PowerPoint: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 20:19, 2 February 2009

PowerPoint is the presentation component of the Microsoft Office suite. This program's intent is similar to OpenOffice Impress or Apple's Keynote. While this page will talk about PowerPoint, many of the suggestions apply to other presentation programs.

Reducing file size for the web

Reducing the overall file size helps any presentation be more user friendly on the web. Not all users have high speed internet access or the latest and greatest fastest computers in the world. Some basic steps for reducing the size of PowerPoint or other presentation files or pages are:

Don't use large images - 1024 pixels wide by 768 tall is an upper limit. Remember different computers will have different screen settings. What fits on yours may be bigger on mine.
Do re-size any image to the size you are going to use in your presentation. That 1024x768 image which displays at 102x76, just could be kept by the program at the larger size.
Don't 'allow fast saves' - this option only appends new content to save time, it doesn't remove deleted material
Be careful about a cut and paste of an images from other programs. Images might not compress.

Exporting to different formats

Most presentation programs have the ability to export into other formats. These alternative formats can also be used by Moodle. Of course, you can create a resource link directly to your presentation and allow you student to download.

HTML

Most presentations can be exported to a series of web pages using HTML and file images. The web export features have a variety of options that offer quite a bit of control in producing the output and mimic the presentation application experience. The student does not download the entire presentation. By default, Powerpoint on Windows does not export HTML presentations using the UTF-8 character set, but it allows for this through a setting in the Web export dialog.

Moodle. After uploading the file structure of an exported web presentation into your course, you can use the File or website link to point the student to the index page of the presentation in a new window. The presentation can easily include links to other resources and once created the author, can easily integrate a variety of other materials without having to re create these in Moodle.

Flash

There are several commercial plugins that can export Powerpoints or other presentations as self-contained Flash movies. These may be smaller than standard PowerPoints, though file size reduction can also be achieved without converting to a different format. OpenOffice's Impress and Apple's Keynote both have this functionality built in. :TIP: do not expect all of the more advanced features of your presentation to transfer into a Flash file.

TIP:It is possible to convert PPT to SWF online at site like Zamzar - http://www.zamzar.com

Rich Text Format (RTF)

You can save a most presentation in Rich Text Format. In PowerPoint select File>SaveAs> and use the file type 'Outline/RTF' in the dropdown menu. In doing so you will lose all images and graphics and create a text file that can be opened in Word or PowerPoint, amongst other applications.

TIP:Did you know you can import an outline from a word processor into some presentation programs?

Portable Document Format (.pdf)

Most presentation programs will have a built in method to convert your presentation to an Portable Document Format. Adobe has a free reader but there are other products which will read a PDF file.

An alternative is to "print to" a virtual PDF printer using another program. There are a few free open source programs and many commercial products that will create PDF files. For example QPDF is a free PDF file creator.

PowerPoint alternatives

Your students do not need a copy of PowerPoint to view presentations. Microsoft makes a viewer program available for use on Windows and Mac OS X. The free, OpenOffice Impress is available for Window, Linux and Mac OS and adds the ability to create and view presentations in PowerPoint compatible format.

PowerPoint Viewer

The PowerPoint Viewer is a free download from Microsoft. As with all viewers, this program may not have full compatability and parts of your presentation may lack certain features.

See: PowerPoint Viewer 2003 for Windows.

Apple's Keynote

Part of Apple's iWork office productivity package (along with Apple Pages). Can open and save PowerPoint compatible files as well as saving in its own format and allowing export as PDF, Flash and Quicktime movies.

See: Apple Keynote

OpenOffice Impress

Part of the free and open source OpenOffice office suite. Can open and save PowerPoint compatible files as well as saving in its own format and allows exporting as Flash and PDF.

See: OO Impress description

Moodle presentation like modules

There are several standard Moodle resources and activities that will allow you to create presentations within Moodle. And there are many third party Contributed code plugins and modules as well.

A lesson activity creates linked visual pages of content in a variety of ways. Both Lesson and PowerPoint can be turned into an asynchronous adaptive teaching tool. Some simpler PowerPoints can be imported into a Lesson.

