Getting Acquainted with Presentations Technology

Maybe you're one of those rare breed of people who actually enjoy tinkering with new software. If not, if you're more like most of us at Idea Cafe, the wealth of powerful presentations programs out there might overwhelm you before they excite you to jazz up your presentations.

In this excerpt from his book Multimedia Magic, Professor Arnie Abrams takes the mystique out of presentations technology and helps us all talk the lingo.

What Is a Desktop Presentation Program?
taken from Multimedia Magic (Allyn and Bacon) by permission of the author

Microsoft's PowerPoint program is a desktop presentation program. It lets you turn an outline into a visual presentation, using display type, graphics, animation and even video clips. You could present this information on-screen using a computer hooked to a large monitor, or to an LCD panel and overhead projector.

You could also have your presentation turned into 35mm slides, using a film recorder (available through service bureaus for about three dollars per slide). Another option is to output your presentation to videotape and perhaps add a recorded soundtrack. You could also print traditional overhead transparencies or handouts.

By the Way . . .
PowerPoint's main competitors are Aldus Persuasion, and Gold Disk's Astound. These programs are pretty much neck-and-neck with PowerPoint. Persuasion has better graphing and animation features, while Astound lets you create links and branching. Still, PowerPoint is the most widespread of the bunch and has many strong points.

Some Basic Presentations Terms and Concepts

• Each frame of your presentation is called a slide, no matter what form it will eventually take when it is used.
  
  
• A master is created for all slides, handouts, and note pages. The master items, such as the show's title, are automatically applied to all slides unless you specifically choose not to apply them to a particular frame.
  
  
• You can modify, update, and copy presentations. Some big corporations have an electronic presentation pool from which individual speakers compile custom presentations.
  
  
• One advantage of using desktop presentation programs is that they help to create a standard look for the entire presentation, including such items as the border, color schemes, and text styles. A spelling checker also comes in handy.
  
  
• You'll work and create in different views: switching between viewing an outline, master items, slides, a slide sorter, handouts, note pages, and the actual running of the slide show.
  
  
• One of the most common parts of a presentation is the bullet chart. This is an outline of the points to be discussed. Normally, each line of text has a dot or bullet in front of it.
  
  
• Just because you're using a powerful computer program doesn't automatically make your presentation effective. Remember the communication basics: keep it simple, use graphic design and speech guidelines, and remember who your audience is and how the presentation will be used.
  
  
• Preparing and/or giving a presentation on the computer introduces some complications and limitations. When you work on different computers, you may encounter font incompatibilities. You will probably need to present in a darkened room, and your presentation may have a "canned" look. Spontaneity and audience interaction may be limited.

Even with those limitations, desktop presentation programs are generally a very useful and efficient way to create and give a presentation.

Magic Trick
You'll need a lot of memory to run PowerPoint, so be sure to quit any open applications before starting.

 

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