New Feature Log
by David Malpass
Do things look different? That's because Prezi developers are constantly designing new features to make your Prezi experience better. Check back periodically to see what's keeping us busy.
Table of Contents
05/12 - PowerPoint Import
04/12 - Spellcheck
04/12 - Path Thumbnails
04/12 - Plus (+) Button
04/12 - Aspect Ratio Guide
01/12 - Text drag-apart & Auto-panning
11/11 - Prezi Profile Pages
11/11 - Better Colors and Fonts, editing
09/11 - Play button
09/11 - Templates
08/11 - Shapes
07/11 - Insert a Drawing
06/11 - Grouping with Frames
06/11 - Google Image Insert
06/11 - New Zebra
06/11 - Advanced Right-Click Menu
05/11 - Bendable Lines
05/11 - Image Cropping
02/11 - Image Smoothing
12/10 - Color Wizard
12/10 - CSS Editor
12/10 - Drag and Drop
11/10 - Snap, Right-click Menu, Copy-Paste Text
09/10 - Zoom to Lock
08/10 - Prezi Meeting
Introducing PowerPoint Import
Import your slides into Prezi, one at a time or all at once, with or without a path, with just a few clicks.
How to insert your PowerPoint slides:
1. From the bubble menu, click Insert > PPT.
2. Click on Select File... and choose the PPT or PPTx file you want to import.
3. Drag your slides from the sidebar to the canvas, or click Insert all. You can also choose to add a path between them.
Check out this quick video to learn more about how to prezify your slides in just a few clicks:
Using Spellcheck
Note:
The red line will only be visible in edit mode. You can still present cleanly in show mode, even if you made a typo!
How it works:
In an open text box, you can right-click over the misspelled word and choose from a list of suggestions to correct it.
You can turn spellcheck off at any time, by right-clicking anywhere on the canvas and selecting “Turn spellcheck off.”
If you turn spellcheck off, the editor will remember the setting for this prezi, and won’t enable spellcheck again until you turn it back on manually.
Note:
Spellcheck supports only U.S. English language for now but we will add more languages in the future. We automatically detect the language and only enable the spellcheck if we detect a supported language. You can however manually activate it by right-clicking on a text box and selecting “Turn spellcheck on.”
Enjoy spellchecker, and Happy xooming Zooming!
Path Sidebar & Path Numbers in Editor
We're excited to announce that creating a prezi just got a whole lot easier, thanks to the Path Sidebar, and its corresponding Path Number on the canvas.
Now, at any time while editing or showing your prezi, you can see an overview of your prezi, as well as your path points, on the left Path Sidebar. You can click on part of your overview to zoom in, or click on a path thumbnail to zoom into that path point, or click the Plus (+) button to quickly add another path point and keep working!
(Note: You can hide this in Edit or Show mode by clicking on the two lines between the Zoom in & Zoom out magnifying glasses.)
Also, you'll notice that there are path numbers on the canvas that correspond to the thumbnails on the left. They will be grey while editing, and blue when in Path mode.
Prezi Plus (+) Button
Quickly create a prezi in just a few clicks:
To use, just press the + button in the Path Sidebar, or press the "N" key on your keyboard. Then, select which layout you'd like to add, drag the placeholder to the location in which you'd like it to appear in your prezi, and press the check box.
A few notes:
-Using the Plus (+) button adds a path point to the end of your prezi.
-As you drag a placeholder to a nearby frame, it automatically scales.
-Content added using the Plus button behaves just like everything else in your prezi. (Ie. grouping frames, editable text.)
Introducing Aspect Ratio Guide
It's simple. You need to know EXACTLY what your prezi will look like on the particular screen you will present on. Unfortunately, projectors and screens are sometimes in 4:3, sometimes in 16:9, etc.
Right now this is an advanced feature, and it works as such:
1. Look for the dotted lines when in the editor, and press CTRL + SHIFT + M to switch between 4:3, 16:9, or to turn the Aspect Ratio Guide off.
2. Once you select an aspect ratio guide in the editor, go to Show mode. You will see a black border, only revealing what will appear when presenting on a screen of the corresponding aspect ratio. The black edges will not be visible when presenting on a screen that has the selected aspect ratio, for example when choosing 4:3 and presenting on a normal 4:3 projector.
Note: Right now, this is an advanced feature, and can only be turned on/off with the shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + M
Your setting will be remembered the next time you open your prezi but can be disabled or changed at any time using the shortcut above.
Text drag-apart & Auto-panning
Now, you can drag lines of text out of a larger textbox and automatically create a new text box with the content. Just click and hold the hand tool to drag apart. You can even highlight multiple lines to drag more than one line at a time.
Also, we've released auto-panning. Drag the text, or anything at all, to the edge of the prezi canvas to pan to reveal more.
Prezi Profile Pages
All Prezi users now have the ability to create a profile that includes a photo and short bio. Your profile page showcases all your public prezis, allowing others to easily find you and your prezis.
Notification Bar: The Prezi Notification Bar is your place to receive important messages about your prezis.
