PowerPoint Presentation

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I've been asked to put together a very large PP presentation with hundreds of pictures. Putting all those pictures in the PPP one at a time is daunting. Does anyone know of a way to add them all at once or at least a bunch at a time? What I'd like to do is add all the pics into a single file and then import them into the PPP. Is this just wishful thinking?



All I can find on the subject is that if the pics are already in PP form from other presentations that they can be imported at once. Of course, that isn't the case in this situation.



Thanks for any suggestions.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 26
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Is it one pic per slide, or just 'get them all in there'?



    If the latter, just drag and drop them in from the Finder.



    If PP won't let you do that, use Keynote. Go grab the '09 demo, and you have 30 days to try it out, full featured. Drag and drop them in, quick and easy, then save as PPT.
  • Reply 2 of 26
    sequitursequitur Posts: 1,910member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post


    Is it one pic per slide, or just 'get them all in there'?



    If the latter, just drag and drop them in from the Finder.



    If PP won't let you do that, use Keynote. Go grab the '09 demo, and you have 30 days to try it out, full featured. Drag and drop them in, quick and easy, then save as PPT.



    It's one pic per slide, so I guess I'm in for some long, boring sessions. Right?
  • Reply 3 of 26
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Whip up an AppleScript for PP or Keynote, which ever one is easier.



    for each file in folder foo, tell Keynote create new slide paste file



    or something like that
  • Reply 4 of 26
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sequitur View Post


    It's one pic per slide, so I guess I'm in for some long, boring sessions. Right?



    My rule-of-thumb is that each slide requires two minutes to present. A presentation composed of hundreds of slides would put Fidel Castro to shame.
  • Reply 5 of 26
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. Me View Post


    My rule-of-thumb is that each slide requires two minutes to present. A presentation composed of hundreds of slides would put Fidel Castro to shame.



    *TWO MINUTES*?!?



    Jesus, I spend about 15 seconds per slide. If you hit 60 seconds, your audience is falling asleep. Two minutes, and unless they're there by force, they're out the door.



    And NEVER read your slides... in fact, I prefer slides with a single image, or one or two words, and that's it. I'm there to *talk*, not read slides that someone could read at another time. That's what a transcript/paper is for.



    Keep it crisp, keep it moving, keep it snappy, keep it clear.
  • Reply 6 of 26
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post


    *TWO MINUTES*?!?



    Jesus, I spend about 15 seconds per slide. ....



    Are you serious? My God, man, what field are you in? Many of my colleagues embed video in some of their PowerPoints. Those require more than two minutes each.



    I have done presentations. My colleagues do presentations. Students do presentations. The great mistake that most of them make is to budget less than two minutes per slide in the belief that they can get through a 30 slide presentation in less than an hour. Few make it. I do because I know that it takes two minutes per slide.



    Unless you are addressing an ADD self-help group, your audience is not going out the door after 15 seconds. To the contrary, if your slides are at all informative, then your audience will be distracted by trying to keep up with them.
  • Reply 7 of 26
    sequitursequitur Posts: 1,910member
    I have built PPP's that WERE about two minutes per slide and had quite a bit of info on each of them. In my present situation; however, the slides will be visible for only a few seconds. It will be almost a video. Whoever will be hosting (hopefully, not me) the presentation, will be making comments as the PPP progresses. The slides will be picture only - no commentary.



    This discussion brings to mind the way the Air Force (and other military) teaches troops to recognize friendly and foe aircraft and other military vehicles. The slide shows the aircraft or other for ONLY a fraction of a second. Troops must be able to identify them within that short time. Fortunately, that's not my situation.



    Thanks, Kickaha, for the AppleScript suggestion. My skills in that area were never great, and it's been a very long time since I used it. It will be interesting to see if I can do it.
  • Reply 8 of 26
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. Me View Post


    Are you serious? My God, man, what field are you in?



    Comp Sci. IBM Research. I present to conferences, colleagues, and executives on a fairly regular basis - and I always get high compliments on my presentations.



