Presentation Matters

I get really frustrated by the limitations of the software available to make and project slides. PowerPoint is good, and the latest versions have some great effects but I still like Apple’s Keynote app. Design gurus and those in “the know” generally use Keynote. It is a fantastic application, and makes creating presentations a real pleasure, and the finished presentation is astonishingly gorgeous.

The main problem is that all the conferences I go to insist we upload files to their PCs, and PowerPoint is the only option.

To use Keynote you would need to hook up your own MacBook and they generally don’t allow this. For small meetings it’s less of a problem (I am talking here about the international medical conferences I attend).

Sure, you can save Keynote in a variety of file options like Quicktime and PDF but I don’t fancy presenting my talk as a Quicktime movie or PDF. Giving presentations in front of large audiences is scary enough without worrying about opening a PDF to give the talk.

I can’t see any way round this unless Apple makes a Keynote viewer for Windows. This would allow PCs to open the presentation generated on the Mac.

If anyone is regularly presenting (especially major meetings) using Keynote I’d love to hear what your experiences were like. I would especially like to know how you got the IT guys at a major conference to allow the use of Keynote!