Share Your Profile, Search for others:
-Easily share your profile page via email, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. -Clicking on author's name in a prezi will now take you to their profile page. -Customize your own unique profile page URL.
Privacy Information:
-Prezi Public license users' profiles are public. -Enjoy and Pro users' profile are private by default, though can be easily changed to public. -Only public prezis will be showcased on the public profile page. Private prezis remain private.
New colors, fonts, themes, and better color editing
We've given our themes, colors, and fonts a complete makeover. Also, you can now individually change the color your text directly from the text editor.
Play Button
We've made Show mode easier to find.
Before, you found Show mode by clicking on the greyed out Show bubble menu in the top left of the Prezi editor. We felt that showing off your prezi wasn't getting the attention your beautiful work deserved, so we've moved it to the bottom right, to stand out all by itself.
Luckily, you can still use the same shortcut, the Space bar, to quickly shift between Edit and Show mode.
Notes:
-Click and hold the previous arrow to revert to the first path point, click and hold the next arrow to choose autoplay increments.
-The Show menu options will disappear after a few seconds (except for the arrows), hover over them with your mouse cursor to to reveal them.
Templates
Introducing Prezi templates: you don't always have to start from scratch.
To access Prezi templates, create a new prezi to automatically choose from one of 5 templates or a blank canvas. Prezi templates include:
With Prezi templates, you can:
Insert Shapes
Now, you can draw shapes (rectangles, circles, triangles) in your prezi by clicking on Insert > Shapes from the Prezi Bubble Menu.
To edit shapes:
Double-click on a shape to resize it using its corner points, or switch between five preset colors (related to the selected theme). You can also access the control points directly by clicking and dragging on the corner points.
Changing the color or border of a shape can be only done via the CSS Editor.
Note: Shapes behave like frames, so any object placed within a shape will be grouped with the shape (press "alt" to remove something independent of the group). It is not possible to write directly on shapes, but you can drag any object onto them.
Insert a Drawing
Now, you can include up to 12 pre-made drawings into your prezi with only a click. Drawings include a combination of Prezi text, shapes, frames, and images that allow you to easily create a timeline, cycle, organizational chart, and more.
To insert a drawing into your prezi:
1. Select Insert > 
2. Hover your mouse over one of the 12 drawings to see a preview
3. Double click on the drawing you'd like to insert, or press Choose
4. Fill in the content of your selected drawing
Grouping with Frames
Frames are containers for objects in your prezi. You can use frames to show multiple items together in your path. You can also use frames to group items together.
To group items within frames:
1. Add items (text, images, videos) to the prezi canvas
2. Select a frame to draw around the objects
3. Move/scale/rotate the frame and its contents together
4. To remove an object from a frame, drag the object out of the frame at any time.
OR:
1. Draw a frame on the prezi canvas
2. Drag and drop any object(s) (text, images, video) into a frame to group the objects with the frame
3. Move/rotate/scale the frame and its contents together.
To turn grouping off and move/rotate/scale the frame without the contents, Alt + Click on the frame. Note: grouping is not available with hidden frames.
You can also resize frames by double-clicking on a frame to see the four control points, and dragging the control points to change the size of the frame.
To temporarily group-select objects in Prezi, just hold the SHIFT key of your keyboard and the LEFT mouse button and drag a rectangle around objects you wish to select together. When you release the mouse and the keyboard, you will see the Zebra tool appearing over the entire selection. Now you can scale, move and rotate the selection the same way as you do with single selected objects.
Google Image Insert
2. Hover your mouse over one of the 12 drawings to see a preview
3. Double click on the drawing you'd like to insert, or press Choose
4. Fill in the content of your selected drawing
1. Add items (text, images, videos) to the prezi canvas
2. Select a frame to draw around the objects
3. Move/scale/rotate the frame and its contents together
4. To remove an object from a frame, drag the object out of the frame at any time.
2. Drag and drop any object(s) (text, images, video) into a frame to group the objects with the frame
3. Move/rotate/scale the frame and its contents together.
Insert images into your prezis without leaving the page. With Google Image Insert, you can search for and scroll through images until you find the perfect one.
To use Google Image Insert:
1. Select Insert > Image from the Bubble Menu
2. Type what you’d like to find and press “Search”
3. Scroll through images using up and down arrows
4. Press Enter to insert your image
New Zebra
When you click on an object, Prezi's Transformation Zebra appears. It lets you move (center of the zebra), size and scale (inner ring or the "+" "-" buttons of the zebra), and rotate objects of any kind (outer ring of the zebra). Clicking in the "pencil" button will initiate edit mode of the selected object
Advanced Right-click Menu
Click your right mouse button after the Zebra appeared to find to access additional editing options. These actions are performed on the selected objects:
- Bring to Front: bring the selection to the front. All objects that the selection swapped places with will be faded.
- Bring Forward: bring the selection one step forward. The object that the selection swapped places with will be faded.
- Send back: send the selection behind all other objects.
- Send Backward: send the selection one step backward. The object that the selection swapped places with will be faded.
