- Email: [email protected]
PowerPoint presentations
ARTICLE IN PRESS Current Anaesthesia & Critical Care (2004) 15, 69–73
www.elsevier.com/locate/cacc
EDUCATION
PowerPoint presentations Chris Dodds*,1 Department of Anaesthesia, South Cleveland Hospital, Marton Road, Middlesbrough, Cleveland TS4 3BW, UK
KEYWORDS Lecture notes; Audiovisual aids; TeachingFeducational technology; EducationFmedicalFcontinuing;
Summary PowerPoint presentations have become an essential part of medical activity in training, audit, management and even job interviews. There are some simple guidelines for novice users that will help prevent the embarrassment of a poor presentation especially when the outcome, for example getting a new post, is important. As with all things a little practice and preparation is essential, but a stunning visual presentation will not mask poor content. & 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Medical audit
Introduction PowerPoint is a Microsoft presentation programme that has revolutionized lecture presentations. It was originally developed as a sales tool but has become an essential part of medical education and practice. There are some simple rules that should be followed to make its use effective and appropriate. Before even switching the programme on ask these simple questions. * * * * * *
Why use it at all? Which colours project best? Which font should I use? Is ‘default design’ necessary? How many slides should I create? Is there any need to ‘embed’ items?
PowerPoint is no substitute for planning and rehearsing a lecture. If the underlying topic is not understood and the lecture planned no visual aid *Tel.: þ 44-1642-854-601; fax: þ 44-1642-854-636. E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Dodds). 1 Supplementary data associated with this article can be found at doi:10.1016/j.cacc.2004.01.003
will rescue you from humiliation and ridicule. You should decide what the message is, and what key information has to be provided for the audience (of any size) to achieve understanding of your message. The slides should then add to that rather than be the message. If you do decide to use PowerPoint you should find the most up-to-date version you can identifyFcurrently the version in Office XP. This is because compatibility varies and backwards compatibility is often impossible. The operating system you use also has a major bearing on what you can do. Apple systems allow full video functions where clips can be embedded into the file and played at full screen resolution, PC versions cannot do this. To achieve the same effect a second video programme has to be used increasing the risk of it not working at all.
The slide viewer There are a series of choices on how to view the slides as you are creating them. The most common and most useful is to use the ‘normal’ view. This
0953-7112/$ - see front matter & 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cacc.2004.01.003
ARTICLE IN PRESS 70
C. Dodds
shows the slide design on the right of the screen with a bar on the left that can either show the created slides or the text (outline) of the slides. The former is the most useful to get a feel for the presentation. Other menus, such as slide design, will appear to the right of the current slide. Moving between slides can be performed, once the text editing of the current slide is complete, simply by scrolling down the slides on the left side of the screen. The ‘slide sorter’ view is useful for editing the sequence of slides to fine tune the presentation. The size of the slides can be altered so that the text can be read from the ‘View - Zoom menu that allows the size of the slide images to be altered as necessary. Slides can be ‘dragged and dropped’ in either this view or the slide images in the ‘normal’ view. The notes view is covered later but is useful for writing handouts and practicing the presentation. Slide view displays the current slide full screen, and is often used by amateurs to start their presentation. The function key F5 starts the presentation on the first slide and is more efficient.
Making choices
Using the slide master menu This is a sub-menu of View - master - slide master. There are two master panes and you can alter the size, colour, font, and emphasis (bold/italic) of the areas of both the title slide and the text slides. The changes you make are then applied to all slides in the presentation. This can be very useful because most default fonts are too small and most benefit from being made ‘bold’. Remember to save the file and these settings.
