Re: Presentation tools used ?

Achilleas Mantzios said on Sun, 22 Oct 2023 08:50:10 +0300

>Hello All
>
>I am going to give a talk about PostgerSQL, so I'd like to ask you
>people what do you use for your presentations, also I have no idea how
>the remote control works to navigate through slides. I have seen it,
>but never came close to using one.
>
>I have access to google slides and libreoffice Impress.  What tools
>would you suggest ? What's your setup ?

I use presentations in my work, both given by myself and given by
trainers. I can tell you Libreoffice Impress is absolute garbage. It
intermittently loses style definitions. As far as google slides, I know
nothing about them except I don't trust Google. Also, I'm not fan of
Software as a Service (SaaS) for non-big-enterprise usage. I prefer to
keep it all on my hard disk. That's where my PostgreSQL software
resides.

Beamer (a LaTeX package) is the Cadillac of the industry, but only if
you're willing to put in the work. I've done presentations in
VimOutliner, but it's not "pretty" and so is only appropriate for
certain audiences. I created Free Software called HTMLSlides, but it's
not easy to use. I don't recommend it.

If you don't want to use Beamer, my advice would be to research tools
that convert Markdown to slides. Markdown is lightning quick to author
in, very much unlike Beamer.

Two other suggestions:

1) Please have mercy on your audience members with poor vision, and use
black type on white background. Yeah, it's not "pretty" and it's not
"hip", but you won't lose people who can't read purple on blue.
Likewise, use large fonts so everyone can read. If you need small
fonts to reveal all your info, you need to split the slide in two.

2) Don't read from your slides. If it's necessary to read the slide,
what I do is tell the audience to read the slide, and then after
they've read it I ask for questions and give them answers. But
typically, my slides are an overview, and my verbal presentation is
a dialog between myself and the audience.

HTH,

SteveT

Steve Litt

Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21