    Quote:

    Many of my colleagues embed video in some of their PowerPoints. Those require more than two minutes each.



    If there's a video that you need to show, then sure - but those aren't static bullet lists just sitting there while the presenter reads them. Instant presentation death.



    I mean hell, I threw a spinning 3D movie into a formal denotation semantics presentation once because I thought it made the point in 5sec of video instead of 30sec of reading equations. The equations were more *precise*, but the graphic got *the point across*. They could read the paper for the precision. You do what you need to to get the information across succinctly and clearly.



    Dissertation defense: 45 min, 98 slides. That's normal for me... and in the end, I had laypeople who understood the technology, the contributions, and the impact, and well enough that they were having post-defense discussions with faculty on it.



    Quote:

    I have done presentations. My colleagues do presentations. Students do presentations. The great mistake that most of them make is to budget less than two minutes per slide in the belief that they can get through a 30 slide presentation in less than an hour. Few make it. I do because I know that it takes two minutes per slide.



    Great for you. My budget is less. I've seen technical presenters get slammed by execs after the first two minutes because it's taking too long to get to the point. I wager that your 15 slides have the same content as my 60.



    Quote:

    Unless you are addressing an ADD self-help group, your audience is not going out the door after 15 seconds. To the contrary, if your slides are at all informative, then your audience will be distracted by trying to keep up with them.



    I disagree strongly. When you have to sit through several hours of presentations a week, sometimes several hours a *day*, any talk that breaks up the monotony grabs people's attention and holds it tight. (We have standard templates that people use internally - I rarely use them, and only under duress... and I get routinely thanked for NOT using them, because it was something different to look at.) I budget at least one slide per 60sec of time - that usually gives me a good 15-20% left over at the end for questions, and I can take questions mid-stream as well. The actual run through, without any questions or interruptions, is much much faster. Under 20sec per slide isn't unusual for me. "Here's the image, here's the point, next slide." Most folks seem to think that the more crap they cram on one slide, the more important it looks. No. Choose a single point, choose a single image or a *couple* of words that illustrate it, and then just *say* the information surrounding it. When I hit the 60-75sec for a single slide, I stop and consider how I could break it up - are there two points here? Or is it one rather complex point? Can I seed some of the information on prior slides, so that this one is more of a summary, and less of a Large Point To Be Made All At Once? How will this affect the flow of the information being presented? etc, etc.



    Of course, then I might have a single slide with a nice pretty picture on it as a placeholder while I interact with the class/audience for ten minutes doing some demonstration, so... yeah, it depends on the type of content. But if it's a slide I'm *referring* to, I like to keep it short and sweet. (Media playback times not withstanding.)



    If your slides are that stand-alone informative that the audience has to take significant time to read them, then why are you there as the speaker? Why not just distribute slides, and save everyone's time? I can read the bloody things on my own a lot faster than someone can stand up there and read them. The slides are there to support *the presenter*, not the other way around.



    If someone wants a transcript of the presentation (the number one justification for cramming everything on the slide), then you can add the presenter's notes to the PDF export, you can record the audio during the presentation to make a podcast out of it (Keynote supports this out of the box), or you can tell them they should have been at the meeting.



    Oh, and bullet points are the devil's work. Sign of a lazy assed poor presenter, most of the time. There are times when they are appropriate, but they should never be the default.



    The best presentations I've ever been to are the ones that the least is on the slides.



    Required reading: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html and http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-...1yB&topic_id=1
  • Reply 9 of 26
    floorjackfloorjack Posts: 2,726member
    PowerPoint is teh shittiest way to communicate to people. These days my side presentations are simple diagrams or picture that I use to just TELL people what they need to know.
  • Reply 10 of 26
    sequitursequitur Posts: 1,910member
    Unfortunately, I have not been able to write an AppleScript to load a file of pix into PowerPoint. My technical skills (or rather, lack thereof) just don't cut it.



    I though Picasa might make a presentation, but Picasa requires an Intel Mac. I have a G4.



