The purpose of the CD Prep program is to create a CD-R which will auto-start on an end-user's computer and run slide shows which include Vox Proxy scripts without requiring the user to have first installed the Vox Proxy Player. CD Prep is an optional feature for Vox Proxy and can be ordered as an upgrade. The upgrade cost is US$29.95 when ordered with Vox Proxy or US$49.95 if ordered later. Order at the regular Vox Proxy order page.

CD Prep allows you to make royalty-free CDs with unlimited distribution. The CDs will play on computers with or without PowerPoint. With PowerPoint, the program supports PowerPoint 97 or newer. The author has the option to prepare the disk with the Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 Viewer included, so that presentations will always play on the Viewer whether or not the user has PowerPoint on their computer.

On the CD, you can include not just a single presentation, but a menu of presentations if appropriate. You can also include two files to provide the user information about the content of the CD - an "Author" file and an "Info" file. These files can be in HTML, RTF, or text format and can include embedded logos or graphics.

The Vox Proxy Player is much like the Adobe Acrobat Reader in that you must have the Player (or VP itself) installed in order to view slide shows with Vox Proxy characters. The end user must install the VP Player (one time) on their computer. Once they've installed it, you can distribute presentation files to them in any way - by e-mail, for example, or by an online link. There is a special save option in the Vox Proxy Script Writer (File/Save for VP Player) that allows the end user to simply open the presentation and it will automatically launch the VP Player, PowerPoint, and start the slide show.

CD Prep is strictly for distribution on CDs. It embeds the VP Player and the Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 Viewer onto the CD so that the end user does not have to have either the Player or PowerPoint installed. The CD will auto-start and launch the Player with the associated slide show.

When the CD first autostarts, it will display a small form asking the user whether it is OK to proceed. On this form, there are buttons for "Author" and "Info", which display files that you have included on the CD. Also on the form is a copyright notice, part of which you provide.

When the user clicks OK to continue, the program first checks for Microsoft speech components needed for Vox Proxy, according to your setup specifications. Any components not present are automatically installed. Note that on some versions of Windows, this requires the user to have administrator rights.

Once the speech components are verified or installed, the program either launches the Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 Viewer or attempts to start PowerPoint. If PowerPoint is not present, it defaults to launching the Viewer.

If you have included just a single presentation on the disk, it will automatically start. If you have multiple presentations, the user will see a menu of presentations from which he or she may select. Each item on your menu includes a brief description. On this menu, the user may also display your "Info" and "Author" information. When the user closes the menu, PowerPoint is terminated.

CD Prep is essentially a wizard that allows you to select all of the components required by your presentations and Vox Proxy scripts. Included in the selection process are:

• Presentation files

• Script macros

• Media files

• Author and Info files

• Characters used in your scripts

• Languages or speech engines used in your scripts

CD Prep will scan through your scripts and automatically gather any media or other files required. The files are copied to a folder you specify called the "CD Image Folder". Once completed, you simply use your CD burner software to copy the contents of this folder to the CD-Rs.

A one-step process called "Quick Prep" is available for situations where you don't need author, info, or other special files. It allows you to prepare the CD image folder in one easy process.

• The computer may have auto-start shut off on its CD drive
• The user may not have administrative rights. Because the CD may have to install a Text-To-Speech engine on the computer, users of Windows NT, 2000, and XP must have administrative rights to install it (as they must to install any software).
• The Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 Viewer requires Windows 98SE or newer. It will not run on Windows 95 or early versions of Windows 98.