Anti-PowerPoint Party Formed In Switzerland

angry tapir writes "Many people dislike sitting through a meeting being driven with presentation software. Microsoft's PowerPoint is perhaps the best known and most hated of the slide presentation programs out there, but few would take a political stand over it. However, that's exactly what Switzerland's Anti-PowerPoint Party (APPP) seeks to do. From the article: 'According to the APPP, the use of presentation software costs the Swiss economy 2.1 billion Swiss francs (US$2.5 billion) annually, while across the whole of Europe, presentation software causes an economic loss of €110 billion (US$160 billion). APPP bases its calculations on unverified assumptions about the number of employees attending presentations each week, and supposes that 85 percent of those employees see no purpose in the presentations.'"

Good time to discuss alternatives

[digitalderbs]

If I may highjack this thread into an AskSlashdot, I'd like to ask others what they use. I'm in science and research, and I'd like to investigate alternatives, after having used PowerPoint through wine (crossover office) for a few years. I've had dozens too many red 'X's show up in presentations, and I'd like to have something that renders quickly, that is stable, and has good eye candy. Is Keynote decent? Are any of the png/svg based viewers for linux decent? Help!

Re:Good time to discuss alternatives

[ceoyoyo]

Keynote is WAY better than Powerpoint. Even PP can be okay though (if frustrating to actually use) if you use it properly. Unfortunately MS seems to design it to encourage abuse, rather than the opposite.

Re:Good time to discuss alternatives

[jrminter]

I have used Keynote and especially like the presenter view. Find it far superior to PowerPoint.

I have also used the beamer class for LaTeX (from the TeX Live distribution), using R for data analysis that needed to be included. I have also used Inkscape to draw SVG graphics to be included - typically as PDF (saved as EPS, converted to compressed PDF using epstopdf.) This latter approach has the advantage of being completely Open Source. All the packages are well-supported and have active user communities that answer well-posed questions. This is not a WYSIWG approach, but can make a good presentation. The approach follows Donald Knuth's planned workflow: the author concentrates on the content of the presentation and leaves the typesetting to the computer. The software encourages a well-structured presentation.

As others have noted, any presentation software can be used thoughtlessly (without regard for the audience) to make a horrible presentation. I admit that I am drawn to Knuth's approach of concentration my efforts on what I want to communicate to my audience and trying to give them a good return on their investment of their time and to let the software help to help achieve that goal./PP

Reading a PP word-for-word is not a presentation

[fuckface]

My biggest problem with PP presentations at my company is that the vast majority of people put all of the relevant information directly in the PP and then read it word for word at the audience. If they're going to do that they should just write it up as a document and publish/email it instead. If they're just going to read the screen to you (while you're allegedly reading along with them) and not add any information that's not already displayed then people completely lose interest quite fast and when someone does finally wise up to this fault and tries to change the status-quo nobody will be listening anyway.

On the other hand it has enhanced my skills at reading the slide quickly so I can do other work while they read it slowly aloud. Hopefully this will make me better at Jeopardy! if I can manage to get on the show.