Using the text layout menu This is a sub-menu of Format - slide layout - text layout. The default first slide layout is for a title slide and all others are continuation slides. These are also the ones in the slide master section. However, some slides are better as bulleted text and others as graphs or images. These can be chosen from this menu and individual slides created. The rest of the presentation will still default to text. It is important to keep it simple! The more complex a slide the less likely it is to deliver the message. It may look like a work of art but the message will be lost. When using this menu remember to ask the following questions at every slide. *
Once you open the programme you have to start making decisions. The most important is the choice of a background and a font colour. Whether you need a pre-designed background and font is the next choice. The best visual contrast is achieved by using the traditional slide coloursFblack on white or yellow on blue. The place where the presentation is to be given will also have an influence on this choice. If the room is a fully equipped lecture theatre then there will be dimming lights and you can compensate for differences in light intensity on the projected image. If you are in a small room or office you need maximum contrast and white-onblack or black-on-white should be used. If you have to use a design from the menu stick to it all the way through
Basic slide construction * * * * * *
Keep it simple; 6 lines of text; large ‘sentence case’, sans-serif font; high contrast colours; ‘bold’ the text; no more than one slide every minute
*
*
Is the title necessary? Are bullet points enough * Almost always the answer is yes Do you really need a graph/image? * If you do use another slide
There is one technique that is almost guaranteed to make your audience ignore you and scribble on scraps of paper and that is to include a reference on the slide. The only reason appears to be an attempt to claim expertise. If the reference is essential put it in the handout, or give as a whole slide. It is essential to acknowledge the source of quoted material but there is no need to insert it into a simple slide.
Using the content layout menu This is another menu from Format - slide layout - content layout. This is useful when you need to insert image files or graphs into slides. It allows a combination of images/text layouts/graphs and video clips. Again there is a temptation to use the complicated layouts simply because they exist. There are very few occasions when more than one image should
ARTICLE IN PRESS PowerPoint presentations
appear on a slide, and equally few when a column of text should accompany an image. There is a combined series of layoutsFtext and content layout menuFbut this is best avoided.
Using notes This is found from the View - notes page menu. Notes can be written to accompany each slide and saved as part of the presentation. They are invaluable for developing a coherent presentation and reviewing the appropriateness of the slide to the message. Timing and practicing the presentation are helped by using these notes and they make very good handouts (if done properly). They do have a couple of draw backs however. The use of a series of notes as prompts when delivering the presentation will appear as an unprepared hesitant delivery from an amateur. Unfortunately, simultaneous use of the notes on your screen and the slides on the projector requires that you can run two graphics cards from your computer! If you do use the notes as handouts remember to add the references as you go.
Transitions and animations These are gimmicks added to enhance a boring presentation and to try to keep the audience interested. They should be regarded the same as the lecturer who puts inappropriate pictures ‘to wake up’ the audience. Offence and irritation is more likely than interest. Transitions move the slides and animations move the text.
Using transitions These can be found in the Format - slide design slide transition menu. Transitions allow simple moves such as fading between slides to extremely complex ones with sound and variable speeds. They can be organized consistently across all slides or randomly ascribed on each slide change. It is possible to make the slides change automatically rather than on a key stroke. This is a hazardous tool because the transitions are all at the same rateFyour talking time has to be equally consistentFand it is very easy to forget where the start and end slides are. It can be very effective in expert hands so wait until you are an expert!
71
Using animations These can be found in the Format - slide design animation scheme menu. These allow the appearance of the bulleted points to appear sequentially and often with a flourish. Each bullet needs a key stroke and this makes the presentation very fragmented unless each bullet point is acting as a slide in its own right. It is most useful when the presentation is brief (only a handful of slides) and important points need to be emphasized in sequence. If used in large presentations they become distracting. If you must use them chose a ‘subtle’ rather than an ‘exciting’ one because the more interesting the animation the more punchy your points need to be. There is a real risk that the process of presentation will hide the message you are trying to deliver.
Using sound These can be added from the Insert - movies and sounds - sound from clip organizer/file. Embedded effects, sound or video clips, are the most likely part of a presentation that will not work in other computers. The huge variety of sound cards and video drivers does not make for complete compatibility and many small auditoria have poor AV outputs from their computer links. Equally, there are very few instances where sound adds to a presentation. A sudden loud sound may wake the audience up but the regular use of embedded sounds is hard to justify.
Embedding video clips These can be added from the Insert - movies and sounds - movie from clip organizer/file. The increasingly common use of digital video cameras and digital imaging in radiology and ultrasound investigations has generated high-quality video clips that can be presented to emphasize clinical points during a presentation. There are some simple rules to remember. The best presentation is by using full screen, high frame/second rates and high resolution. The use of small clips within a text area of a slide with a slow frame rate should be relegated to the 1920s when flicker effects were acceptable. The operating system being used will determine whether full screen video can be directly embedded or simply linked to the presentation. Mac operating systems allow full screen but Microsoft versions do not. Both require huge files to run properly and reading them from a CD takes time as
ARTICLE IN PRESS 72
C. Dodds
well as memory. If the files cannot be embedded then they must be copied to the transportable memory being used (see later) and a new link created, otherwise the slide will look for the clip which is still on your home computer and be unable to find it. For expert presentations it is also possible to embed internet-based sites and images but these skills are beyond the scope of this review.
