Hello applevis. I am hoping for your expertise or advice.
I just found out that I will be expected to make a power point presentation for a class. It is due in just over three weeks, and we will be showing the presentations using screen share on zoom. Writing up content for the presentation will be easy enough, but I've never used keynote before. I feel like my presentation might not be very visually nice to look at or even readable.
My instructor said making a power point wasn't absolutely necessary, but it is recommended. I think she would understand if I did the presentation differently from the class. But if possible, I would rather put in some time and effort if it meant I could present something similar to what the class will be showing everyone.
For those of you who have been asked to make a power point for school or work before, what did you do?
Comments
Keynote
- Unlike a Pages document, your Keynote presentation is going to be seen on a large screen or wall. With someone sitting far away, they can't read out a line of text with over 100 characters in it. Keynote will automatically give you a large font size to work with. Aim for 40 to 60 characters per line and 5 to 7 lines of text per slide.
- Insert pictures and use the formatter to add descriptive text. This will help you when you're navigating the slide. You can lay these out using a touch screen interface on your phone or iPad with your iCloud account.
- Don't worry about transitions. Unless they're motivated, these can be visually distracting.
I made two guides for Pages which describe the appearance of fonts for Pages documents and some advanced techniques for fancier formatting. It's a good foundation for Keynote. Please reach out to me on AppleVis. I can send you an accessible presentation I've done so you can see what one looks like.Re: Keynote
Hello Kevin. Thank you for taking the time to post such an informative comment. I can private message you for a copy of the presentation if you like.
Do you think I should follow your advice about limiting characters and lines per slide? Everyone will be viewing the slides on their laptop screen and probably won't be more than a foot or two away.
Cheers,
Lily
Re: Keynote
Hello Lily,
Yes. Your audience will appreciate a clean, clutter-free canvas that highlights the idea you're communicating.
When you load up a Keynote template, the text boxes will be positioned for you to start typing right away. Generally, a slide will have a large bold title across the top with several words underneath. For example:
Screen Readers (in a large font across the top)
• Speak the UI
• Make apps accessible
• Are free on Mac and PC
In this example, the bullets would be spaced in a borderless text box underneath the title of the slide and be centred in the middle of the screen. You would speak to each of these points instead of typing out all of the benefits of screen readers.
Hope this is helpful.
Re: Keynote
Yes, that is helpful. Thank you.
Watch out when converting to Powerpoint
Hi Lily,
here's one note from bad experience.
If you go for Keynote, stick with it for your document.
I tried numerous times to export Keynote documents to PowerPoint to have others (Windows users) work on them and it frequently destroyed formatting.
I usually go with the "Simple" template without messing with the master formatting.
When editing text fields, make sure you interact with the field first, otherwise you may move the object which is probably not what you want.
During presentation you want to turn off VO related visual effects so people don't see the current VO reading.
/Roland
Thanks
Hi Roland.
Oh dear, I was hoping to be able to send the document to a Windows user. Thank you for telling me now so I don't spend time exporting the document and then being upset when the formatting gets lost.
Best,
Lily