A source for information to optimize presentations

[Tee Williams]

I use PowerPoint for a series of training presentations on a Mac PowerBook
Pro. Presentations have gotten progressively slower. In particular,
hyperlinks from buttons on an agenda slide to presentations takes as long as
a minute. Are there any good sources for how to optimize presentations? I
need answers to questions like "What is the best graphics file format to
speed presentations?" "Do I create problems if I copy slides from one
presentation to another?" "Is there any performance difference if I insert
pictures from file versus dragging from the scrapbook versus copy/paste from
a graphics program?"

Tee Williams

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Tee,

Assuming you've taken care of routine maintenance items (verify the hard
drive with Disk Utility, Repair Permissions, Run DiskWarrior) it sounds to
me that your presentations are now consuming more actual RAM than exists in
your computer. When that happens, your computer starts to use the hard drive
as memory, and that slows everything down.

When you notice things are going slowly, go to the Applications Folder and
look inside the Utilities folder for Activity Monitor. Open Activity Monitor
and click on the System Memory tab. Look at the pie chart. If you don't see
much green then you've used up your RAM. If it says you are using Swap,
then you are using the hard drive as RAM.

The solution is to install more RAM or to shut down other applications until
you have enough free RAM so you don't start using the hard drive as RAM.

-Jim

I use PowerPoint for a series of training presentations on a Mac PowerBook
Pro. Presentations have gotten progressively slower. In particular,
hyperlinks from buttons on an agenda slide to presentations takes as long as
a minute. Are there any good sources for how to optimize presentations? I
need answers to questions like "What is the best graphics file format to
speed presentations?" "Do I create problems if I copy slides from one
presentation to another?" "Is there any performance difference if I insert
pictures from file versus dragging from the scrapbook versus copy/paste from
a graphics program?"

Tee Williams

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I use PowerPoint for a series of training presentations on a Mac PowerBook
Pro. Presentations have gotten progressively slower.

Question: do you mean that everything gradually slows down while you're using
a given presentation or that as you add new presentations, they seem to be
running more slowly than they and other presentations used to?

In particular,
hyperlinks from buttons on an agenda slide to presentations takes as long as
a minute. Are there any good sources for how to optimize presentations? I
need answers to questions like "What is the best graphics file format to
speed presentations?"

Generally JPG and PNG for images.

"Do I create problems if I copy slides from one
presentation to another?"

As a rule, no.

"Is there any performance difference if I insert
pictures from file versus dragging from the scrapbook versus copy/paste from
a graphics program?"

There can very definitely be. Always save your pictures to disk then use
PowerPoint's Insert, Picture, From File command to add them to your
presentation.

Avoid pictures that are too large and other bloat-causing problems; the bigger
your files, the more slowly they'll open.

Why are my PowerPoint files so big? What can I do about it?
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00062.htm

These suggestions will help you fine-tune your presentations but of course, do
all the things Jim suggested to fine-tune the computer as well.

Tee Williams

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Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
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