Presenting on a Mac

Posted by Will Holmes on 04/11/07 in Apple, Articles, Office, Opinions

We’ve all had the need to do a presentation on our Macs, and I always love using it as an opportunity to show off a bit. There are so many great apps that you can use to really make a great impression.

First off you’ll probably need an app to put your presentation together, this leaves you with pretty much two options: Keynote and PowerPoint. In my opinion, when I’m working alone and presenting it off of my own MacBook, I go with Keynote. However, you may need to collaborate with someone using Windows, and in this case PowerPoint may be your only option. Never make a Keynote show and assume you can just export to PowerPoint seamlessly. The transitions, text, and even the pictures and layout will very likely get jumbled. As a last resort you can try exporting your Keynote presentation as a QuickTime movie, a set of images, or a DVD.

Keynote has all the great themes, transitsions, and tools to create an awesome show. The presenting tools also let you see things like what slide is up next, and how long you’ve been talking.

Keynote is fine for a slide-based presentation, but what if you want something more image focused? In that case you probably want to go with either FotoMagico or PhotoPresenter. They both offer dazzling effects and transitions. PhotoPresenter has a more graphic and in-your-face approach with “Animated Slideshows” with showy effects.

FotoMagico on the other hand, offers many advanced and intricate controls for showing photos. You can choose how they pan and zoom, as well as between several great and usable transitions. It also has several options for displaying your show.

These are great for photo slideshows, but what if your presentation is more hands on? What if you need to do a demo of live software on your Mac? That’s where OmniDazzle shines. With tons of different options, you can do everything from circling things on your screen, writing on it, to finding your mouse pointer via radar.