The first option will also bring up the slide preview and allows you to select a different slide if you got the number wrong before you hit enter or the go button. 2) Use your mouse scroll wheel to bring up the slide preview and scroll through the icons to choose the desired slide during the presentation. This can be done two ways: 1) Type the desired slide number and hit enter or the go button in the slide switcher menu. Other related recent posts: Julianne on 5 min AAS talks, and Physicist/Feminist summarizes the talk-giving workshop at the AAS.Īnother cool presentation tip is to use the “slide switcher” when jumping between slides when someone asks you a question. A high lecturn will help, as will practice.

The last caveat is that you’ll need to avoid talking into your laptop. The other drawbacks are the slightly longer setup time, and the decreased portability - you’ll need to use your own computer. You may want to include the presenter notes in a PDF export of your talk - make sure there’s nothing embarrassing in them!

Second, the chief drawback of this technique is that it’s hard to share presentations with someone who missed your talk, because the slides are terse. Other formats may need wordier slides - for example, a description of troubleshooting an instrument. First, I am talking about scientific presentations - a science lunch talk or colloquium. Sounds complicated, but it only takes about two minutes of initial setup, and your computer should remember the settings.Ī side benefit is that you need never cluelessly ask “How much time do I have?” You have a timer and a clock on your presenter screen. If the displays are flipped (your notes are showing up on the main projector), change Keynote Preferences>Slideshow, change the options from “Present on Primary Display” to “Present on Secondary Display”. Troubleshooting? Check the settings in Keynote: Preferences>Presenter Display make sure “Use alternate display to view presenter information” is checked. Here’s the layout I use you can customize with Preferences>Presenter Display>Customize. The audience should see slides, while your laptop screen should show the current slide, the next slide, a timer, a clock, and your notes. Start Keynote/Powerpoint and play the slideshow. Turn off display mirroring (System Prefs>Displays>Arrangement, uncheck “Mirror displays”.) Your laptop will now treat its screen and the projector as two separate screens. Ready to give the talk? Give yourself a few extra minutes to set up. For very special occasions (a AAS plenary session a big faculty job talk) you may want to write an almost-complete script rather than notes. I like to write out my first and last sentences, to help me begin and end strong. Most of these will be reminders (“Mention selection bias” mention Dr. (In Keynote, it’s View>Show Presenter Notes.) In the white space below each slide, write notes to yourself. Your laptop screen will act like a teleprompter, and the main projector will display your slides. Now, here’s my best tip: Presenter Notes, which give the speaker all the notes she wants, without tipping her hand to the audience.

Previously, I recommended strategies for lean, effective slides when giving scientific talks. Worse, your audience’s attention will be divided between your voice and your wordy slides. Why are our slides so wordy? Are we afraid we’ll forget what to say? That would be bad, because memory-jogging notes for you aren’t words tuned for your audience.

Keynote show presenter comments