Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had a chance to play around with an evaluation copy of Papershow from Oxford, and it’s been a game of two halves brian.

First Half
Out of the box - you put the usb stick into your pc, sync it via bluetooth with the pen (remembering to put a battery into it), and then you can write your thoughts directly onto the paper supplied which are transferred to the screen for exporting into ppt or pdf . No problems, simple and easy to do (see screenshot and click for a bigger picture) and also to be able to import your thoughts into a ppt or pdf file for use is a really handy feature.

Second Half
Attempts to import an exisiting ppt presentation went ok and there were also no problems printing it onto the papershow paper via a laserjet, but after that I was not able to get the pen to work with the printed version paper - ditto a screen print of my blog that I tried - I get the impression the software is a bit buggy with XP (session error messages and pen not being recognised on these occasions) and the gui can be frustrating at times.

Overall then, it’s a 1-1 draw with lots of potential for a great product but with plenty of bugs still to be ironed out.

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A review for Edina - Film & Sound Online on Drink: under The Influence. EDINA, based at Edinburgh University Data Library, is a JISC-funded national datacentre. It offers the UK tertiary education and research community networked access to a library of data, information and research resources.

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