Power Point

[White Fox]

Any great FREE programs to open PPS Power Point Files? I've always resisted them. Think I finally have to actually give in. Life is so demanding.

 

W

[Worker 11811]

Open Office. The module you are looking for is called "Impress."

 

http://www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html

[White Fox]

Yes indeed. And works fantastic. Thanks W

 

W

[Guest]

I use Open Office all the time though I haven't used "Impress" yet.

 

OFF

[JGalanos]

Interesting. I'll have to check out the site. Hopefully it is reasonably easy to navigate (for the "technically inept").

[Worker 11811]

I see a lot of people who use Powerpoint, Impress or Keynote for their presentations. More than 75% of them simply read the screen as they press buttons on the computer. They are literally writing their entire lecture using audiovisuals. It makes for a very boring lecture!

 

If you want to use Powerpoint to ENHANCE your speech, that's fine with me. That's what it was designed for. But you need to write your speech first, then write the Powerpoint presentation to go with it. You have to know what your lecture is going to be about. You have to know what you're going to say. Then you pick a few points in the speech that need some emphasis. Maybe there are a couple of places where you could use a summary or an outline. If you have any pictures to illustrate your point, include them too.

 

The way I figure, a 30 minute lecture should have no more than 10-15 slides in it unless you are giving a lecture on a subject like art history where you need to use a lot of examples. Even then, I wouldn't use more than one slide per minute of speaking time.

 

When I see people give bad lectures using Powerpoint I have the overwhelming urge to tell them, "Why don't I just stay home and you can e-mail the file to me?"

[Earendil]

Hello WF

 

You can also use Google Documents to import, create or view Powerpoint files.

 

http://docs.google.com

 

All you need is a Google account, and it's free of charge. I use this service for aviation presentations in my flight instructor work - It saves me the concern of ending up with a computer somewhere that does not have Office or OpenOffice installed. As long as it's connected to the internet it's all hunky dory.