The Slideshow module uses HTML and has a focus on images.

Presentation module is another Moodle HTML based activity.

Another simple option is to use one of the resource tools to link to a presentation stored in your course files or in another place.

Presentation abuses

Many educators note that PowerPoint (or other electronic presentations) is not used efficiently or effectively by the presenters in most mediums from a learner perspective. There are many approaches to making an effective presentation, which vary according to the environment of the presentation (face to face vrs asynchronous on line, is one).

Too much visual information on a page

TIP: Step back 8 feet from your 20" computer screen, can you really read it?

TIP: Reduce the number of fonts or graphics on a page

TIP: Break the content up into more pages

Ignoring the conflict between audio and visual processing by viewer

TIP: Give viewers your speaking notes, have supplemental resources available along with your screen presentation.

Inconsistent formatting

TIP: different bullet type every page, being cute to be cute)

Same format every page

TIP: Use 3 or 4 formats on longer presentations, each one alerts viewer to your intent. Examples: 'here is what I am going to tell you format', 'here are the details' format, 'here is what I just told you' format.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-PowerPoint is the presentation component of the popular [[Microsoft Office]] suite. The primary problem encountered with PowerPoints in todays connected world is that graphic heavy presentations, intended only to projected from their creators laptop, are now being emailed, uploaded and shared in ways that make it essential to reduce file size and create presentations that are compatible with multiple version of PowerPoint. These are new skills and even the most experienced PowerPoint user may not be familiar with the potential problems and solutions. One solution is simply not to use PowerPoint, since there are many tools better suited to distribution on the web but in many situations this is untenable.
+PowerPoint is the presentation component of the Microsoft Office suite.  This program's intent is similar to [[OpenOffice]] Impress or Apple's Keynote.  While this page will talk about PowerPoint, many of the suggestions apply to other presentation programs.
 == Reducing file size for the web ==
+Reducing the overall file size helps any presentation be more user friendly on the web.  Not all users have high speed internet access or the latest and greatest fastest computers in the world.  Some basic steps for reducing the size of PowerPoint or other presentation files or pages are:
-Some basic steps for reducing the size of PowerPoint files:
+* Don't use large images - 1024 pixels wide by 768 tall is an upper limit. Remember different computers will have different screen settings. What fits on yours may be bigger on mine.
+* Do re-size any image to the size you are going to use in your presentation. That 1024x768 image which displays at 102x76, just could be kept by the program at the larger size.
 * Don't 'allow fast saves' - this option only appends new content to save time, it doesn't remove deleted material
-* Don't save in PowerPoint '95 compatible formats - this version did not support compressed images
+* Be careful about a cut and paste of an images from other programs. Images might not compress.
-* Don't use large images - 1024 pixels wide by 768 tall is an upper limit
-* Don't cut and paste images from other Microsoft products - use Insert > Picture > From File instead, as otherwise images will not compress
-For more in depth instructions see this document:
+== Exporting to different formats ==
+Most presentation programs  have the ability to export into other formats. These alternative formats can also be used by Moodle. Of course, you can create a [[File or website link|resource link]] directly to your presentation and allow you student to download.
-[http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/ha011168821033.aspx Microsoft Office Assistance: Reduce the size of your PowerPoint files]
-There are also commercial tools available to buy that will streamline this process.
-== Powerpoint compatability ==
-There are a host of problems to be faced when distributing PowerPoint presentations to a large audience, mostly based around the false assumption that what you see on your screen is what others will see on theirs. Only in the smallest and most integrated of organisations can you hope to specify a particular version of Powerpoint, and the only other practical approach is to keep it very simple and aim for the lowest common denominator of all potential versions of PowerPoint.
-If you use PowerPoint 2002 (XP) or later then you can turn avoid many incompatibilities by checking the box next to "Disable New Features" in the Edit tab of the Tools > Options pop-up.
-More details of the types of problems you may encounter can be found here:
-[http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00559.htm Distributing PPTs - Pitfalls, Panics & Pleasures]
