benefits

Usability

When introducing new software, training can be a major cost factor. Not so with think-cell. When creating our software, we decided to avoid the dozens of menus, toolbars, dialogs and property pages that can make many features hard to find. Instead we built on the simple concept of direct manipulation, making all functions available right with the objects to which they apply. In addition, all familiar PowerPoint and Excel features remain available. With a few hours of hands-on experience, even novices become proficient think-cell chart users.

Efficiency

We do not just claim that using think-cell chart makes you more efficient – we actually measured it! A recent study at one of our largest clients proved that even a senior PowerPoint expert can realize an efficiency gain of a factor of 3 to 4 when using think-cell chart compared to her existing best practice. And since think-cell chart is so easy to use, even novice users attain the same level of proficiency very quickly.

Quality

Especially when time is scarce, presentation quality can suffer. But not with think-cell chart. It produces high-quality charts that are immediately ready to use in your presentations. think-cell is constantly improving output quality by incorporating customer feedback, making sure that even difficult layout problems can be adequately solved without much user interaction. So next time everything is in a rush, your audience will never notice.

Consistency

In PowerPoint, the usual way of creating charts breaks the links in data representation. Copying and pasting data from Excel into PowerPoint works fine, but what if the Excel data changes? Once your data is visualized in PowerPoint, you often need additional lines and labels on your chart, and where to put them depends on the underlying data. When the data changes, all these decorations end up being in the wrong place. think-cell chart maintains all data links to Excel and moves all chart features for you when data changes. This tight integration fosters consistency and thereby prevents errors.

Compatibility

think-cell chart completely integrates into your familiar working environment. It is 100% compatible with the file formats of Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel 2000, XP and 2003. All charts are created as combinations of PowerPoint shapes and Microsoft Graph charts. If you pass charts on to others that do not use think-cell, they can still edit the charts as if you had made them with PowerPoint. And of course, this compatibility gives you the security of always keeping your valuable slides in editable form, even without think-cell chart.

Collaboration

Making complicated charts with PowerPoint is difficult, and many companies have graphics experts to turn paper scribbles into PowerPoint slides. Graphics experts have the intimate knowledge and extensive experience on how to handle PowerPoint slides in order to make future edits manageable. But sometimes inexperienced users need to edit slides themselves and may break the best practices that graphics experts rely on. Charts may be ungrouped and scheme colors replaced by custom ones. Editing such slides later can be difficult. With think-cell chart, these problems are a thing of the past because it is so easy to use that everyone can make standard-conformant edits.