Josephy Lab Software Handbook
Presentations
MS PowerPoint allows you to create presentations, such as posters (sizes as large as the 3' × 4' format you can see on the posters in the hallways) and slide shows. Slides can be shown directly from a laptop on a computer-projector, or turned into photographic transparencies overnight. Material can be assembled into a PowerPoint file from word processors, spreadsheets, SigmaPlot, etc. The "SlideSorter" feature is very useful: it allows you to look at the whole set of slides, as though you had them spread out on a light box; you can change the order, delete, or insert slides.Talks done in PowerPoint look much more professional than ones cobbled together on overhead transparencies. But I strongly recommend that you keep your slides simple and clean, e.g., choose a simple dark blue "gradient" background, rather than "fancy" borders or complicated graphic backgrounds, which look "busy" and cluttered. Avoid low-contrast colour combinations such as dark red on dark blue: these are much harder to read on the projector than they appear on the computer screen. Bright yellow letters on a blue background (the "Swedish flag" colour scheme) work particularly well.
February 1, 2000