-== Printing powerpoints ==
-=== Saving paper ===
-Since most powerpoints are created to be projected and read from across a room, they can often be easily printed with as many as 9 slides per page, usually without harming legibility and still leaving room for taking notes.
-[http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010348091033.aspx Microsoft Office Assitance: Print multiple slides on one handout page]
-=== Conserving ink ===
-Color printers are increasingly common, but printing out powerpoints as they appear on screen can be incredibly wasteful of color ink. Powerpoint allows you to print color presentations in either Grayscale or Black and White. If your institution is paying for the printing costs, you may wish to enforce this decision by distributing the Powerpoint using a black and white template, separate from the full color template used for projection during the actual presentation.
-[http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP051951871033.aspx Microsoft Office Assistance: Print a presentation in black and white or grayscale]
+=== HTML ===
+Most presentations can be exported to a series of web pages using HTML and file images. The web export features have a variety of options that offer quite a bit of control in producing the output and mimic the presentation application experience. The student does not download the entire presentation. By default, Powerpoint on Windows does not export HTML presentations using the UTF-8 character set, but it allows for this through a setting in the Web export dialog.
-== Exporting to different formats ==
+Moodle. After uploading the file structure of an exported web presentation into your course, you can use the [[File or website link]] to point the student to the index page of the presentation in a new window. The presentation can easily include links to other resources and once created the author, can easily integrate a variety of other materials without having to re create these in Moodle.
 === Flash ===
+There are several commercial plugins that can export Powerpoints or other presentations as self-contained Flash movies. These may be smaller than standard PowerPoints, though file size reduction can also be achieved without converting to a different format. [[OpenOffice]]'s Impress and Apple's Keynote both have this functionality built in. :''TIP:'' do not expect all of the more advanced features of your presentation to transfer into a Flash file.
-There are several commercial plugins that can export powerpoints as self-contained Flash movies. These may be smaller than standard powerpoints, though file size reduction can also be achieved without converting to a different format. OpenOffice's Impress and Apple's Keynote both have this functionality built in. Not all of the more advanced features of PowerPoint will transfer across (e.g. certain animations and sound effects).
+:''TIP:''It is possible to convert PPT to SWF online at site like Zamzar - http://www.zamzar.com
-=== Rich Text Format (.rtf) ===
+=== Rich Text Format (RTF) ===
+You can save a most presentation in Rich Text Format.  In PowerPoint select File>SaveAs> and use the file type 'Outline/RTF' in the dropdown menu. In doing so you will lose all images and graphics and create a text file that can be opened in Word or PowerPoint, amongst other applications.
-You can save a PowerPoint presentation in Rich Text Format by selecting 'Outline/RTF' in the filetype dropdown after selecting File > Save As. In doing so you will lose all images and graphics and create a text file that can be opened in Word or PowerPoint, amongst other applications.
+:''TIP:''Did you know you can import an outline from a word processor into some presentation programs?
 === Portable Document Format (.pdf) ===
+Most presentation programs will have a built in method to convert your presentation to an Portable Document Format.  Adobe has a free reader but there are other products which will read a PDF file.
-PowerPoint on Mac OS X allows you to export to [[PDF]] via Apple's standard print dialog.
+An alternative is to "print to" a virtual PDF printer using another program.  There are a few free open source programs and many commercial products that will create PDF files. For example [http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=224196 QPDF] is a free PDF file creator.
 == PowerPoint alternatives ==
+Your students do not need a copy of PowerPoint to view presentations. Microsoft makes a viewer program available for use on Windows and Mac OS X. The free, OpenOffice Impress is available for Window, Linux and Mac OS and adds the ability to create and view presentations in PowerPoint compatible format.
-You do not need a copy of PowerPoint to merely view presentations. Microsoft makes a viewer program available for use on Windows and Mac OS X. The freely available OpenOffice Impress is available for Windows and Linux and adds the ability to create presentations in PowerPoint compatible format, amongst others.
 === PowerPoint Viewer ===
