CBA Record

LPMT BITS & BYTES

if they want a quick version of a longer handout. The easiest way to accomplish this is to put notes, suitable for sharing, into the slide notes field. To add bullets, hyperlinks and other formatting you can convert the slides to MS Word and edit as necessary. Alternatives to Microsoft’s PowerPoint While people have long used Microsoft PowerPoint, plenty of alternatives are available that let you create more fluid, or more graphically pleasing or just different presentations. You’ll need to practice. • Prezi https://prezi.com. Free if every- thing you do is public and you want to present online. Otherwise $13.25/mo to be able to control privacy, get image editing tools and work offline. Designed to work with touch screens. • Keynote http://www.apple.com/mac/ keynote/. For Macs only, although you can get Keynote for iOS if you want to create and display presentations from your iPad. Keynote is $20, and is very good for editing graphics and has pretty templates. “Works seamlessly” with MS PowerPoint, though that is not entirely true, anymore that moving from one design in PPT to another is completely “seamless”. A reality check is necessary. • Google Slides https://www.google.com/ slides/about/. If you have collaborators, this is perfect. Create, edit, share, and present online for free. Not a ton of templates, but you can convert PPT to Slides easily. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of PPT, but enough for most people. Just like in PPT, don’t forget right click menu options. Presentations for Passive Consumption Lawyers often send information in slide presentation format because it is an easy In PPT 2013 File–Export–CreateHandouts–CreateHandouts inWord–Notes Below Slides In PPT 2010 File–Save and Send–Create Handouts–Create Handouts inWord–Notes below Slides

BY CATHERINE SANDERS REACH A Tale of Two Presentation Styles

Catherine Sanders Reach is the Director, LawPracticeManage- ment & Technology at the CBA. Visit www.chicagobar.org/lpmt for articles, how-to videos, upcoming training and CLE, services and more. Getting Graphics It is important to use high resolution photographs and graphics in your slides, and equally important that you have L awyers have long used Microsoft’s PowerPoint to provide visual dis- plays to support a live presentation during CLE programs, for client meetings or to communicate with a jury. Slides are also used to convey information in an easily digestible format, and sent as standalone communication devices or displayed online on sites like LinkedIn SlideShare. Over the years the expectation of a professional look- ing slide deck has gone from aspirational to assumptive. Expectations demand that slides are lean, graphic, and high impact. In firms with a graphic design and marketing department a lawyer can often get help, but what can a lawyer do on her own? Live Presentations Slides should help you make your point. Try to find images and words that help viewers understand your point. The number one sin, ok probably number 2 (#1 is misleading with charts), is reading from your slides. If your slides have no words, you can’t read them. A slide doesn’t replace the need for the audience to listen to you. A slide filled with words guarantees an audience will read the slide and not listen to you.

permission to use them for commercial purposes. Many paid sites, such as Fotolia, Shutterstock, and iStock by Getty Images ensure you have access to thousands of high quality images with permission to use them. Here are a few sites to get quality graphics for free. • Unsplash https://unsplash.com/. Free, high resolution photos. Search and download. No attribution necessary. • StockSnap.io https://stocksnap.io/. Free stock photos, no attribution, no copy- right. Includes a free (while in BETA) graphics editor called Snappa. • Morguefile http://www.morguefile. com/. Free photo archive of high resolution stock photos. In some cases photographers request attribution, so check the details for the image. Adapta- tion (editing) is also usually allowed. While Google and Bing have advanced image searches that let you filter for graph- ics that are free for commercial use, be sure to do a reality check because the filters are imperfect. Occasionally you may need to capture images from your computer screen. Snagit https://www.techsmith.com/snagit.html ($50 for a single user) from TechSmith lets you capture screenshots or specific portions of you screen, as well as blur, annotate and edit them. All of your clips are saved to an image library on your computer for reuse. Creating Handouts If your slides have no words how can you get your audience to read the case summary, the language of the contract or other clauses that often find their way into lawyers’ slide decks? You can use the notes fields to add content to your slides, thus appealing to the folks who want words so they don’t need to take a lot of notes or

46 NOVEMBER 2015