Using duplicates This can be found in the Edit - duplicate menu. Using duplicating slides is a very useful technique when you want to build on a graphics slide with either text or additional images. The ‘parent’ slide acts as a base layer for the subsequent additions and ideally should be simple and clear. The additional layers will add any necessary complexity. Common uses are of anatomical relations, developing formulae or explaining surgical/anaesthetic techniques. Text duplicates can be used when you have a ‘menu’ slide covering the next few topics for discussion and it can be repeated with variations in text colour to identify which area of information is coming next and which have been covered.
TheavailabilityofverycompactportabledrivesFpen drive or flash cardsFmakes transferring presentations very easy providing that the computer at the lecture venue does not run Windows NT. This operating system does not support USB connections. CD and now DVD writers use a variety of standards in their file protocols and these may be incompatible with the host computer. This is much more likely if a re-readable CD is used; in fact it is almost certainly going to be incompatible. The trivial cost of a ‘write once’ CD is well worth spending so that you know that your presentation will load. Always print a grey-scale copy and take it with you. It allows you to rehearse the presentation and can be copied to acetate if absolutely necessary. Finally, it you are unfamiliar with the venue and the projection system use the ‘pack and go’ option in the file - pack and go. This saves the presentation part of PowerPoint for your presentation with the slides. This means you can play the slides even if the host has an ancient version of PowerPoint. Backwards compatibility between versions is poor.
Making the presentation Saving the presentation There is no greater irritation than developing an excellent presentation only to lose it when the computer crashes. Always save between slides but save it with a unique title. If there are several speakers at a meeting they will all have the meeting title as theirs and when they are copied to the host computer will appear identical and, even worse, may overwrite each other. Dating the title is useful if you are going to present it again. It reminds you to update the slides and also allows you to find it again. Never present the same slides twice! Once the presentation is complete back it up. The storage medium that you use should be large enough for the presentation. If you have embedded either an audio or video clip save that as well, run the slides and add the embedded files from the ‘new’ source directory, i.e. your CD-ROM.
What size file is it? * * * *
1.4 Mb ¼ floppy; 250 Mb ¼ pen drive/zip; 650 Mb ¼ CD (not rewritable); 5 Gb ¼ you must be joking.
There are a few simple rules to follow that will make the task of presenting much easier. Contact the chairman of the session early. You need to know what the other topics are, who is giving them and how long you have. Does that include a question session or not? There may be a ‘house style’ for the slides and it is better to create them with it than have them converted on the day. Contact your co-presenters and swap slides. They can be e-mailed easily (File - send to - mail recipient) but make sure you remove the image/ video files because they will lock up their server. Arrive at the venue with enough time to project your slides in the auditorium. The colours that look so good on your monitor bear no relationship to the projected ones and pale or awful font colours must be changed. Ideally save your presentation to the host desktop (including any video/sound files) because this will ensure a smooth presentation and rapid change between presenters. There is no excuse for taking valuable time swapping between laptops. If there is no direct switching system that allows them to remain onFsave it. If you do use your laptop disable the screen saver and the power management systems to avoid the dreaded blank screen and a computer that has powered down.
ARTICLE IN PRESS PowerPoint presentations
Common problems These fall into two main groupsFincompatible media or programs. The storage media should be robust and reliable. CD-ROMs are probably the most useful providing they are not re-writable (see above). USB drives may not be supported and floppy discs are too easily corrupted. Always take an alternative version. Mac systems are likely to work these days, but some projectors do not easily swap between PC and Mac based outputs. Save a copy as a Windows version. The drivers for the video and
73
sound cards may be simply incompatible and whilst video output is always provided, audio may not beFmaking even your laptop based presentation fail. Backwards compatibility can be overcome with ‘pack and go’, but only if you have saved it as such! A fading problem is the differences between laptop and desktop programmes, even from the same suite. FinallyFmake sure you have used an up-to-date virus checker on your presentation. Being identified as infected in front of the whole audience is seldom a good start to a lecture.
