A new episode from The Presentation Podcast with Troy, Nolan, and Sandy is available today! Listen to their discussion on “Agency Work” or add to your favorite podcasts at The Presentation Podcast.
The Presentation Guild is hosting a FREE webinar next week, and everyone is invited! Derek Johnson, a Microsoft Principal Manager, is the presenter, and TLC Creative’s Troy Chollar is the moderator. Register for the event and get an advanced live demonstration of the new PowerPoint Zoom tool.
The webinar is August 16 at 2:00-3:00 pm EST. It is free and open to everyone. Get details and register here. View the recorded webinar here.
Check back this Friday for a quick video demo of one Zoom feature by TLC.
– Troy @ TLC
A new episode from The Presentation Podcast with Troy, Nolan, and Sandy is available today! Listen to their discussion on “What is the Best Font Size” or add to your favorite podcasts at The Presentation Podcast.
PowerPoint file size too big? Sometimes that’s okay if it has embedded videos, or just has a lot of slides. But if your 11 slide presentation has no videos and is 30+ MB, it is time for some file optimization. PowerPoint has built in tools to optimize images and multimedia – and they continue to improve. But for image optimization, I prefer to use one of the 3rd party add-in options, the NXPowerLite PowerPoint Add-in.
For TLC Creative Services, we have NXPowerlite installed on all computers and use as needed. As stated on their site, what this add-in does is, “Shrink Your Files.” I’ve put together a quick explanation of how we use this at TLC.
In this example, we’ve added a HiRes image to a PowerPoint Presentation. Our simple 10 slide presentation is a 29.1 MB file.
The images within the presentation are 15MB, because they are far larger than HD projection, most are “print” quality resolution. By using the NXPowerLite PowerPoint Add-in, we can optimize these images in order to reduce file size.
Step 1: Save your presentation.
Step 2: Go to the ADD-INS tab > OPTIMIZE WITH NXPOWERLITE
Step 3: Select YES at this pop up dialog (unless you do not want to save over this file because you did not do Step 1 yet, then cancel, save the presentation and come back to this step when you can select YES).
Step 4: Custom the NXPowerLite SETTINGS.
Step 5: This should be a one-time process as NXPowerlite will remember your custom settings.
File Naming
Before we Optimize the file click on the File Naming tab. Here you can customized the text prior to Optimizing the file.
1) File Naming Tab
2) You can add custom text that will be added to your Original file name
3) The custom name will be added AFTER your file name
4) The custom name will be added BEFORE your file name
Here’s an example of the Outputted files
1) Backup of the original File name with the Custom Text BEFORE
2) Backup of the original File name with the Custom Text AFTER
3) Optimized file gets outputted with Original File Name
Back in the NXPowerLite dialogue, confirm the presentation is selected and click OPTIMIZE.
When NXPowerlite is finished, it displays the original and the optimized file size. In your project folder will be both the original (name now appended) and the new optimized version.
Looking at the new optimized file, all of the images have been adjusted to HD (1920×1080 display resolution) and are approximately 6 MB (with no visible quality loss for the slide show)!
From the entire TLC team, thank you to the NXPowerLite PowerPoint add-in for making our jobs a bit easier and quicker!
– Troy @ TLC
A new episode from The Presentation Podcast with Troy, Nolan, and Sandy is available today! Listen to their discussion on “Faster & Better Design with PowerPoint Add-ins” or add to your favorite podcasts at The Presentation Podcast.
In this episode, Troy, Nolan, and Sandy discuss “Do bullet points can kill an audience?” and the issues bullet lists can cause. Head over to The Presentation Podcast to listen, or add to your favorite Podcast app!
There is a lot of talk and excitement about using mobile devices, phone or tablet, to run presentations. And yes, I can confirm it is possible. But the question is – should you use a tablet or smartphone as the presentation “computer?” The answer – it depends on the meeting.
Some presentations require a mobile device, such as a mobile app demo. But for a traditional presentation, if it is a large meeting with AV support, I recommend conforming to the desktop app and handing off a presentation file. This ensures you can focus on the presentation, not the technology setup and function. If it’s a small board room meeting and you feel confident in using newer technology, then mobile devices can be a good option. However, I recommend having a traditional computer, and the presentation on a memory drive – just in case.
Let’s look at the different options currently available to work with when it comes to using mobile devices in presentations. This is a high-level reference and overview of the primary mobile devices that can be used for presentations.
