Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Effective powerpoint presentation via projector

Giving presentation to few people is different from giving presentation to large audience. In the former case you can use your laptop, the bigger the better, while for the latter case you have to use projector. Using projector effectively is also important. Here i tell you some tips for projecting your presentation in different ways. You can switch between different modes using the Fn + some functional key. Usually there would be an icon on key to help you. In my Sony Vaio NW laptop there are three modes but i would discuss the two important ones.

Many laptops have different modes for presentation. More  common is 'Duplicate Mode' where your laptop content is displayed as is on projector. Many people just use that. There is a disadvantage of this mode. First when you are already connected to projector your desktop shows up to people before you start your presentation. It could be quite messy with icons, or perhaps have a desktop background that you don't want others to see. Also for those who are not natural speakers and cant remember every bit of their presentation tends to clutter their presentation with too much text. Now when you have to go back or forward to a different slide you have to scroll through all slides in between. This does not look professional.

The better way is to use 'Extended Mode' in this case your desktop area is extended twice to your original resolution. You only see your desktop and the extended display area is hidden from you. Your graphics card/laptop should have support for this mode (my sony vaio does). Now when you setup your presentation in powerpoint you can simply tell powerpoint to use the extended display. This option has to be done manually in 'setup slideshow' otherwise it would use your desktop for projection. Once done you can now run slide show.

What you see now is a three pane view on you laptop. Your current slide, your notes for that slide, and the thumbnail of slides. There are navigation buttons as well and a timer. Now when you look at the projected display, its only your current slide, wow! You now have the luxury to keep minimum things on slides and additional relevant points as notes. You can directly jump to particular slide by clicking its thumbnail in the bottom panel. Also when you minimize your slide show, to search for some thing or begin a new slideshow, it would show your desktop background only with no icon, gadget or taskbar. You can have your presentation title on it for a professional look. I hope this would help you in your future presentations.