- Cut: the selection will be cut and placed to the computer's clipboard. Results the same as the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+x. (Cmd+x on Macs)
- Copy: the selection will be copied to your computer's clipboard. Results the same as the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+c. (Cmd+c on Macs)
- Paste: pastes copied or cut selections from your computer's clipboard to your prezi. Results the same as the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+v. (Cmd+v on Macs)
- Delete: Deletes the selection. A deletion of an object in Prezi can be undone by hitting the undo button of the center top menu or by the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+z (Cmd+z on Macs)
Bendable Lines
You can now draw and resize straight lines and arrows, as well as bend them to make your prezi easier to follow.
To draw straight lines, resize and bend lines and arrows:
1. Draw a line or arrow
2. Double-click the line or arrow
3. Drag the control points on one of the edges to resize length / move edges on the canvas
4. Drag the control point at the center of a line or arrow to bend it
5. Set the thickness of lines or arrows using the zebra’s middle ring
Image Cropping
You can save a lot of time by cropping your images right in prezi without using any third party editors to set up your photos before loading them to your prezi.
To crop images:
1. Double-click on an image to see the four control points
2. Drag control points to select the part of the image you want to keep
3. Hit Enter or ESC to crop the image; or, click anywhere outside of the image to crop
Notes:
1. Cropped parts are not permanently cropped, they are just hidden. Double-clicking the image again will let you reveal the cropped parts of the image, enabling you to crop again
2. To crop an image, it must be at least 10×10 pixels in size
3. You can crop JPG, PNG, PDF, and SWF images
4. You cannot crop SWF animations or movies
Image Smoothing
Zoom even further into your prezi! Now, insert pixelated images into Prezi and zoom in without them becoming too grainy. The best part is you don't have to do a thing - images are automatically smoothed.
Color Wizard
Finally you can customize Prezi themes! Available from the bubble menu, the Color Wizard allows you to customize Prezi theme colors, and select a font set of choice from the wizard’s font library. The wizard has a smart color-selection system that suggests nice colors for different theme elements based on your initial selections. Alternatively, you can also create branded Prezi themes by adding your exact company colors to the wizard.
Paying users (Pro, EduPro and Enjoy, EduEnjoy) can even add their logo to their custom theme.
CSS Editor
Design professionals can now create branded Prezi themes for free. The CSS code of prezi themes is now available for customizing in a standalone editor.
To open the CSS editor:
1. Open one of your prezis
2. Press ctrl+shift+c (PC), cmd+shift+c (Mac).
Color Wizard and the CSS editor are accessible with all license types. Learn more about these new features from our related manual articles:
How to use the CSS editor?
How to use the color wizard?
Drag-and-drop files into Prezi Desktop
Drag and drop images, videos and PDF documents directly into Prezi Desktop from your computer! The color wizard and CSS editor is also available in this update of the offline editor.
Snap, Right-click Menu, Copy/paste text
Three new features have been implemented to Prezi online editor:
1. Snap: It used to be harder to create a simple chart or align any objects with each other in Prezi. Now, as you rotate or move images, frames and text, they will automatically click into position with identical objects around. You can also adjust text to the size of other text boxes.
2. Right click menu: Right click in the editor to activate a submenu that offers copy, paste, cut and delete.
3. Copy paste texts: Now can use your computer’s clipboard for copy paste. This means that you can copy any selection from your documents, the web, or any other applications and paste them to your editor with a click.
Zoom to Lock
Lock elements with zooming: as you zoom in and out and items get tiny or huge, they will fade out and get “locked”.
They will behave like the background (you cannot drag them or select them but you can write on them). Unlocking is easy: just zoom to the opposite direction.
Hitting the “shift” key unlocks every object at any zoom level (locking is disabled in show mode, you won’t see faded objects while presenting).
Prezi Meeting
You can now work together on the same prezi in real-time! With Prezi Meeting, teams can collaborate live or simply present prezis with up to 10 people in a prezi at one time. Prezi Meeting is included in all license types.
To start Prezi Meeting:
1. Click Meeting from the menu bar in the upper-right corner of the screen while in Edit mode.
2. Now you have two options:
Invite to edit to generate a link that you can send to anyone. When your invited collaborators open the link, you will see their avatars. Text, images, and videos added to the prezi are visible to everyone, giving remote team members the sensation of being in the same creative space together. (When you are invited to co-edit a prezi you will enter the Prezi Meeting in Show mode upon clicking the link. To start co-editing the prezi, switch to Edit mode).
or, Start online presentation to generate a link that you can send to anyone. When recipients open this link, they can watch as you present, but will not be able to edit the prezi. This link expires 10 minutes after you have closed the prezi and finished the session.
To navigate in Prezi Meeting:
- To follow an avatar: click an avatar and select “Take a look”
- To give a collaborator control of the prezi (you are currently the presenter): click on the avatar and select “Hand over presentation”
- To navigate on your own: click on the avatar and select “Explore freely”
To add an extra dimension to the co-editing process, you can use communication tools such as Skype.
