Advice I was given in my youth:
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If you're putting lots of text on your slides, you're doing it wrong anyway. The slides are stage dressing for your talk, they NOT ARE your talk!
Put in your slides which can't be communicated verbally. Like photos of your experiments, data graphs, figures, the likes.
Example:
@datenwolf @freakboy3742 absolutely!
Text on slides means people are too busy reading to listen.
Full talk content on slides means you needn't bother being there.
Images on slides illustrate and illuminate. -
@freakboy3742 ugh, so much this. Every new tool for making slides tries for "pretty" slides which often have too-small text in a too-empty field.
@nedbat @freakboy3742 … with poor contrast because some people think colors that look great on their hi-dpi monitor looks great on a projector too. And I mean both classic light/dark contrast AND color contrast.
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RE: https://oldbytes.space/@feoh/116687129039392818
Advice I was given in my youth:
Print your slide on a full piece of paper. Put the paper on the ground. Stand on a chair.
If you can’t easily read your slide, neither can the person at the back of the room.
It flummoxes me that 30 years into using computers to show slides, tiny fonts in slide is *still* widespread practice.
When I served in the Army, there was a minimum font size for PPT presentations. I want to say 18pt?
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RE: https://oldbytes.space/@feoh/116687129039392818
Advice I was given in my youth:
Print your slide on a full piece of paper. Put the paper on the ground. Stand on a chair.
If you can’t easily read your slide, neither can the person at the back of the room.
It flummoxes me that 30 years into using computers to show slides, tiny fonts in slide is *still* widespread practice.
but also something as simple as an X,Y chart with linear axis and > ~~4 variables
the lines are in color, hard to tell apart, and the legend is at the bottom, so one has to look down at legend then up at chart
total basic fail -
RE: https://oldbytes.space/@feoh/116687129039392818
Advice I was given in my youth:
Print your slide on a full piece of paper. Put the paper on the ground. Stand on a chair.
If you can’t easily read your slide, neither can the person at the back of the room.
It flummoxes me that 30 years into using computers to show slides, tiny fonts in slide is *still* widespread practice.
@freakboy3742
I've heard this idiotic phrase at almost every conference I've attended: "I know you can't read this but..." -
When I served in the Army, there was a minimum font size for PPT presentations. I want to say 18pt?
Ironically, it's my experience as a former US Army contractor that they're one of the biggest drivers towards cramming too much stuff into slides. Their workplace culture was centered around slides rather than reading, and the slides (both while presenting and as take-aways) are probably their only engagement with the topic. If you didn't get it in front of them in slide format, you probably weren't getting any of their attention on the matter. The tendency to cram text and "eye charts" is often merely responding to these perverse incentives.
I wish people would read more, even if it's just executive summaries. Unfortunately, GenAI slop is making the art of concise writing worse rather than better.
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@freakboy3742 completely agree.
In addition my father gave me similar advice about my resume that I want to share.
He told me not to use small font size on my resume (I was using size 8 to fit everything in one page) because most hiring managers are older and would have trouble reading the resume especially if they printed it out.
Now years later I see the validity of the statement because I face that problem when people use small fonts in their resume.
@suramya @freakboy3742
I am currently working on my resume and was about to make this mistake.Excellent timing.
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RE: https://oldbytes.space/@feoh/116687129039392818
Advice I was given in my youth:
Print your slide on a full piece of paper. Put the paper on the ground. Stand on a chair.
If you can’t easily read your slide, neither can the person at the back of the room.
It flummoxes me that 30 years into using computers to show slides, tiny fonts in slide is *still* widespread practice.
@freakboy3742 Personally I blame the prelevalence of online presentations. Small fonts are more acceptable in such a setting because all attendees have a high resolution screen directly in front of them.
Pesenting an in person training, let alone a talk at a conference in a long shoebox shaped room - minimal text, super large fonts.
As a trainer I've worked with companies whose presentation template was created by a design company. Cool, but only aimed at online presentations, so unusable for training.
And no, slide content is neither 'the talk', nor is it reference reading for the attendees. A violin is important in a concerto, but it's not about the violin, but about its effect on those listening, a means to an end.
If you disagree, feel free to use minute fonts and add lots of preferably unrelated clipart, or super complicated ai generated infographics. Wingdings, anyone?
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When I served in the Army, there was a minimum font size for PPT presentations. I want to say 18pt?
@chessert I’m pretty sure 24pt was the value I was told… but either way, a lot more than 12.
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RE: https://oldbytes.space/@feoh/116687129039392818
Advice I was given in my youth:
Print your slide on a full piece of paper. Put the paper on the ground. Stand on a chair.
If you can’t easily read your slide, neither can the person at the back of the room.
It flummoxes me that 30 years into using computers to show slides, tiny fonts in slide is *still* widespread practice.
@freakboy3742 The font "size-up" button is right there. Smash it! Lots of times!
Shown is the "Increase Font Size" button in #LibreOffice. Shortcut is Ctrl + ]
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It flummoxes me that 30 years into using computers to show slides, tiny fonts in slide is still widespread practice.
25+ years ago, PowerPoint shipped a misfeature where, if you typed more text into a text box, it would automatically shrink the text to fit.
