Wide screen presentations

  • Thread starter Thread starter Katrina
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Katrina

Does anyone know if it is possible to format a powerpoint
presentation for wide screens? And if not, do you know
of what other software available currently has the
ability?
 
Yes, you can. Go to File --> Page set up and set the page size to custom,
then set the dimensions as you desire.(16 by 9 is the usual.)

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft PPT MVP
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Kathy is a trainer, writer, Girl Scout, and whatever else there is time for
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived
 
Here are some page sizes in inches we use for wide screens:
42" Plasma - 20.40 H x 36.31 W
50" Plasma - 24.40 H x 43.20 W
60" Plasma - 29.50 H x 51.95 W
30" LCD - 15.40 H x 25.73 W
40" LCD - 20.60 H x 34.30 W
 
I'm baffled now...
Why do you use different page sizes for different screen sizes? Why not use
e.g. 16"x9" for all?
For normal 4:3 ratio work wouldn't you use the default 'on screen' 10"x7.5"
whether your show is displayed on a laptop or a 24'x18' screen?
 
Baffling occurs here - I thought the same thing you did Adam. Mike, could
you explain why there is any difference if the ratios are the same?

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft PPT MVP
If this helped you, please take the time to rate the value of this post:
http://rate.affero.net/jacobskl/
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com
Cook anything outdoors with http://www.outdoorcook.com
Kathy is a trainer, writer, Girl Scout, and whatever else there is time for
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived
 
It wouldn't be PowerPoint unless it was baffling! <g> I will try to
explain. Here goes... Because that is the way my predecessors did it! Now
that I got that out of the way, your questions made me wonder why also. On
a 42" Plasma I created two blank presentations. I put the same 48 Point
title and image in each. On one I set the Page Size to 16 x 9, on the other
36.31 x 20.4 (some magic number someone came up with). During creation of
the presentations the title and image occupied much more of the slide on the
16 x 9 page (as would be expected). When I ran the show with my sizes,
everything looked like it did when I created the show. When I ran the 16x9
show, the text and image were significantly larger (stretched?) and the
slide was letter boxed on the plasma. The letter box was about 3 inches on
top and bottom. So I guess the reason is to build the presentation to fit
the screen size being used and avoid having PowerPoint stretch/shrink/mess
with shapes. I use PPT2002. If you set a Page size of 16" x 9" and put
some text on it then displayed on a very large (160 x 90") 16:9 ratio
monitor the text would be very large. The effect we want with our large
screens is to display more information at a reasonable font/image size. We
have been working with displays from 10 x 7.5 to 60" plasmas and always
found it better to use the closest page size that matches the physical
screen size. Does this make sense or am I alone in an alternate universe?
 
It makes sense, but I am wondering why it is happening. 16x9 should be 16x9.
Yes, you are going to see it as larger on the 160x90 display. Other than
larger, it shouldn't be any different.
On the other hand....
I can understand there being a difference between 16x9 vs. 36.31 x 20.4, as
the ratios are different:
1.7777777777777777777777777777778 vs. 1.7799019607843137254901960784314

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft PPT MVP
If this helped you, please take the time to rate the value of this post:
http://rate.affero.net/jacobskl/
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com
Cook anything outdoors with http://www.outdoorcook.com
Kathy is a trainer, writer, Girl Scout, and whatever else there is time for
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived
 
It makes sense, but I am wondering why it is happening. 16x9 should be
16x9.

Ah, but remember they tried to redefine the centimeter once....

:-)

John O
 
We are really talking about two different things here; an Aspect Ratio and a
page size in inches. You can have many page sizes that are 16:9 Aspect
Ratios and the content on them will look different (size wise) when show on
a particular device. At least I had fun playing around with this and seeing
my kids pictures get morphed as I changed sizes. Anyhoo, to the OP I
suggest trying different page sizes of a 16:9 Aspect Ration and seeing the
differences.
 
Mike M. said:
We are really talking about two different things here; an Aspect Ratio and a
page size in inches. You can have many page sizes that are 16:9 Aspect
Ratios and the content on them will look different (size wise) when show on
a particular device. At least I had fun playing around with this and seeing
my kids pictures get morphed as I changed sizes. Anyhoo, to the OP I
suggest trying different page sizes of a 16:9 Aspect Ration and seeing the
differences.
Click to expand...

I'm still baffled.

If you keep the aspect ratio the same then all that changes are the sizes of
the objects on the page according to PowerPoint's internal measurement
system. So text at 16pt might become 48pt.