Apple
Microsoft
There are two types of connection options for getting a presentation from a device to the projector. Both are options. In general, using a wired connection is going to be easiest option, as it has the least technology needs (do to the cables, connect – done).
The first option is wired connections. This is (obviously) physically connecting a cable to the mobile device. Each device type has a different connector, and then there are multiple options for the AV system you need to figure out (eg. Is the AV system using VGA, HDMI or other display connector?).
The second option is connecting your mobile devices using a wireless system. Keep in mind, most wireless display connectors need WiFi. And the WiFi needs to be fast enough for the presentation to display content and animations smoothly, and it needs to have enough coverage to connect in the meeting meeting room (ie. Not your hotel room or the lobby, but the actual ballroom). Miracast is a direct connection technology, so a WiFi network is not needed.
Apple devices are easily the most popular and abundant (myself included with an iPhone and iPad). Apple devices need to connect to Apple TV, so you need the physical Apple TV device and a WiFi network for both the IOS device and Apple TV connect to (then the Apple TV connects to the AV System/projector/monitor). AirPlay is the IOS app (built in to all Apple devices) that make the wireless display work.
My opinion on wireless presentations from IOS devices is that they work well, but have a lot of hardware and setup needs.
If you use an Android mobile device, the Google Chromecast device is needed. The original Chromecast device was basically a small USB drive with an HDMI connector and additional mini-USB port for power. The new Chromecast device is a bit larger, more in line with an Apple TV size (but still just a USB power). Another option is many SmartTVs are Chromecast-ready and Android devices can stream direct to it with no additional hardware. No matter what Chromecast connector is used, WiFi is needed.
Last, if you are using an Android device, a great app available in the Android Google Play App Store is AllCast, which enables Android devices to also connect to Apple TV, even more SmartTVs and the Amazon Fire TV.
My opinion on Chromecast is that it works, has smaller equipment, has easy setup – but I have been unable to connect it to some larger show AV systems…
If you’re a Windows 10 Mobile device user, or Windows 10 desktop, the MiraCast wireless display software is built in. The interesting thing (and good thing), is MiraCast is not a Microsoft technology, but an industry wide wireless display platform that Microsoft has adopted and integrated into ALL Windows 10 devices (Note: It is also available on Windows 8.1 as a download in the Windows App Store). MiraCast is also available on Android devices as a separate app download, and it also works with IOS devices (but is not available through the Apple App store, so only works with “jail break” devices which I hope changes in the future).
My opinion of MiraCast is this works the best of all wireless display options covered. Because it is an open standard, the physical dongle is not limited to one company and I have had some work great and others not work at all. I recommend the Microsoft manufactured device as I have had flawless operation of it (and it is very small like the original Chromecast device). The other really great feature is that MiraCast does not need WiFi, it will connect to any device using a local connection (so it does use WiFi, but not internet enabled WiFi).
I hope the helps with an overview of many mobile device connection options and some of my (sometimes hard-earned) opinions on mobile devices for presentation use.
-Troy @ TLC
When designing a presentation, the design can be influenced by many technical specifications. One consideration is where the projected light is coming from (ie. Front or Rear Projection).
“Rear Projection” is literally what the name says – the projector is positioned behind the screen.
Here are some of the design considerations for meetings that are setup with Front Projection:
-Troy @ TLC
When designing a presentation, the design can be influenced by many technical specifications. One consideration is where the projected light is coming from (ie. Rear or Front Projection).
“Front Projection” is literally what the name says – the projector is positioned in front of the screen.
Here are some of the design considerations for meetings that are setup with Front Projection:
-Troy @ TLC
LED walls are becoming the new standard for displaying video and presentations. The viewing quality of a build-to-any-size LED wall is already great, and they continue to get better! These screens have a resolution that is the same concept as projectors having resolution, their resolution is visible, it is the physical space between each light pixel. The closer/tighter the light spacing, the higher the resolution.
But projectors and LED walls measure light and brightness differently. Projection = lux, reflected light. LED = NIT, direct light. What does this mean? It means that LED walls, like flat panel displays, are brighter, which is great for slides!
Plus, LED walls are like Lego blocks, they can be built into any shape and aspect ratio. This leads to some fun and creative PowerPoint templates! For example, these are LED walls that used a single, custom, PowerPoint template for their content.
An LED wall can be a great option for presentations.
-Troy @ TLC