When Keynote shipped, it did not have this misfeature. I believe this is 90% of the reason that early Keynote presentations looked better than PowerPoint presentations of the same era: If you typed too much text into a box in PowerPoint, it would make it unreadable for people in the audience, if you did the same in Keynote you had to manually reduce the size and that felt wrong.
Some time around Keynote 3ish, they also added this misfeature.
@david_chisnall @freakboy3742
I hate autofit! -
RE: https://oldbytes.space/@feoh/116687129039392818
Advice I was given in my youth:
Print your slide on a full piece of paper. Put the paper on the ground. Stand on a chair.
If you can’t easily read your slide, neither can the person at the back of the room.
It flummoxes me that 30 years into using computers to show slides, tiny fonts in slide is *still* widespread practice.
@freakboy3742 and it would be nice if conference organizers would advise the projector's resolutions, because it's not the same to write slides in an 8k screen and then project in a 1080p projector.
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RE: https://oldbytes.space/@feoh/116687129039392818
Advice I was given in my youth:
Print your slide on a full piece of paper. Put the paper on the ground. Stand on a chair.
If you can’t easily read your slide, neither can the person at the back of the room.
It flummoxes me that 30 years into using computers to show slides, tiny fonts in slide is *still* widespread practice.
@freakboy3742
That’s a perfect idea for proofreading! I try to adjust font size so others can see, but depending on the projector and room size it’s hard to judge with a laptop screen. Making sure the font is contrasting well with the background helps ( i .e. background is a picture and font is white, the picture has to be dim so the font stands out) but this makes so much more sense! -
RE: https://oldbytes.space/@feoh/116687129039392818
Advice I was given in my youth:
Print your slide on a full piece of paper. Put the paper on the ground. Stand on a chair.
If you can’t easily read your slide, neither can the person at the back of the room.
It flummoxes me that 30 years into using computers to show slides, tiny fonts in slide is *still* widespread practice.
@freakboy3742 I'm trying SO FUCKING HARD to teach my students how to do a good presentation.
Your presentation should be readable. Your presentation should add to what you're saying (visuals) and support it (key points). If your presentation is 1:1 what you're saying, then one of you is unnecessary. -
@freakboy3742 Personally I blame the prelevalence of online presentations. Small fonts are more acceptable in such a setting because all attendees have a high resolution screen directly in front of them.
Pesenting an in person training, let alone a talk at a conference in a long shoebox shaped room - minimal text, super large fonts.
As a trainer I've worked with companies whose presentation template was created by a design company. Cool, but only aimed at online presentations, so unusable for training.
And no, slide content is neither 'the talk', nor is it reference reading for the attendees. A violin is important in a concerto, but it's not about the violin, but about its effect on those listening, a means to an end.
If you disagree, feel free to use minute fonts and add lots of preferably unrelated clipart, or super complicated ai generated infographics. Wingdings, anyone?
@renespronk @freakboy3742 The problem is older than online presentations. Lots of people just use the slideshow as a bad teleprompter instead of learning how to use it to complement as presentation. Way too many people don't even know how to put their presentation into fullscreen.
Source: I was at uni form 2004 to 2008. Good profs used presentations to complement lectures. Bad profs used it as the lecture.
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@freakboy3742 and it would be nice if conference organizers would advise the projector's resolutions, because it's not the same to write slides in an 8k screen and then project in a 1080p projector.
@mdione If that matters, you’re doing it wrong.
A person in the back row can’t tell the difference between 8k and a potato. Assume it’s being projected at 640x480. If it’s not legible at that resolution, it’s not legible *at all*.
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@mdione If that matters, you’re doing it wrong.
A person in the back row can’t tell the difference between 8k and a potato. Assume it’s being projected at 640x480. If it’s not legible at that resolution, it’s not legible *at all*.
@freakboy3742 320x200, 4 colors (CGA
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RE: https://oldbytes.space/@feoh/116687129039392818
Advice I was given in my youth:
Print your slide on a full piece of paper. Put the paper on the ground. Stand on a chair.
If you can’t easily read your slide, neither can the person at the back of the room.
It flummoxes me that 30 years into using computers to show slides, tiny fonts in slide is *still* widespread practice.
@freakboy3742 happens on road signs too.
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@renespronk @freakboy3742 The problem is older than online presentations. Lots of people just use the slideshow as a bad teleprompter instead of learning how to use it to complement as presentation. Way too many people don't even know how to put their presentation into fullscreen.
Source: I was at uni form 2004 to 2008. Good profs used presentations to complement lectures. Bad profs used it as the lecture.
@Infrapink @freakboy3742 True, the problem has existed for ages.. IMHO it has been exacerbated by increased use of online meetings since COVID-19. (Certainly in Europe that was a game changer when it comes to the acceptance of online meetings)
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RE: https://oldbytes.space/@feoh/116687129039392818
Advice I was given in my youth:
Print your slide on a full piece of paper. Put the paper on the ground. Stand on a chair.
If you can’t easily read your slide, neither can the person at the back of the room.
It flummoxes me that 30 years into using computers to show slides, tiny fonts in slide is *still* widespread practice.
@freakboy3742 at work only about half of us were issued email addresses so the main mode of communication from HR to all staff is via the TVs in the break room
They will just copypaste a whole page letter from the president of the company onto a PowerPoint slide and call that communication