It depends when you change the page size. See the examples at
www.webshite.org/16x9.zip These are 3 presentations containing a picture of
Gary Coleman (what 'you talking 'bout, Willis?) and some text. I created
1.ppt first at 16cm x 9cm (please excuse the modern measurements). Then I
changed the page size to 32x18 and 96x54 and saved them as 2.ppt and 3.ppt
respectively. The relative size of the objects stayed exactly the same, and
therefore they all look the same when displayed. The only difference is the
'size' of the objects. The text jumps from 10pt to 20pt to 60pt
(understandably) and the picture 'size' goes from 3.39cm to 6.78cm to
20.33cm.
If you create 2 different 16x9 presentations at different page sizes and
type in, for example, 48pt text then they'll look different for the same
reasons that the font sizes change in the examples above.

Am I missing something?

P.S. your page sizes are based on the size of the plasma - a 42" plasma
measures 42" across the diagonal and the width and height (god bless
Pythagoras) are roughly your measurements.
 
No, I think we agree (sort of, in some way). The reason our customers use
larger screens is to fit more information on them. Not display the same
information larger. So on a 30" LCD we fit X lines of text (and other
content) at a readable size while on a 60" Plasma we can fit X+ lines of
text at the same size. On our 10" LCDs I would be lucky to fit Gary
Coleman's head. <g>

Hmmm, "modern measurements". Is that some kind of jab? At least we don't
have to, "Look Right" when crossing the street. ;-)
 
Mike M. said:
No, I think we agree (sort of, in some way). The reason our customers use
larger screens is to fit more information on them. Not display the same
information larger.
Click to expand...

Perhaps that is where my confusion lies...because that's certainly not the
reason I'd use a larger screen. It all depends on display purpose. At a
conference, for example, my screen size will depend largely upon audience
size but the presentation will be the same.
So on a 30" LCD we fit X lines of text (and other
content) at a readable size while on a 60" Plasma we can fit X+ lines of
text at the same size. On our 10" LCDs I would be lucky to fit Gary
Coleman's head. <g>
Click to expand...

I think I get you now, it's a matter of how you work. I can't find it in me
to use PowerPoint's internal measurements as any gauge of how big an image
or some text will be on screen. If I want to put more lines on the screen I
make the text smaller. Page size doesn't come into it.
Hmmm, "modern measurements". Is that some kind of jab? At least we don't
have to, "Look Right" when crossing the street. ;-)
Click to expand...

We can't weigh bananas in pounds any more...it's against European
Regulations and you can end up in prison.
 
In our environment the audience is roughly the same and they are standing
close to the displays regardless of what size they are. That is why we
mostly use the larger screens to display more info. However, our customers
are free to build their content as large as they want using WYSIWYMG
PowerPoint. The OP is probably long gone but it was an interesting
conversation anyway and explained some different uses of PPT.

Cheers Adam, time to head to the local for a pint of Old Peculiar.
 
Mike M. said:
The OP is probably long gone but it was an interesting
conversation anyway and explained some different uses of PPT.
Click to expand...

I'll drink to that
Cheers Adam, time to head to the local for a pint of Old Peculiar.
Click to expand...

That stuff's got grit in it...make mine a Pedigree.
 
Mike M. said:
I'll try it out next time. I recently fell for a couple of new ales while
in Dublin; Kilkenny and Smithwicks. Of course the locals thought I was
daft for passing up Guinness for them, but I just wasn't hungry! <g>
Click to expand...

Well you're spoilt for choice at somewhere like Dublin. I'm partial to
those brews myself. I don't think the Guinness is necessarily any better in
Dublin than it is in my local...but then most of the Guinness served in the
UK is brewed in the UK.
Maybe this winter I can find one of these:
http://www.worthingtons.ws/whiteshield.htm.
Click to expand...

You'll be lucky. Worthingtons is a well known brewery but I've never seen
that. I wonder if it continues to brew inside you too...you'd get drunk the
day after you drink it.
 
A friend from Burton-upon-Trent brought me a few bottles over a couple of
years back. It really was difficult to pour because it had about an inch of
yeast and such in the bottle. Very nice flavor though. The brew that keeps
on brewing.
 
Hmmm, I guess it's just semantics and a matter of timing. You drink a few
and your semantics go fuzzy and your timing is off. A little later,
everything seems to be in a 16:9 ratio. ;-)
 
Mike M. said:
A friend from Burton-upon-Trent brought me a few bottles over a couple of
years back. It really was difficult to pour because it had about an inch of
yeast and such in the bottle. Very nice flavor though. The brew that keeps
on brewing.
Click to expand...

The Pedigree that I mentioned before is brewed by Marston's in B-o-T. As
was I.
 
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