www.elsevier.com/locate/cacc
EDUCATION
PowerPoint presentations Chris Dodds*,1 Department of Anaesthesia, South Cleveland Hospital, Marton Road, Middlesbrough, Cleveland TS4 3BW, UK
KEYWORDS Lecture notes; Audiovisual aids; TeachingFeducational technology; EducationFmedicalFcontinuing;
Summary PowerPoint presentations have become an essential part of medical activity in training, audit, management and even job interviews. There are some simple guidelines for novice users that will help prevent the embarrassment of a poor presentation especially when the outcome, for example getting a new post, is important. As with all things a little practice and preparation is essential, but a stunning visual presentation will not mask poor content. & 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Medical audit
Introduction PowerPoint is a Microsoft presentation programme that has revolutionized lecture presentations. It was originally developed as a sales tool but has become an essential part of medical education and practice. There are some simple rules that should be followed to make its use effective and appropriate. Before even switching the programme on ask these simple questions. * * * * * *
Why use it at all? Which colours project best? Which font should I use? Is ‘default design’ necessary? How many slides should I create? Is there any need to ‘embed’ items?
PowerPoint is no substitute for planning and rehearsing a lecture. If the underlying topic is not understood and the lecture planned no visual aid *Tel.: þ 44-1642-854-601; fax: þ 44-1642-854-636. E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Dodds). 1 Supplementary data associated with this article can be found at doi:10.1016/j.cacc.2004.01.003
will rescue you from humiliation and ridicule. You should decide what the message is, and what key information has to be provided for the audience (of any size) to achieve understanding of your message. The slides should then add to that rather than be the message. If you do decide to use PowerPoint you should find the most up-to-date version you can identifyFcurrently the version in Office XP. This is because compatibility varies and backwards compatibility is often impossible. The operating system you use also has a major bearing on what you can do. Apple systems allow full video functions where clips can be embedded into the file and played at full screen resolution, PC versions cannot do this. To achieve the same effect a second video programme has to be used increasing the risk of it not working at all.
The slide viewer There are a series of choices on how to view the slides as you are creating them. The most common and most useful is to use the ‘normal’ view. This
0953-7112/$ - see front matter & 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cacc.2004.01.003
ARTICLE IN PRESS 70
C. Dodds
shows the slide design on the right of the screen with a bar on the left that can either show the created slides or the text (outline) of the slides. The former is the most useful to get a feel for the presentation. Other menus, such as slide design, will appear to the right of the current slide. Moving between slides can be performed, once the text editing of the current slide is complete, simply by scrolling down the slides on the left side of the screen. The ‘slide sorter’ view is useful for editing the sequence of slides to fine tune the presentation. The size of the slides can be altered so that the text can be read from the ‘View - Zoom menu that allows the size of the slide images to be altered as necessary. Slides can be ‘dragged and dropped’ in either this view or the slide images in the ‘normal’ view. The notes view is covered later but is useful for writing handouts and practicing the presentation. Slide view displays the current slide full screen, and is often used by amateurs to start their presentation. The function key F5 starts the presentation on the first slide and is more efficient.
Making choices
Using the slide master menu This is a sub-menu of View - master - slide master. There are two master panes and you can alter the size, colour, font, and emphasis (bold/italic) of the areas of both the title slide and the text slides. The changes you make are then applied to all slides in the presentation. This can be very useful because most default fonts are too small and most benefit from being made ‘bold’. Remember to save the file and these settings.
