Make sure that your movie or sound files are on your USB drive AND that those "embedded" movie or sound files are linked to your USB files. The tricky part is that multimedia files are not actually embedded. They are just linked to the music, which are stored somewhere else. I had to learn this the hard way just two days ago. A silent presentation is pretty boring. Don't freak out...at least wait until you are alone to freak out.

jpseasia

Tahoma is where it's at

zikman

What is this, the poor-man's PowerPoint prep list? If you are a high-roller, you should bring your own portable computer and have everything pre-set. Takes care of most of these concerns. In case of catastrophic emergency, keep a backup on a flash drive or CD or both (or carry a space PC).

Better yet, install Linux on a flash drive and build your presentation on it using OpenOffice.org. Plan to run from your own PC and use the one in the presentation room as a backup. Be sure to dupe your flash drive to a spare in case the first one gets lost or fails (or carry a spare PC).

sumocat

@Webran61: And PowerPoint users are getting younger and younger. My daughter started sixth grade this year and they are required to prepare a PowerPoint each month summarizing a book they read. Bye bye book reports.

@dashifen: Agreed. I use the "Package for CD" option frequently as it works great when displaying video clips and using fonts such as Constantia. It packages everything needed to run the show including the viewer.

@Zundfolge: I have been working on a Flash based presentation component that reads external XML to load text, graphics, video, etc. This is definitely the way to go.

jarhead

Answered my own question: [www.howtogeek.com]

dashifen

@iGlobalize: Do you know where the "Embed TrueType Fonts" option is in 2007? I never knew about that one before and I can't find it in the new-with-no-menus version.

dashifen

@devnull: The NY Times article states that "NASA had become too reliant on presenting complex information via PowerPoint." Well duh. It was not designed to present complex information. The article also talks about how text is just crammed onto slides with tons of bullet points. How anyone would think that throwing a bunch of text on slides and displaying it on screen is of any benefit is beyond me.

We use it all the time in jury trials and always receive comments from jurors, judges and other attorneys on how effective the presentations are. It is the user who creates the presentation whether good or bad.

Unfortunately, if all you know is poorly prepared presentations, somehow the software gets blamed. I don't get it. But I'm crazy like that.

jarhead

The best tool to avoid last minute surprises in PowerPoint, in my opinion, is the "Package for CD" option. It's under the File menu for pre-2007 versions, and in 2007, it can be found under Publish. Essentially, this ensures that any linked images or other media files are put together in one folder along with the PowerPoint file and it produces an instance of the PowerPoint viewer and the necessary .dll's and other files to run your presentation regardless of the availability of PowerPoint on the machine at which you present. And, since it's all prepared for you in one folder, as the name implies, it's ready for writing to a CD or copying to a USB drive. This one has saved not a few presentations for my colleagues.

dashifen

Seems to me that the easy way to ensure you have the fonts you need to display properly is to embed them in your presentation.

Go to the Tools menu in the Save dialog and select "Save Options...". Up pops a dialog that lets you tick a box to "Embed TrueType fonts". Couldn't be easier...

iGlobalize

Of course, you could build graphics in Illustrator then change the fonts to outlines and export them as JPGs to plunk into Powerpoint.

Better yet: construct your life around the need to make or view Powerpoint presentations :)

olegna

This is where being a professional graphic designer has its advantages ... forget PowerPoint when you have Flash.

Zundfolge

I'm baffled by the amount of PowerPoint "bashing." PowerPoint has been shoved down my throat since my freshman year of high school. I'm still required to make PowerPoint presentations for 300-level English courses in college. Now having been familiar with it for over 6 years now, I'd like to think of myself as at least having the basics down to get done what needs to be done. It's a wonderful presentation tool that almost always guarantees you a better grade than the slacker guy who just drew on a posterboard and read straight from his paper.

So, thanks for the tips LifeHacker.

Webran61

@jwest: I'll agree with you that using the same template as everyone else is boring, but please use Arial or Times New Roman for all presentations. As a university student who is subjected to 30 hours of PowerPoint lectures a week, using a font that is different typically means that it's not the easiest thing to read. It's the popular choice for a reason.

yerxa

I would further suggest that Arial and Times New Roman make you dumb. Or at least display a serious lack of aesthetic sensibility that automatically lumps your presentation with the large majority of hideous Powerpoint-templated wastes of time.

When you use the same fonts and templates as everyone else, you run the risk of inadvertently associating your presentation with theirs. Either design your own template or choose a presentation program that fewer people use (i.e. Keynote).

jwest

Even NASA agrees that "Powerpoint makes you dumb".

[query.nytimes.com]

as would those in the Army subjected to the endless dribble produced by their Powerpoint Rangers.

The best advice for creating presentations I've was ever given is this: Your slides are not there to inform. They are just there to attract attention.

Just like the hand puppets used by photographers of little children.

devnull

A foolproof way is often to save the PowerPoint as a PDF, and use this for the presentation. At least you know up front how everything will look, fonts and everything.

This of course exclused text and pictures flying around the presentation, but I try to avoid those either way.

enYallione

First of all, DON'T PANIC! Second, In the event that you have access and permission to install programs on the computer you are displaying your PowerPoint, and you need to use the default fonts available in Office 2007, download the PowerPoint 2007 viewer. As part of its package, it installs the fonts Calibri, Cambria, and etc. automatically.

MorphiusSys

I don't know why everyone is so against PowerPoint. It's a tool that is in itself neither good nor bad.

Instead, we should be against the idiots who don't know how to use it.

waffles

My former college instructors' advice: K.I.S.S.: Keep It Simple, Stupid!

Use simple transitions and little or no sound effects. Don't be like the "whiz-bang" school presentations where the speaker has to go, "hold on a second," click-click-clicks past individually-animated bulletpoints, then "oops (hey, how do I get back past that last animation?)"

Don't rely on streamed videos. Things always seem to work out so that the presentation computer will wind up being both 1)slow and 2)on a slow network.

If you're going back & forth between Macs & PCs, make sure that images/other media actually show up on the presentation platform. The blame lies squarely on Microsoft's shoulders for deciding to implement embedded images/media using OS-specific technologies when you embed them in a certain way.

And I second the comment about exporting a PDF. If you're editing it in Acrobat (full, not "Reader"), you can even set it to open up in full screen mode. And, if you're creating it on a Mac and also have Apple Keynote, it makes the pre-PDF design stage a lot more pleasant :)

SpaceCat85

You can avoid using PowerPoint for showing PPT files easily, simply do this:
Export slides as images,
use any image viewer to go through them.

What do you want them to look at and remember: your presentation or your transitions?

This also helps because you won't have to deal with formats, years, OS's and such.

1 million points to the first one that can point us to a picture slideshow software that it's free, has transitions (just in case) and deals with video (just in case, again)...

whiskey