Greetings Speakers!

Congratulations on being selected for a presentation at the Annual Maize Genetics Conference! This document will serve to provide you with information for a successful presentation and if you have any questions as you prepare, please don't hesitate to send an email to Darwin Campbell - [email protected] or John Portwood - [email protected]

Presentation computer - a 2.6 GHz MacBook Pro, 8 Gb ram with OS X 10.10.1 (Yosemite) with Microsoft Office 2011. The presentation computer will not have access to the internet.

Presentation software - Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple iWork Keynote (no PDFs, OpenOffice or Google Presentations). If you create your presentation in something other than PowerPoint or Keynote (e.g. Open Office, Google Presentation, etc.), it is your responsibility to confirm whether it will work on PowerPoint before handing off the presentation. Specific software unique to your presentation cannot be installed, and only plenary speakers can use their own presentation laptop.

Making an efficient presentation - It's frustrating when the presentation “looks different” on the presentation computer than it does on the development computer, especially given that you have spent hours preparing. Take a few minutes to review these suggestions to keep that from happening:

• PowerPoint (fonts you can rely up on to render correctly on any machine include Arial, Verdana, Times, and Times New Roman).
  
• download and install the free viewer if you like to test your presentation on a computer that may not have PowerPoint installed.
  
• this “About” page brings it all together with some great points to consider when moving a presentation between computers.
• 10 Font Tips for Presenters is a great list of tips for all of us that prepare presentations.
  

Images in presentations - Most of us have observed a presentation when there is a noticeable lag between slide change or builds; or it appears the system has to “catch up.” Generally this is caused by having very large images embedded into the presentation then resized in PowerPoint using the "handles" on the corner of the image. Try this -- after placing images in the presentation, utilize the "reduce file size option." PowerPoint will resize the images to the size used in the presentation, eliminating the overhead of large images.

There are many free applications that can help with image resizing, and if you don’t have access to them, or need assistance drop us a note and we’ll be happy to assist. A few personal favorite applications are Irfanview for Windows, and Preview for Macs, and don't count out the online services also.
Here’s a document prepared by Microsoft that discusses image resolution.

Movies embedded in presentations - Movies in presentations can be dicey. In past, the ONLY problems we have encountered during a presentation have been those relying on embedded videos. As you build your presentation, please place the movie in the same directory as the presentation so the file location pointers in PowerPoint will be correct when we copy it to the presentation laptop.

DO NOT wait until the break before your presentation to upload and test; that IS the worst case scenario and almost guaranteed to fail. We will do everything in our power to assist with your presentation, however, it is your responsibility to test before your session.

If you would like, feel free to send your presentation to Darwin Campbell - [email protected] or John Portwood - [email protected] before the meeting and they would be happy to check out your presentation.