Using the text layout menu This is a sub-menu of Format - slide layout - text layout. The default first slide layout is for a title slide and all others are continuation slides. These are also the ones in the slide master section. However, some slides are better as bulleted text and others as graphs or images. These can be chosen from this menu and individual slides created. The rest of the presentation will still default to text. It is important to keep it simple! The more complex a slide the less likely it is to deliver the message. It may look like a work of art but the message will be lost. When using this menu remember to ask the following questions at every slide. *
Once you open the programme you have to start making decisions. The most important is the choice of a background and a font colour. Whether you need a pre-designed background and font is the next choice. The best visual contrast is achieved by using the traditional slide coloursFblack on white or yellow on blue. The place where the presentation is to be given will also have an influence on this choice. If the room is a fully equipped lecture theatre then there will be dimming lights and you can compensate for differences in light intensity on the projected image. If you are in a small room or office you need maximum contrast and white-onblack or black-on-white should be used. If you have to use a design from the menu stick to it all the way through
Basic slide construction * * * * * *
Keep it simple; 6 lines of text; large ‘sentence case’, sans-serif font; high contrast colours; ‘bold’ the text; no more than one slide every minute
*
*
Is the title necessary? Are bullet points enough * Almost always the answer is yes Do you really need a graph/image? * If you do use another slide
There is one technique that is almost guaranteed to make your audience ignore you and scribble on scraps of paper and that is to include a reference on the slide. The only reason appears to be an attempt to claim expertise. If the reference is essential put it in the handout, or give as a whole slide. It is essential to acknowledge the source of quoted material but there is no need to insert it into a simple slide.
Using the content layout menu This is another menu from Format - slide layout - content layout. This is useful when you need to insert image files or graphs into slides. It allows a combination of images/text layouts/graphs and video clips. Again there is a temptation to use the complicated layouts simply because they exist. There are very few occasions when more than one image should
ARTICLE IN PRESS PowerPoint presentations
appear on a slide, and equally few when a column of text should accompany an image. There is a combined series of layoutsFtext and content layout menuFbut this is best avoided.
Using notes This is found from the View - notes page menu. Notes can be written to accompany each slide and saved as part of the presentation. They are invaluable for developing a coherent presentation and reviewing the appropriateness of the slide to the message. Timing and practicing the presentation are helped by using these notes and they make very good handouts (if done properly). They do have a couple of draw backs however. The use of a series of notes as prompts when delivering the presentation will appear as an unprepared hesitant delivery from an amateur. Unfortunately, simultaneous use of the notes on your screen and the slides on the projector requires that you can run two graphics cards from your computer! If you do use the notes as handouts remember to add the references as you go.
Transitions and animations These are gimmicks added to enhance a boring presentation and to try to keep the audience interested. They should be regarded the same as the lecturer who puts inappropriate pictures ‘to wake up’ the audience. Offence and irritation is more likely than interest. Transitions move the slides and animations move the text.
Using transitions These can be found in the Format - slide design slide transition menu. Transitions allow simple moves such as fading between slides to extremely complex ones with sound and variable speeds. They can be organized consistently across all slides or randomly ascribed on each slide change. It is possible to make the slides change automatically rather than on a key stroke. This is a hazardous tool because the transitions are all at the same rateFyour talking time has to be equally consistentFand it is very easy to forget where the start and end slides are. It can be very effective in expert hands so wait until you are an expert!
71
Using animations These can be found in the Format - slide design animation scheme menu. These allow the appearance of the bulleted points to appear sequentially and often with a flourish. Each bullet needs a key stroke and this makes the presentation very fragmented unless each bullet point is acting as a slide in its own right. It is most useful when the presentation is brief (only a handful of slides) and important points need to be emphasized in sequence. If used in large presentations they become distracting. If you must use them chose a ‘subtle’ rather than an ‘exciting’ one because the more interesting the animation the more punchy your points need to be. There is a real risk that the process of presentation will hide the message you are trying to deliver.
Using sound These can be added from the Insert - movies and sounds - sound from clip organizer/file. Embedded effects, sound or video clips, are the most likely part of a presentation that will not work in other computers. The huge variety of sound cards and video drivers does not make for complete compatibility and many small auditoria have poor AV outputs from their computer links. Equally, there are very few instances where sound adds to a presentation. A sudden loud sound may wake the audience up but the regular use of embedded sounds is hard to justify.
Embedding video clips These can be added from the Insert - movies and sounds - movie from clip organizer/file. The increasingly common use of digital video cameras and digital imaging in radiology and ultrasound investigations has generated high-quality video clips that can be presented to emphasize clinical points during a presentation. There are some simple rules to remember. The best presentation is by using full screen, high frame/second rates and high resolution. The use of small clips within a text area of a slide with a slow frame rate should be relegated to the 1920s when flicker effects were acceptable. The operating system being used will determine whether full screen video can be directly embedded or simply linked to the presentation. Mac operating systems allow full screen but Microsoft versions do not. Both require huge files to run properly and reading them from a CD takes time as
ARTICLE IN PRESS 72
C. Dodds
well as memory. If the files cannot be embedded then they must be copied to the transportable memory being used (see later) and a new link created, otherwise the slide will look for the clip which is still on your home computer and be unable to find it. For expert presentations it is also possible to embed internet-based sites and images but these skills are beyond the scope of this review.