    I made a slideshow with Preview, but when I tried to save it - no joy. I was unable to save it as a slideshow.



    At times, I get an email containing a slideshow, but I can't find anyone who knows how to do that either.



    Complete frustration! Any suggestions.



    Thanks.
  • Reply 11 of 26
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    For slideshows, use iPhoto.



    The .pps slideshows are PowerPoint only, and they're f*cking retarded. All it is is a bundle of absolutely bog-standard image files wrapped in a proprietary format. Bleah.



    And as for your images -> PPT...



    1) In Automator make a File/Folder workflow that takes the current Finder selection.

    2) Select the Create Image Slide action for Keynote

    3) Use it.

    4) Export to PPT
  • Reply 12 of 26
    sequitursequitur Posts: 1,910member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post




    For slideshows, use iPhoto.

    And as for your images -> PPT...



    1) In Automator make a File/Folder workflow that takes the current Finder selection.

    2) Select the Create Image Slide action for Keynote

    3) Use it.

    4) Export to PPT



    iPhoto doesn't appear in "Library" in my version of Automator. (Neither do several other Applications.) I'm using Tiger 4.11. Is that the reason? If not, how can I get iPhoto into the Automator Library?
  • Reply 13 of 26
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Huh?



    No.... you're confusing two completely different routes there.



    Drag the photos into iPhoto, make a slideshow.



    OR



    Use Automator to drive **Keynote**.
  • Reply 14 of 26
    sequitursequitur Posts: 1,910member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kickaha View Post


    Huh?



    No.... you're confusing two completely different routes there.



    Drag the photos into iPhoto, make a slideshow.



    OR



    Use Automator to drive **Keynote**.



    I must really be dense. I can't find a way to save the iPhoto slideshow after I've made it. I can export the slideshow to a QuickTime movie, but QT is not controllable by whoever is making the presentation and enlarging the movie makes it grainy.



    How do you save the slideshow to a file, so it can be sent to someone else to use on another computer? I can do that with PowerPoint.



    BTW, I don't have Keynote.
  • Reply 15 of 26
    sequitursequitur Posts: 1,910member
    There are times when I get emails that have buttons in the header. One says "Save" when there are attachments. The other says "Slideshow" and has a neat slideshow. I have tried to find out how the "Sideshow" is built, but no luck. Does anyone know how that comes about?
  • Reply 16 of 26
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    No, really, you should just use Keynote. If compatibility is a problem you can always export it as a PP when you're done.



    If you have images in iPhoto, just "select all" in the image pane of the folder you want, then drag them into the Keynote sidebar. Done.
  • Reply 17 of 26
    sequitursequitur Posts: 1,910member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by addabox View Post


    No, really, you should just use Keynote. If compatibility is a problem you can always export it as a PP when you're done.



    If you have images in iPhoto, just "select all" in the image pane of the folder you want, then drag them into the Keynote sidebar. Done.





    I don't have Keynote, but thanks for the suggestion.
  • Reply 18 of 26
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sequitur View Post


    I don't have Keynote, but thanks for the suggestion.



    I think this has been mentioned, but you can download the 90 day trial copy.
  • Reply 19 of 26
    sequitursequitur Posts: 1,910member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by addabox View Post


    I think this has been mentioned, but you can download the 90 day trial copy.



    Woot! I was unable to get Keynote to download before, but I tried downloading iWork09Trial (30 day trial) just now and it worked. I'm still waiting for the download to complete.



    However, that doesn't answer my question about "Slideshow" on an email (MacMail). Any suggestions about that.
  • Reply 20 of 26
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    You can access the slideshow function from Mail, as you know, Preview (it's in the toolbar when you open a group of pictures at once) or the finder via Quicklook. I think before Leopard the finder gives you a contextual menu for "slideshow" when you right click a group of images.



    Not sure if that's what you're asking, though-- did you want to be able to apply slide show out of a different app, or export the results?



    If you just want a slide show that runs on your computer, any of the above or iPhoto will work. If you need to export it as a QT movie, you'll need to use iPhoto. Or Keynote.
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