Into the Future with Multimedia Documents When working with Microsoft Word, you quickly discover that it allows only text documents. With the skillful use of graphic design, MS Word can produce an effective text document. However, to use a multimedia element in a Word document, your only choice is to hyperlink to it, meaning that the media element will open for the user (hopefully) in a separate program and separate window. You can instantly see the implications of this limitation for today's digital workers, whose Web 2.0 social media provide them text, video, audio, animation, and other multimedia elements together in a mashup--no new windows to open (or fail to open) and no additional software programs that the user may or may not have. That's why it's called social media: because there are lots of types of media (video, audio, graphics, Flash games) on these sites. To produce a multimedia format from Word, you must go to Save As > Other Formats > and from the dropdown menu in the dialogue box, choose one of the web page options. Then you can upload the web page to your blog or other site on the internet. So, what you have produced is no longer a document; it is a web page.  To the Rescue One interesting work-around to Word's multi-media limitation is provided by Adobe PDFs, which today give you the ability to create a true, universal multimedia document that plays embedded audio and video as if the PDF were a web page. Here is a link to an example Adobe PDF that serves as a multimedia object. http://www.peakwriting.com/nu/edt631/unit1/sample2_mm.pdf Download this PDF, then open it as you normally would in Adobe Reader 9.0 or higher. Move your cursor over the images on the pages and left click to activate the multimedia elements. The PDF was created to fulfill a common request we receive--"Please tell us how UMUC's online writing center works"--asked by schools who have realized the importance of communicating with more than just text with their online students. With Adobe Acrobat, you can convert any Word document into a PDF that plays multimedia elements directly on the PDF page. Now, imagine giving your clients this kind of multimedia document instead of a static Word file.

VUVOX is a free tool that takes your text, still images, video clips and even music then mashes them into a banner-like collage that scrolls across the viewer's screen and contains hyperlinks. Your collage is stored on Vuvox's servers but you are provided html embed code as well as Facebook embeds. Here is how the company describes its product: VUVOX is an easy to use production and instant sharing service that allows you to mix, create and blend your personal media – video, photos and music - into rich personal expressions. Whether you're a photojournalist, photoblogger, or a student who wants to share your world.... COLLAGE will become your multimedia expression space! Below is one of many multimedia collages on the Vuvox site that demostrates how text, photos and video are combined into a multimedia presentation for your audience. Use the controls at the bottom of the Vuvox player to move linearly through the production. Look for clickable icons on the frames that indicate a video or more text is available. Ahead ("playground for creative minds") is a free web-based multimedia creation tool. You can use it to transform almost any current document, from PDFs to Photoshop files, Word docs to PowerPoint shows, into a zooming presentation, media wall, media blog, scrapblog, web site--virtually any type of presentation you can imagine. Ahead requires no programming knowledge. Individual objects in the presentation can  contain their own interactivity. After you have transformed your document or idea into an Ahead presentation, which is stored on Ahead's servers, you can share it a number of ways, including hyperlinks or embed code provided by the Ahead creation engine. Ahead provides embed code for all of today's popular social media sites: Facebook, MySpace, WordPress, Twitter, LiveJournal, Bebo, Friendster, Orkut, Tagged, Blogger, Hi5, Live Spaces, TypePad, iGoogle, Netvibes, Pageflakes, Yahoo! and more. Interactive Demonstration