+The PowerPoint Viewer is a free download from Microsoft. As with all viewers, this program may not have full compatability and parts of your presentation may lack certain features.
-The PowerPoint Viewer is a free download from Microsoft, but note that even this program does not have full compatability with all PowerPoints created with recent versions of the full program.
+See: [http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=428d5727-43ab-4f24-90b7-a94784af71a4&displaylang=en PowerPoint Viewer 2003] for Windows.
-[http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=428d5727-43ab-4f24-90b7-a94784af71a4&displaylang=en PowerPoint Viewer 2003] for Windows.
 === Apple's Keynote ===
 Part of Apple's [[iWork]] office productivity package (along with [[Apple Pages]]). Can open and save PowerPoint compatible files as well as saving in its own format and allowing export as PDF, Flash and Quicktime movies.
-http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/
+See: [http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/ Apple Keynote]
 === OpenOffice Impress ===
 Part of the free and open source [[OpenOffice]] office suite. Can open and save PowerPoint compatible files as well as saving in its own format and allows exporting as Flash and PDF.
-http://www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html
+See: [http://www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html OO Impress description]
-=== Moodle Presentation Modules ===
-There are currently at least three experimental Resources/Activities that will allow you to create presentations within Moodle.
-[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=38382&parent=193556 Slideshow] which has a focus on images, in the manner of a slide projector.
-[http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=38382 Simple presentations] based on Eric Mayer's S5 format, for creating slideshows using HTML.
-[[Presentation]] Module, another HTML based tool, which has its own page of documentation.
+=== Moodle presentation like modules ===
+There are several standard Moodle resources and activities that will allow you to create presentations within Moodle. And there are many third party [[Contributed code]] plugins and modules as well.
-== PowerPoint accessibility ==
+A [[Lesson module|lesson activity]] creates linked visual pages of content in a variety of ways.  Both Lesson and PowerPoint can be turned into an asynchronous adaptive teaching tool. Some simpler PowerPoints can be [[Import_PowerPoint|imported]] into a Lesson.
-Most accessibility guides suggest that if you put PowerPoints on the public web then you should also include an accessible HTML format version for those who do not own PowerPoint. For documents published in the enclosed space of a Moodle course, it may be easier to ensure that all your students have access to PowerPoint (or a compatible program) since generating accessible, or even simple standards compliant HTML from PowerPoint is a complicated task.
+The [[Slideshow module]] uses HTML and has a focus on images.
-There are commerical tools available that can help you with the task of creating accessible HTML versions of PowerPoint presentations.
+[[Presentation module]] is another Moodle HTML based activity.
+Another simple option is to use one of the [[Resources|resource tools]] to link to a presentation stored in your course files or in another place.
-== PowerPoint problems ==
+== Presentation abuses ==
+Many educators note that PowerPoint (or other electronic presentations) is not used efficiently or effectively by the presenters in most mediums from a learner perspective. There are many approaches to making an effective presentation, which vary according to the environment of the presentation (face to face vrs asynchronous on line, is one).
+*Too much visual information on a page
+:''TIP:'' Step back 8 feet from your 20" computer screen, can you really read it?
+:''TIP:'' Reduce the number of fonts or graphics on a page
+:''TIP:'' Break the content up into more pages
+*Ignoring the conflict between audio and visual processing by viewer
+:''TIP:'' Give viewers your speaking notes, have supplemental resources available along with your screen presentation.
+*Inconsistent formatting
+:''TIP:'' different bullet type every page, being cute to be cute)
+*Same format every page
+:''TIP:'' Use 3 or 4 formats on longer presentations, each one alerts viewer to your intent. Examples: 'here is what I am going to tell you format', 'here are the details' format, 'here is what I just told you' format.
-Edward Tufte argues in his book [http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_be Beatiful Evidence] that PowerPoint, even if used well by competent presenters, has some inherent flaws for the effective transmission of knowledge. The chapter, available separately as [http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within], argues that "[PowerPoint-style software] often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis" and goes on to ask "What is the problem with PowerPoint? And how can we improve our presentations?"
+[[Category:Teacher]]
+[[Category:Resource]]

Documentation