Comparing and Managing Multiple Versions of Slide Presentations

Steve Drucker, Georg Petschnigg, Maneesh Agrawala

Abstract

Despite the ubiquity of slide presentations, managing multiple presentations remains a challenge. Understanding how multiple versions of a presentation are related to one another, assembling new presentations from existing presentations, and collaborating to create and edit presentations are difficult tasks. In this paper, we explore techniques for comparing and managing multiple slide presentations. We propose a general comparison framework for computing similarities and differences between slides. Based on this framework we develop an interactive tool for visually comparing multiple presentations. The interactive visualization facilitates understanding how presentations have evolved over time. We show how the interactive tool can be used to assemble new presentations from a collection of older ones and to merge changes from multiple presentation authors.

Our interactive visualization and assembly tool is comprised of a Visual Comparison window (left), a Presentation Assembly window (middle) and a Slide Preview window (right). Users examine multiple presentations (each column of the Visual Comparison window shows a different presentation) and find the similarities and differences between them. Users can select any subset of slides from the Visual Comparison window and assemble them into a new presentation. The Slide Preview window allows users to inspect one slide and its alternate versions in greater detail.

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Comparing and Managing Multiple Versions of Slide Presentations
UIST 2006, October 2006. pp. 47-56.