Comments on: PowerPoint Tricks You May Not Have Heard About

By: Prof. David M. Schultz

Prof. David M. Schultz — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:29:29 +0000

Hi Grant, I’ve never used beamer, but I am a fan of LaTeX (Eloquent Science was written in LaTeX). So, I appreciate your comment about being hooked upon other forms of software (or slideware, as Edward Tufte calls them).

By: Grant Petty

Grant Petty — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:49:48 +0000

Despite the near-universality of PowerPoint for presentations, it’s important to point out that it’s not the only option or necessarily even the best one. Many folks who have tried the “beamer” class of the LaTeX package, especially those of us who use math in their presentations and/or already have working familiarity with LaTeX, are hooked. My own somewhat partisan viewpoint is that, for scientists, there are rather few situations in which Microsoft Office products (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.) have much to recommend them. But this is a topic for a whole ‘nother thread.

By: Elke

Elke — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:20:11 +0000

You can dramatically reduce overall PowerPoint file sizes by modifying size and resolution of any images imported to the presentation. If you don't have any image editing software available, you can easily resize images online for free with picnik.com.