Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2008 > May > 08 > Entry
Wrestling with PowerPoint
Next week, I’m doing a presentation at work. It’s about journalism and the news potential of new media tools like social networks and microblogs. (Jealous?)
In order to avoid making my face of the center of attention for an hour, I did what people in the corporate world have been doing for decades now: I turned desperately to Microsoft PowerPoint, converting my disparate thoughts into big bulleted text on geometrically tasteful purple backgrounds.
The hours I spent working in PowerPoint reminded me why I have such a love/hate relationship with Microsoft Office products. On the one hand, PowerPoint is one of the easier tools in the Office stable to use. The templates it provides are easy to use. PowerPoint shows you exactly what your work will look like in final form. And even older versions of PowerPoint (like the one I’m using, which dates back to about 2001) are pretty good about allowing you to embed photos, videos and other media to personalize your presentation.
So why does creating anything in PowerPoint still feel like such a drag? Nobody likes it when a PowerPoint gets all cutesy with animated words flying all over the place (that hasn’t been entertaining since about 1998). The Clip Arts libraries contained in the guts of Microsoft Office often look like they were ripped from the headlines of a Reader’s Digest, circa 1968. Especially on the Mac version I’m using, the program just acts strangely: it won’t allow you to drag a slide to a new location in your slide order, but it’s fine with cutting that slide and pasting it elsewhere.
I know there are plenty of other options out there. Google has a presentation application within Google Docs that can import PowerPoint files and allow you to work on your slides online. And Apple has thrown its hat into the ring with Keynote, part of its iWork suite. (My work Mac, which is an old G5 running an older version of Mac OS, doesn’t have Keynote.)
But when the pressure is on, I turn to PowerPoint, the tried-and-true warhorse. I know that for all its quirks, it’s still the Old Faithful of presentation apps. I know that even if I run into a major problem, someone in my workplace will know how to get through it. If not, my trust search engine will lead me to some advice online.
Plus, you can always teach an old program new tricks. I like to think my presentation got a few degrees cooler when I added this image to one of my slides:
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Internet
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By ogallaga
May 8, 2008 6:34 PM | Link to this
Do you have any wall-writing rock recommendations?
By Brocktoon
May 8, 2008 5:02 PM | Link to this
Have you ever seen a Keynote presentation? iWork is only $79. Pony up. How ironic that you're presenting on new media with Powerpoint. Why not just draw on the wall with a rock?