

Let us know what you think!