Using duplicates This can be found in the Edit - duplicate menu. Using duplicating slides is a very useful technique when you want to build on a graphics slide with either text or additional images. The ‘parent’ slide acts as a base layer for the subsequent additions and ideally should be simple and clear. The additional layers will add any necessary complexity. Common uses are of anatomical relations, developing formulae or explaining surgical/anaesthetic techniques. Text duplicates can be used when you have a ‘menu’ slide covering the next few topics for discussion and it can be repeated with variations in text colour to identify which area of information is coming next and which have been covered.
TheavailabilityofverycompactportabledrivesFpen drive or flash cardsFmakes transferring presentations very easy providing that the computer at the lecture venue does not run Windows NT. This operating system does not support USB connections. CD and now DVD writers use a variety of standards in their file protocols and these may be incompatible with the host computer. This is much more likely if a re-readable CD is used; in fact it is almost certainly going to be incompatible. The trivial cost of a ‘write once’ CD is well worth spending so that you know that your presentation will load. Always print a grey-scale copy and take it with you. It allows you to rehearse the presentation and can be copied to acetate if absolutely necessary. Finally, it you are unfamiliar with the venue and the projection system use the ‘pack and go’ option in the file - pack and go. This saves the presentation part of PowerPoint for your presentation with the slides. This means you can play the slides even if the host has an ancient version of PowerPoint. Backwards compatibility between versions is poor.
Making the presentation Saving the presentation There is no greater irritation than developing an excellent presentation only to lose it when the computer crashes. Always save between slides but save it with a unique title. If there are several speakers at a meeting they will all have the meeting title as theirs and when they are copied to the host computer will appear identical and, even worse, may overwrite each other. Dating the title is useful if you are going to present it again. It reminds you to update the slides and also allows you to find it again. Never present the same slides twice! Once the presentation is complete back it up. The storage medium that you use should be large enough for the presentation. If you have embedded either an audio or video clip save that as well, run the slides and add the embedded files from the ‘new’ source directory, i.e. your CD-ROM.
What size file is it? * * * *
1.4 Mb ¼ floppy; 250 Mb ¼ pen drive/zip; 650 Mb ¼ CD (not rewritable); 5 Gb ¼ you must be joking.
There are a few simple rules to follow that will make the task of presenting much easier. Contact the chairman of the session early. You need to know what the other topics are, who is giving them and how long you have. Does that include a question session or not? There may be a ‘house style’ for the slides and it is better to create them with it than have them converted on the day. Contact your co-presenters and swap slides. They can be e-mailed easily (File - send to - mail recipient) but make sure you remove the image/ video files because they will lock up their server. Arrive at the venue with enough time to project your slides in the auditorium. The colours that look so good on your monitor bear no relationship to the projected ones and pale or awful font colours must be changed. Ideally save your presentation to the host desktop (including any video/sound files) because this will ensure a smooth presentation and rapid change between presenters. There is no excuse for taking valuable time swapping between laptops. If there is no direct switching system that allows them to remain onFsave it. If you do use your laptop disable the screen saver and the power management systems to avoid the dreaded blank screen and a computer that has powered down.
ARTICLE IN PRESS PowerPoint presentations
Common problems These fall into two main groupsFincompatible media or programs. The storage media should be robust and reliable. CD-ROMs are probably the most useful providing they are not re-writable (see above). USB drives may not be supported and floppy discs are too easily corrupted. Always take an alternative version. Mac systems are likely to work these days, but some projectors do not easily swap between PC and Mac based outputs. Save a copy as a Windows version. The drivers for the video and
73
sound cards may be simply incompatible and whilst video output is always provided, audio may not beFmaking even your laptop based presentation fail. Backwards compatibility can be overcome with ‘pack and go’, but only if you have saved it as such! A fading problem is the differences between laptop and desktop programmes, even from the same suite. FinallyFmake sure you have used an up-to-date virus checker on your presentation. Being identified as infected in front of the whole audience is seldom a good start to a lecture.