JIM COATES Panning, zooming in video with ease

Q. I understand that the new version of Roxio Easy Media Creator contains the "Ken Burns" effect, which allows you to pan and zoom in or out on a still photo. I bought the Microsoft Plus Digital Media program because it can create this same effect, but when I tried it, I was restricted to templates that forced me to use the program's beginning and ending points for my pans or zooms.
I wanted to be able to select my own spots to start and end my zoom or pan. Does Roxio allow you to select your own specific spots on the photos, large or tiny, for panning and zooming?
A. The quick answer is yes indeed, the newly released version 7.0 of Roxio's suite of DVD- and CD-creating programs does include exactly what you want -- better Burns effects than the ones Bill Gates supplies in the Windows Plus Digital Media program.
Before covering Roxio's offering in more detail, let's document the renowned documentary-maker's role in the panning trick.
I was watching PBS documentaries that used the trick of panning in and out of photographs to add action to still-life stuff back when the brilliant 50-year-old Burns was in grade school. But starting with a documentary on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Burns did make the technique famous and stirred legions of us home moviemakers to dream of using the same trick to bring our own still photos to life.
I suspect that even Burns would find more panning power than he might ever want in Easy Creator 7.0. To make an animated movie of a photograph, you put the photo in a frame in the VideoWave moviemaking module of Easy Creator 7.0. You then set a time length and start ordering the pans.
You start by drawing a box where you want the pan to start and another box where you want it to end. Then you drag a slider to set the duration of the pan. It is possible to stretch out the process and perform repeated zoom-in and zoom-out shots on a single image. It is amazing how this trick dresses up a home movie.
Microsoft's version has preset zooms, and they aren't nearly as good as Roxio's software.
Let me add that you can also apply the zooming effect to movies to pan in and out of the scene as the action progresses. I suspect Burns would love this even if he didn't invent it.
Q. I have some document files in an IBM ThinkPad running Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional that I would like to transfer to my new iMac.
The laptop will be "going away" soon, and I'd like to get these files, which are mostly templates for letters and some lists of various things, into my iMac. Is there a way for me to get these documents into the iMac without having to retype each one? That would be very time-consuming.
A. Your wondering is over, but I'm going to be wondering for some time why you put quotes around "going away" in reference to that expensive laptop from Big Blue.
In its potent drive to win customers away from the Windows majority, Apple built just what you need into its consumer-level iMacs and iBook laptops. Specifically, Apple includes the superb MacLink software from DataViz as part of the AppleWorks software bundled with those machines. AppleWorks includes a word processor, spreadsheet, database and drawing program. With DataViz built in as a filtering device, AppleWorks not only will translate all those files you created in Windows, but also will open each and every one when you click on its icon, just as on that exiting ThinkPad.
Just save the ThinkPad files to a CD or put them on a thumb drive or other storage device and move them onto your new iMac. I'd suggest you create a folder for them in advance, and after you've filled it with word processing files, drag it to the Documents folder in the Mac OS X Finder.
I've sparred with Apple executives for years about the fairness of including AppleWorks in low-cost machines but not giving the same break to customers buying the more powerful and expensive Power Macs and PowerBooks. They insist that buyers of these machines are sophisticates who don't need such a simple program.
Instead of AppleWorks, the more powerful Macs come with a trial version of Microsoft Office X, written specially for Macs. The sample expires in a month or so, and it costs $399 to continue using it.
XContact Jim Coates via e-mail at jcoates@tribune .com or via snail mail at the Chicago Tribune, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611.